Latest news with #CatherineHoggle
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Daily Mail
Mother 'murdered her two young children then went to group therapy and JOKED about it'
A mother charged with murdering her two youngest children went to a group therapy meeting hours after their deaths and joked about strangling them, prosecutors allege. Catherine Hoggle was arrested and charged on Friday with the 2014 murders of three-year-old Sarah and two-year-old Jacob. Three years prior, a judge had dismissed an earlier indictment charging her with the same crimes, deeming her unfit to stand trial due to her mental health. On Tuesday, the court heard prosecutors reveal they have new evidence implying she confessed to the murders. Montgomery County State Attorney John McCarthy told the court she attended a group-therapy session with the father of the children, Troy Turney, hours after their deaths. 'At that point in time, she made a comment to a woman that was in those therapy sessions with her that she had strangled her children,' McCarthy said. He alleged Hoggle made a 'strangling' motion with her hands before ultimately insisting she was joking. He argued against her request to be released on bond, noting there was a third, surviving child she could attempt to harm if freed. Police allege Hoggle was last seen with little Jacob on September 7, 2014, after driving off with him. She returned home and allegedly told family members she had dropped him to a friend's house for a sleepover. That night, police allege Hoggle secretly took Sarah from the home. Neither Sarah or Jacob have ever been seen again. The new warrant states investigators met with a criminal profiler with the FBI who noted: 'It was their belief that the children were murdered, likely by strangulation and their bodies were disposed of via an outside trash container.' Hoggle had allegedly intended to abduct the children's older brother, then five, from his school bus stop but the plan was foiled by the boy's father. She was initially arrested and charged with neglect and abduction, both misdemeanors. She was sent to the state-run psychiatric hospital for treatment. Then in 2017, she was indicted on murder charges. A judge ruled she was incompetent to stand trial and imposed continuing court-ordered treatment. Under state law, authorities had five years to declare her competent to stand trial; otherwise, criminal charges would be dismissed. Hoggle has long suffered from severe mental illness. She has a history of schizophrenia and was treated with antipsychotic medications after her arrest. In 2022, a Montgomery County judge dropped the charges against her, citing the five-year time limit. Hoggle was ordered to remain involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment because she was still considered a danger to herself or others. McCarthy vowed then that if she were ever deemed no longer a threat and released, he would charge her again with murder.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Mother of 2 missing children held without bail after previous case dropped for mental health reasons
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — A Maryland woman with a long history of severe mental illness has been held without bail after she was recently rearrested and charged with murder in the 2014 disappearance of her two children — almost three years after an earlier case against her was dropped. A judge dismissed the previous murder charges in 2022 because Catherine Hoggle had been repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial. But that didn't stop prosecutors from indicting Hoggle again after her recent release from a state-run psychiatric hospital where she spent the past 11 years. The new indictment marks the latest twist in a case that began when her toddler son and daughter went missing and were never found. Catherine Hoggle, 38, was arrested Friday. She appeared in Montgomery Circuit Court for a bail review hearing Tuesday afternoon, wearing a tan jumpsuit and glasses. She sat quietly and listened to the proceedings, without showing any obvious emotion as prosecutors laid out the allegations against her. Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy alleged that Hoggle confessed to strangling her children during a conversation with another woman attending a group-therapy session around the time of their disappearance. McCarthy also described a drawing he said Hoggle made in response to a prompt about eliminating stressors from your life: It showed children being thrown into a trash can. 'You think you have stress in your life? I just strangled my two children,' Hoggle told the woman, according to McCarthy's account. Defense attorney says Hoggle remains mentally incompetent Hoggle's attorney, David Felsen, criticized the state's attorney for introducing facts during what he called a '45-minute opening statement' meant for the beginning of a criminal trial, not a bail hearing. Felsen argued that Hoggle remains mentally incompetent to stand trial. That finding hasn't changed since 2022, he said. 'As she sits, she is non-restorable,' he told the court. But prosecutors argued she had been functioning enough over the past few weeks to show a substantial change in her mental state that allowed for her recent discharge from Maryland's Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center. Since then, McCarthy said she was simply 'free in the community,' living in a group home and walking around town. He raised concerns about the safety of a third surviving child. Hoggle's mother also criticized the circumstances around her release from the hospital. Lindsey Hoggle told reporters after the hearing that her daughter was abruptly discharged into the community — from 'shackles and handcuffs to living on her own in a dorm-like facility.' She should be receiving psychiatric treatment, not sitting in jail, Lindsey Hoggle said. But Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Jeannie Cho ordered Hoggle held without bail because she could otherwise pose a flight risk and a 'great danger' to the community. 