WASHINGTON — Two years ago, Catherine Hoggle was the last person to have contact with her children, 3-year-old Sarah and 2-year-old Jacob, before they were reported missing by their father, Troy Turner. Hoggle, of Clarksburg, Maryland, has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and since evaluated as incompetent to stand trial in the case of her children’s disappearance.
She is currently confined at a maximum-security psychiatric hospital in Jessup, and has remained there since she was arrested in September 2014, days after her children disappeared.
And while Hoggle has said that she left her kids with someone for safekeeping, family members remain in limbo, still uncertain of Sarah and Jacob’s well-being and whereabouts. Sarah would be 5 years old this year and Jacob would be 4.
“I think we all still have hope, but looking at it realistically — there’s a chance that they’re out there, and there’s a chance that they’re dead and she killed them,” said Turner.
Hoggle is charged with parental abduction, neglect and hindering and obstructing the investigation into her children’s disappearance.
The judge in the case, Maryland District Court Judge Eugene Wolfe, found Hoggle not mentally competent to stand trial in 2015, and similar findings were made five more times — as recently as June of this year.
“We in the United States don’t conduct criminal trials against people who have not been deemed to understand what’s going on or able to participate in a meaningful way in their own defense,” said Hoggle’s attorney David Felsen.
The judge also ordered police not to question Hoggle, worsening the frustration for the family.
“You have someone who has admittedly committed a crime against two children, and she can’t even be questioned about it right now,” Turner said. “She could end this right now. She could have ended it any time, by either saying who she handed them off to or where she buried them, whatever it is.”
Turner has launched an online petition demanding that the judge lift his order so that detectives may question Hoggle about the children’s location. He also wants an independent doctor to evaluate her competency to stand trial.
The determined dad continues to search relentlessly for his missing kids, and he finds himself treading two different trails. He’s in the process of organizing more ground searches for the children’s remains in fields and woods from Clarksburg to Darnestown, but he’s also working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to develop time progression photos of the children with the hope they’re with someone.
The children’s maternal grandmother, Lindsey Hoggle, believes they are still alive.
“She tells me that they’re out there; until we solve this mystery, I’m not giving up,” Lindsey said.
The pain of her grandchildren’s disappearance has not dulled, and key moments sharpen it. “The anniversaries, birthdays, holidays are especially difficult,” the grandmother added.
Hoggle’s next court date is Sept. 27, or earlier if doctors have deemed her competent.
