Montgomery County police are asking residents in Darnestown and Clarksburg to search their property.
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WASHINGTON — Montgomery County police continue to question Catherine Hoggle, a 27-year-old mother who went missing with her 2-year-old and 3-year-old last week.
Hoggle was found in Germantown, Maryland, and taken into custody on Friday; her two children were not with her. Police questioned Hoggle, who is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, for 16 hours throughout the day on Saturday, in hopes of locating the children, who have been missing for almost a week.
Police received a 911 call from a resident on Friday, who said that Hoggle was walking in the area of Century Boulevard and Crystal Rock Drive; she appeared to have spent several days and nights on the streets. The caller said her boyfriend had just spoken to Hoggle, who had asked him for the time.
Hoggle, of Clarksburg, Maryland, has been charged with two counts of child neglect, obstruction and hindering. Tweets from Montgomery County police reveal that Hoggle attempted to flee when police tried to apprehend her. She also had the police’s “missing persons” flier in her possession and altered her appearance by changing her hair, police say.
There are currently eight search teams spanning an area from Darnestown to Clarksburg, Maryland, looking for missing 2-year-old Jacob and 3-year-old Sarah. Residents in these areas have been asked by Montgomery County Police to lend to the search effort.
According to The Washington Post, there has been “no confirmed contact” with Jacob since 4 p.m. Sept. 7 and “no confirmed contact” with Sarah since 9:30 p.m. that day.
Montgomery County Police Capt. Paul Starks spoke with reporters during a press conference on Saturday. He said a disheveled-looking Hoggle was questioned, and at one point she said her children were “safe.” He would not elaborate with reporters on what she meant, or what information, if any, she gave to them about the children.
“Some people were saying she … gave the appearance that she was living in the streets and homeless for this week,” Starks told reporters. He said Hoggle had legal counsel with her throughout the questioning.
Starks said there was an extensive search going on for the children in “16 different locations” around Montgomery County Saturday, particularly wooded areas and farm land. The search included the use of cadaver dogs.
“Our interest is the safety of the children,” Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said Saturday. “This case is not over and a large part of her being caught last night was due to the public being aware and calling in … if anyone has any information we need to them to call in and not hold back. “That’s the information we are most interested in.”
On Friday, police had stepped up their search of Hoggle, who had reportedly stopped taking her medication, by releasing a surveillance video of her last known sighting at an office building in the area of Germantown Road between I- 270 and the Germantown Commons shopping center. Read more about the video here.
More related news on this story.
ABC 7 video shows Catherine Hoggle with police:
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