'There is a great deal of information that showed a concerted effort to hide herself and conceal the evidence and to be deceptive,' Cho said before announcing her ruling. The judge noted that Hoggle is currently prescribed 22 different medications. Keeping her on this treatment regimen could be difficult in a group home environment with 'little to no supervision that I can glean,' Cho said. It is still not exactly clear why Hoggle was released from the hospital. First arrest was in 2014 Her children, Sarah and Jacob Hoggle, were ages 3 and 2 respectively when they were last seen in September 2014. Catherine Hoggle also went missing around the same time. The children's father reported them all missing. Hoggle was found days later, walking in a nearby town. Police said she refused to tell them where the children were. She was initially arrested and charged with neglect and abduction, both misdemeanors. She was sent to the state-run psychiatric hospital for treatment. Then in 2017, she was indicted on murder charges. A judge ruled she was incompetent to stand trial and imposed continuing court-ordered treatment. Under state law, authorities had five years to declare her competent to stand trial. That didn't happen, so in 2022, a Montgomery County judge dropped the charges against her, citing the five-year time limit. Hoggle was ordered to remain involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment because she was still considered a danger to herself or others. During Tuesday's hearing, Hoggle's attorney raised questions about the strength of the state's case. He presented records showing that a court commissioner had found insufficient probable cause to issue an arrest warrant for the murder charges. In response, prosecutors took the case to a grand jury instead, which issued the indictment. Prosecutors said nothing about that process weakens their case. Family members seek answers Hoggle's mother and other family members watched from the courtroom gallery, including the children's father, Troy Turner, whose shirt was emblazoned with a message seeking justice for Sarah and Jacob. In remarks after the hearing, Turner said he still wants answers. He said he hopes that by prosecuting Hoggle again, the court system will finally reveal what happened to his children. Solve the daily Crossword
CBS News
4 days ago
- CBS News
Father still seeking answers after Maryland mom was rearrested for 2014 murder of 2 children
The father of two Maryland children who have been missing since 2014 says he remains focused on getting closure after the mother has been arrested again and charged with killing her two children. "I want to say this loud and clear, the main thing for me is my kids," Troy Turner, the children's father, said Tuesday at Catherine Hoggle's bond hearing. "If there's justice that can be involved, then you want justice. But No. 1 is finding my children, giving them a proper place to rest." Hoggle, 38, who has a long history of mental illness, was denied bail on Tuesday after she was rearrested last week. Turner's children — Sarah and Jacob Hoggle — were ages 3 and 2 when they were last seen in Montgomery County in September 2014. The father reported to police that the children and Catherine Hoggle were missing. The children's bodies were never found, but they are presumed to be dead. Hoggle was found days later by police while wandering in nearby Montgomery County. She told police the children were safe and being cared for, but would not say where. "I don't know if much changes after 11 years," Turner said Tuesday. "It's amazing how much you can get used to. It feels like we are in a little bit of a better place to kind of keep things moving forward, one way or the other." Catherine Hoggle was initially arrested for neglect and abduction, which are misdemeanors, CBS News Baltimore previously reported. In 2017, she was indicted on murder charges. However, she was found incompetent to stand trial and was given a continuing court-ordered treatment. Maryland law says she had five years to restore competency before the charges must be dismissed. Hoggle was once again found not mentally fit to stand trial in 2022, and the murder charges were dropped. She has spent years at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital, a state-run psychiatric hospital in Jessup, Maryland, before she was released in July. It is unclear why Hoggle was released from the hospital. Hoggle was rearrested Friday after a grand jury reindicted her on two counts of first-degree murder. "I think our best chance is to keep her medicated, to continue to allow her to move forward in that way, in the hope that gets us through court," Turner said at Tuesday's hearing. "I've said this before, I think we have a much better chance from a jail cell than Perkins, of her saying something." The next goal for the Montgomery County State's Attorney is to convince the court that Hoggle is now competent to stand trial for the murder of her children. Since her charges were dropped in 2022, Hoggle was ordered to remain involuntarily committed because she was still considered to be a danger to herself and others. "She seems substantially improved from where she was years ago," Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy said. "That gives me greater hope that we will be successful in meeting our legal challenge, in terms of incompetence." Hoggle's attorney, David Felsen, has said she has a history of schizophrenia and was treated with antipsychotic medications after her arrest. State's Attorney McCarthy says he is going to argue that her mental capacity has improved, based on her release from the hospital. "Everybody who has experienced mental illness, where somebody is today, can change tomorrow based on psychotherapy, based on medications, it can change," McCarthy said. "That's what we are going to look at, where is she at today? As we said in open court, she was committed because she was a danger to herself or others two and a half years ago. She has apparently improved because she is no longer a danger to herself or others; she is free, living in the community."
