WASHINGTON — A Montgomery County mother, who refuses to say where her missing children are, is entering an intensive rehab program meant to improve her mental state.
Though Catherine Hoggle faces charges in connection with the disappearance of her two and three-year-old toddlers, she’s been ruled incompetent to stand trial.
The children have been missing since September. Their father is still searching for them.
Mental health experts “will begin — through psychotherapy and a regimen of medication — to try to get her back to a point where she is in fact competent in the long run to stand trial,” says Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy.
Hoggle is at the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Howard County and voluntarily taking her medication, McCarthy says.
Though if she refuses the meds, doctors have other potential options. “If she is a danger to herself or others, or if they find that she is incompetent to make medical decisions for herself, they could force-medicate her,” McCarthy says.
Eventually, McCarthy believes Hoggle will be able enough to face criminal charges: “Competency is not a fixed condition–it does in fact wax, wane and change.”
It is unclear how long that will take.
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