A Montgomery County, Maryland, judge said the mother of two missing children who was reindicted with their murders, was a flight risk, a danger to the community and denied her bond on Tuesday.
After her release from a hospital last month, Catherine Hoggle, 38, was reindicted by a grand jury on two counts of first-degree murder, according to the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office.
In 2022, a judge dismissed the previous murder charges because Hoggle had been repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial.
Prosecutors said Tuesday they had new evidence that she admitted to killing her children.
Hoggle appeared in person at the courthouse in Rockville on Tuesday, wearing a tan jumpsuit and glasses as she conferred with her attorney, who argued she was not a danger to the public and cited documents tied to her release from a Maryland psychiatric hospital. Hoggle was living in a halfway house after her release, where she was arrested after her indictment.
“My understanding is that she was released on or about July 9, and she had been living in that facility without incident since that time,” David Felsen, Hoggle’s attorney, said.
Prosecutors, including Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy, argued she is a danger because there’s a third child still out there that they argued she might consider harming.
Prosecutors publicly described previously undisclosed evidence during the hearing. McCarthy said the details weren’t shared before because they weren’t relevant to her competency but are relevant to public safety, which is considered during a bond review.
McCarthy cited evidence in the case that came from a group-therapy session Hoggle attended with Troy Turner, the father of the missing children.
“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.
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.
She was arrested Friday, three years after a judge dismissed an earlier indictment charging her with the same crimes, The Associated Press reported.
Hoggle’s 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, and the children’s father reported them all missing. Catherine Hoggle was found days later, walking in a nearby town. Police said she refused to tell them where the children were.
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.
The Associated Press and WTOP’s Scott Gelman, who reported from Montgomery County, Maryland, contributed to this report.
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