Associated Press
4 days ago
- Associated Press
Mother of 2 missing children held without bail after previous case dropped for mental health reasons
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — A Maryland woman with a long history of severe mental illness has been held without bail after she was recently rearrested and charged with murder in the 2014 disappearance of her two children — almost three years after an earlier case against her was dropped. A judge dismissed the previous murder charges in 2022 because Catherine Hoggle had been repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial. But that didn't stop prosecutors from indicting Hoggle again after her recent release from a state-run psychiatric hospital where she spent the past 11 years. The new indictment marks the latest twist in a case that began when her toddler son and daughter went missing and were never found. Catherine Hoggle, 38, was arrested Friday. She appeared in Montgomery Circuit Court for a bail review hearing Tuesday afternoon, wearing a tan jumpsuit and glasses. She sat quietly and listened to the proceedings, without showing any obvious emotion as prosecutors laid out the allegations against her. Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy alleged that Hoggle confessed to strangling her children during a conversation with another woman attending a group-therapy session around the time of their disappearance. McCarthy also described a drawing he said Hoggle made in response to a prompt about eliminating stressors from your life: It showed children being thrown into a trash can. 'You think you have stress in your life? I just strangled my two children,' Hoggle told the woman, according to McCarthy's account. Defense attorney says Hoggle remains mentally incompetent Hoggle's attorney, David Felsen, criticized the state's attorney for introducing facts during what he called a '45-minute opening statement' meant for the beginning of a criminal trial, not a bail hearing. Felsen argued that Hoggle remains mentally incompetent to stand trial. That finding hasn't changed since 2022, he said. 'As she sits, she is non-restorable,' he told the court. But prosecutors argued she had been functioning enough over the past few weeks to show a substantial change in her mental state that allowed for her recent discharge from Maryland's Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center. Since then, McCarthy said she was simply 'free in the community,' living in a group home and walking around town. He raised concerns about the safety of a third surviving child. Hoggle's mother also criticized the circumstances around her release from the hospital. Lindsey Hoggle told reporters after the hearing that her daughter was abruptly discharged into the community — from 'shackles and handcuffs to living on her own in a dorm-like facility.' She should be receiving psychiatric treatment, not sitting in jail, Lindsey Hoggle said. But Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Jeannie Cho ordered Hoggle held without bail because she could otherwise pose a flight risk and a 'great danger' to the community. 'There is a great deal of information that showed a concerted effort to hide herself and conceal the evidence and to be deceptive,' Cho said before announcing her ruling. The judge noted that Hoggle is currently prescribed 22 different medications. Keeping her on this treatment regimen could be difficult in a group home environment with 'little to no supervision that I can glean,' Cho said. It is still not exactly clear why Hoggle was released from the hospital. First arrest was in 2014 Her children, Sarah and Jacob Hoggle, were ages 3 and 2 respectively when they were last seen in September 2014. Catherine Hoggle also went missing around the same time. The children's father reported them all missing. Hoggle was found days later, walking in a nearby town. Police said she refused to tell them where the children were. She was initially arrested and charged with neglect and abduction, both misdemeanors. She was sent to the state-run psychiatric hospital for treatment. Then in 2017, she was indicted on murder charges. A judge ruled she was incompetent to stand trial and imposed continuing court-ordered treatment. Under state law, authorities had five years to declare her competent to stand trial. That didn't happen, so in 2022, a Montgomery County judge dropped the charges against her, citing the five-year time limit. Hoggle was ordered to remain involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment because she was still considered a danger to herself or others. During Tuesday's hearing, Hoggle's attorney raised questions about the strength of the state's case. He presented records showing that a court commissioner had found insufficient probable cause to issue an arrest warrant for the murder charges. In response, prosecutors took the case to a grand jury instead, which issued the indictment. Prosecutors said nothing about that process weakens their case. Family members seek answers Hoggle's mother and other family members watched from the courtroom gallery, including the children's father, Troy Turner, whose shirt was emblazoned with a message seeking justice for Sarah and Jacob. In remarks after the hearing, Turner said he still wants answers. He said he hopes that by prosecuting Hoggle again, the court system will finally reveal what happened to his children.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Washington Post
Mom accused of murder allegedly made eerie drawing of three kids' faces
