Montgomery County prosecutors said they have re-indicted Catherine Hoggle for murder in the 2014 disappearance of her two children, years after she was deemed incompetent to stand trial on criminal charges.
The Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said authorities rearrested Ms. Hoggle Friday in Kent County after learning she had been discharged July 23 from a maximum-security state psychiatric hospital in Jessup.
Ms. Hoggle, 38, was scheduled to return to court for a bond hearing on Monday afternoon. She had been held at the facility since 2015 over an existing paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis.
In September 2014, she vanished with 3-year-old daughter Sarah and 2-year-old son Jacob. Ms. Hoggle resurfaced a week later, but her children were never found.
Prosecutors originally charged her with misdemeanor child neglect and interfering with a police investigation in connection to her children’s disappearance.
But judges ruled her unfit to stand trial in light of her schizophrenia diagnosis, forcing prosecutors to dismiss charges. When prosecutors indicted her on murder charges in 2017, those too were dropped because judges still determined she was incompetent.
State’s Attorney John McCarthy said in 2022 — the last time Ms. Hoggle had her charges dismissed — that she would be criminally charged once again if released.
“As long as I’m state’s attorney, it would be my intent that if she is judged to be safe to be returned to the community, the circumstances would be such that we would recharge her even if we have to revisit the issue of competency again,” Montgomery County’s top prosecutor told WUSA-TV.
Mr. McCarthy has long accused Ms. Hoggle of malingering, or exaggerating her mental condition to avoid facing justice.
He has made those claims in court and in front of media microphones, including telling WTOP that Ms. Hoggle’s own mother believed she was exaggerating her schizophrenia.
Ms. Hoggle’s former husband, Troy Turner, also told the station that she discussed legal strategy with him following her initial arrest.
“It’s incredibly scary that she could kill two children, and then the system would just allow them to malinger, when there’s clear evidence that she’s been competent pretty much this entire time,” Mr. Turner said in 2019.
But medical practitioners have repeatedly ruled her incompetent.
Judges presiding over her case have said she’s been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia since she was a teenager. In 2013, a year before her two children disappeared, one judge said she was hospitalized because she became afraid someone was going to cut off her limbs.
Ms. Hoggle’s bond hearing was set for 1:30 p.m. Monday at the Montgomery County District Court in Rockville.
