A Maryland woman whose young children went missing in 2014 - leading to murder charges against her that were later dismissed - has been indicted again in their deaths, Montgomery County prosecutors and her lawyer said today.
Catherine Hoggle, 38, remains held in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility charged with two counts of murder after being arrested on Saturday NZT. She is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow, according to the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office.
The new charges are the latest turn in a twisting case marked by the disappearances of a 2-year-old and 3-year-old; Hoggle’s long battle with mental illness; and the conclusion reached long ago by police and prosecutors that the children would never be found alive because Hoggle allegedly killed them.
Hoggle’s lawyer, David Felsen, said that he will seek her release and seek to have the charges dismissed.
Over the course of the case, Hoggle was held beyond the five-year limit that someone in her condition can be detained without facing trial.
Felsen said there is nothing about the new indictment that should change the five-year cutoff.
“We believe that she cannot be held, given she was already held under a finding of incompetency to stand trial for eight years,” Felsen said.
When the case began 11 years ago, three people were reported missing - the two children and Hoggle. But after several days, on September 12, 2014, Hoggle was found walking by herself down a street in Germantown.
She was arrested and at first held on child neglect and obstruction charges.
Hoggle was determined to be mentally incompetent to stand trial and transferred to a maximum-security state psychiatric hospital.
She was indicted in 2017 on two counts of murder and continued to stay at the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital in Howard County.
In 2022, Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Bonifant, citing the five-year law, ordered the charges dropped. As he did so, Bonifant ordered Hoggle to remain in a psychiatric hospital under Maryland’s civil commitment procedures.
“She has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, major depressive disorder and general anxiety disorder,” Bonifant said at the time.
“She suffers from chronic symptoms of impaired judgment, poor insight, paranoia and disorganised thinking. Without the structure and stability of a hospital setting, she would be a danger to herself or others.”
Hoggle was released from Perkins on July 23, according to the Montgomery State’s Attorney’s Office. She was arrested in Maryland’s Kent County, the office said. It is not clear exactly where Hoggle was staying in Kent County.
Felsen said that while there, she was still receiving medical care and was being supervised under her civil commitment order.
The children’s father, Troy Turner, who spent years organising searches for the children, Jacob and Sarah, also has said he believes Hoggle killed them.
Prosecutors have suggested in court filings that Hoggle, whose IQ was once tested as above average at 135, had exaggerated the extent of her mental illness to avoid facing a jury.
And the county’s top prosecutor, John McCarthy, vowed in 2022 that Hoggle would be recharged if she were ever released from a hospital.
“As long as I’m state’s attorney,” McCarthy said, “if she is ever deemed safe enough to be released, and gets out, I will recharge her with two counts of first-degree murder.”
Bonifant in 2022 spoke about the fundamental fairness of not putting people on trial who can’t adequately speak with their lawyers to help defend themselves.
He cited legal principles going back to 1790, when a court held that “no man shall be called upon to make his defence at a time when his mind is in that situation as not to appear capable of doing so”.
Felsen has long said his client’s thinking was far too delusional and tangential to discuss legal proceedings or participate in a trial.