Of all the bizarre moments in the 11-year case against Catherine Hoggle, the Maryland woman who is set to appear in court Tuesday afternoon on refiled charges that she killed her two youngest children, one coming into focus is the night she hid in a sprawling complex owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. In new court documents, police say Hoggle slipped into a lobby of the facility in Montgomery County at 7:13 p.m. on Sept. 8, 2014, after an employee who was leaving held the door open for her. Surveillance video recorded her walking slowly — wearing sneakers, jeans, a dark top, and a blank look on her face. Over the preceding 36 hours, authorities allege, she had killed Jacob, 2 and Sarah, 3, whose bodies have never been found, and had plans to use her Chrysler minivan to abduct the children's 5-year-old brother at his school bus stop. Instead, police say, Hoggle, who has a long history of mental illness, abandoned her final step and spent four days largely out of sight in the Germantown area before officers found her walking alone down a road. Investigators retracing her steps found the DOE building surveillance video and several items they say she left behind in a trash can: her wallet, an ID and a sketch depicting a hand throwing away images of a tiny minivan and tiny faces of what appear to be young children. The drawing, which has never been disclosed in court, is described in an application for an arrest warrant that was filed late last month in Montgomery District Court. In four pages, it summarizes authorities' case against Hoggle. Among the allegations: Just hours after her two youngest children disappeared, while Hoggle was at her day treatment program, she told another person: 'I just strangled my kids.' She then made a choking motion with her hands, investigators say, before saying she was joking. None of the assertions have been proved or faced a jury. The Hoggle case has long been stalled — and for three years was dropped — because doctors have repeatedly concluded that Hoggle's mental illness makes her too confused to participate in court proceedings. Prosecutors have long argued she was exaggerating her symptoms to avoid trial. Hoggle's attorney, David Felsen, said Tuesday the new documents are filled with vague descriptions stitched together by police conjecture. 'A great deal of this just seems to be what they think happened,' he said. He also said the way the application for the arrest warrant played out — it was not accepted by a district court commissioner, who instead concluded the case merited two charges of second-degree child abuse — indicated police and prosecutors simply moved the case to what they thought would be a more friendly venue. It went from Maryland's district court system, generally where cases start, to the circuit court system, where grand jury sessions are held. Two days after the commissioner's decision, according to court records and Felsen, prosecutors asked a district court judge to drop that version of the case and presented their findings to a circuit court grand jury, which returned an indictment of two counts of murder. That case is what is being heard in court Tuesday. Prosecutors are expected to argue this afternoon that Hoggle, who was reindicted in the case last week, should continue to be held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility. In such bond-review hearings, prosecutors often reveal details of their cases. Felsen said the new indictment against Hoggle flies in the face of a 2022 ruling by a Montgomery County judge who dropped the original murder charges in the case. That judge cited Maryland law that people deemed mentally unfit for court proceedings cannot be held indefinitely by the criminal system without being tried. Hoggle was eventually released from a maximum security psychiatric hospital and was arrested on Friday. 'We believe that she cannot be held, given she was already held for eight years under a finding of incompetency to stand trial,' Felsen said Tuesday. Montgomery's top prosecutor, John McCarthy, has long vowed to keep the case alive. 'As long as I'm state's attorney,' he said in 2022, 'if she is ever deemed safe enough to be released, and gets out, I will recharge her with two counts of first-degree murder.' In detailing the case against Hoggle, the warrant included many findings that have already come out in previous court filings and hearings. On Sept. 7, 2014, police allege, Hoggle was last seen with Jacob — having driven off with him and returned alone before telling family members she'd dropped him off at a friend's for a sleepover. That night, police allege, she secretly took Sarah. The girl has never been seen again. According to the warrant, investigators consulted with a criminal profiler at the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. 'It was their belief that the children were murdered, likely by strangulation and their bodies were disposed of via an outside trash container,' investigators wrote in the warrant, describing a scenario that matches Hoggle's alleged words and drawing. On the morning of Sept. 8, the children's father, Troy Turner, who had not been around the children the day before and had worked late, took his oldest son to a school bus stop. In their warrant, detectives wrote that 'the suspect returned to the school bus stop in attempt to abduct their last five year old child [but] her plan was interrupted by Troy Turner, thus saving the five year old child's life.' Later that night, she slipped into the DOE building, according to court records, and left it about 4:30 a.m. Hours later, police officials held a news conference disclosing what had quickly become an alarming case that — at least at that point — was a missing persons investigation. The evening after the news conference, Hoggle was reportedly seen getting off a commuter bus in Germantown. She was not captured until three days later. Police originally charged her with neglect and obstruction counts, which were enough to keep her detained. State doctors who evaluated her concluded she was mentally incompetent to stand trial, meaning she would have difficulty understanding court proceedings and communicating with her attorney. She was transferred to the Clifton T. Perkins hospital, a maximum security psychiatric facility. In late 2022, Circuit Judge James Bonifant, citing the five-year law, ordered the charges dropped. But as he did so, Bonifant ordered Hoggle to remain in a psychiatric hospital under Maryland's civil commitment procedures. But last month, on July 23, Hoggle was released from Perkins. That set the stage for authorities' seeking the criminal charges and the indictment, placing Hoggle back into the Montgomery County Correctional Facility and at the court hearing Tuesday afternoon.
