Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Catherine Hoggle: Did mentally ill mom kill kids?

Episode Date: September 26, 2017

Sarah and Jacob Hoggle were 4 and 2when they vanished 2 years ago. Catherine Hoggle told police she gave her kids away, but prosecutors accuse the Maryland mom of murdering them. Hoggle, who has been in a mental health facility since her arrest soon after they disappeared, has now been indicted for their murders and moved to a jail. But she cannot be tried until a judge decides she is mentally competent. Nancy Grace is joined by forensics expert Sheryl McCollum reporter Cheryl White. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. February 2004, Maura Murray empties her bank account, drives four hours from school, crashes her car, and vanishes. Join the search as an investigative reporter uncovers new evidence, interrogates new witnesses, traces down new leads in this riveting new investigative series, The Disappearance of Maura Murray, Saturdays, 7, 6 Central and 9, 8 Central on Oxygen, the new network for crime. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. A mixture of grief and anguish for the family,

not knowing what happened to 2-year-old Jacob and 3-year-old Sarah. In September of 2014, the children's mother, Catherine Hoggle, told Montgomery County Police that she left her children with a friend, but she's never said who or where. The children's father, Troy Taylor, believes she knows exactly what happened. Catherine Hoggall has murdered my children. She was leaving Troy. Her main thing is sick with control. That's her biggest sickness. She did not want him to have the kids. Mental health professionals have repeatedly found Hoggall not competent to stand trial.

The state can keep Catherine Hoggall locked up for five years while they try to restore her competency. If she remains incompetent in five years, why they try to restore her competency. If she remains incompetent in five years, she may have to be released. Two children, a two-year-old little boy, a three-year-old little girl, missing. Nowhere to be found. Where are Jacob and Sarah? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. It was just after 11 o'clock on a Friday night that police then get a call from a local resident in Germantown stating that Catherine Hoggle, the children's mother, was spotted at Century Rock Boulevard. Immediately, police go there and they find Catherine Hoggle, but her missing children were nowhere with her. The children have been missing and reported to be with their mom, Catherine Hoggle, but then police find Catherine. Where are Jacob and Sarah? Well, many people gathered at a Chick-fil-A parking lot on Saturday night were praying to find the little children in the hopes that they would be found safe and sound.

As of right now, their disappearance still remains a mystery because the mom insists that overwhelmed with motherhood, she gave the children away. She gave her children away and refuses to tell police who she gave them to. Let's start with what we know. With me, Cold Case Research Institute director Cheryl McCollum. Also with me, Crime Stories contributor Cheryl White. First to you, Cheryl McCollum. So much focus ended up on a local Chick-fil-A in Maryland. Why? Nancy, because that's where she was last seen on video, the mother.

That's right. Catherine Hoggle was actually spotted in surveillance video walking out of a Chick-fil-A very surreptitiously. Cheryl, I mean, I have looked at this video over and over. Some people actually describe it as sneaky. What about her demeanor made it sneaky? Well, I mean, again, you know, you get dropped off, you're going to go in, you say you just want something to drink, and then you slip out the side door and leave the children's father outside.

I mean, it's very suspicious. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Cheryl. Take it from the beginning. Tell me about that visit to Chick-fil-A and why it's so significant. Well, she tells the child, the children's father, that she's dropped them off at a new daycare and she just wants to go to Chick-fil-A for something to drink. He drives her there. She goes in the front door, presumably to go to the counter, get a Coke and come back.

But no, she slips out the side door. He does not see her leave. So after a period of time, he goes in the Chick-fil-A to look for her. She's gone. So this is what we know. The father is desperate and is asking for help. He goes to the mom. He goes to his wife, Catherine Hoggle. She says, oh, you know, I didn't like the last place. I enrolled them in a new daycare and I took them there. And let's go there now. Can we stop and get a drink at Chick-fil-A? So he goes, sure. They stop at Chick-fil-A and I'm looking at the video right now. Let's post that on crimeonline.com, please. I can see her in the video she comes in just like cheryl mccollum is telling me kind of goes up to the counter and then leaves at a side door the husband's just sitting

outside now what we know is that the father is the one who contacts police almost immediately and reports the mother and the two children were missing. It's interesting to me that she also, Cheryl McCollum, and I'll tell you later why this is so important, keeps her face turned away from the surveillance video. I don't know if you noticed that or not. Okay, so she walks out the back door of Chick-fil-A and goes to a Germantown Transit Center. What do we know happens after that? And so she walks out the back door of Chick-fil-A and goes to a Germantown transit center.

What do we know happens after that? Cheryl White is with me, crime stories contributor. What do we know, Cheryl? Well, all we know is that there are two tiny children missing. They've never been found. Now, one part of the story from the Chick-fil-A, Nancy, is that they had been driving around, according to the children's father, they had been, he and Catherine, the children's mother, had been driving around for a very long time. She said, oh, I can't remember where this new daycare is.

That's when she said she needed something to drink, and they stopped at the Chick-fil-A. So they'd been driving around for a while and the father said he was starting to get more than a little annoyed and worried. As a matter of fact, he told her he was driving her to the police station. Exactly. Unless she told him, where is the daycare? And she's like, gosh, you know, I just signed him up. I can't remember where it is. Just keep going. in here somewhere can I have a coke that's how that whole thing played out but then we've got a whole another story going on uh Cheryl McCollum director of the cold case institute police say that that Sunday night the mom takes the children to her mother's house in Clarksburg that she was going to take her son Jacob for pizza but that when she got back home three hours later to the mom's house he wasn't with her she told the

mom Jacob was at the playmate's house right so that's a whole nother story that she's telling so police say Jacob was not there and he hasn't been seen since. So which of these stories are true? This all goes down while the dad is out working. He has an overnight job, Cheryl, like my dad used to have. So he's at work when the mom says,

this happened. So what about that story? We've got the story that she dropped them at a new daycare. And then we've got this story that she dropped them at a new daycare. And then we've got this story that police seem to be confirming that Hoggle took the two babies to her mom's house in Clarksburg, says she's taken Jacob out for a pizza, comes back without him about three hours later and says, oh, we stayed at the friend's house. Okay. What do we know about that? Which

of these, if either are true? Well, we don't know. And that's what's happening. They're having to build a case on lies. And that's why this is so difficult. She's not telling the truth ever. So you don't know where Jacob is. You don't know the friend. You don't know whether or not he is.

But wait a minute. Aren't police saying this? Aren't police stating that she took the children to her mom's house? Is that much true? I believe that much is true. But I'm saying where Jacob went from there, we don't know. We don't know what friend. We don't know where she left him.

And then it's the next day on Monday. The dad's been working all night. He's like, where are the children? And she says, oh, I put them in a new daycare so I mean if she's telling any of the truth they did go for pizza there was a playmate and she took them to daycare the next morning I don't think that's true I don't think any of that's true but you know as well as I do when you have children and their fathers involved y'all have long discussions about daycare that's not a quick switch you investigate the daycare you make sure it's a good place a safe

place and you damn well know where the place is when you leave your child there yes i agree that's why i don't think any of this is true plus i i'm going back to our last known signing. I mean, the whole daycare, that's a pile of BS. Correct. All right. The BS-o-meter is like shrieking in my head. So that never happened just for the reasons you just said. So I'm already back to what I know to be true. Police are telling me she was spotted at her mother's house with the children the night before, or at least one of them.

And that would have been on Sunday night. The dad is at work. He works nights. She says she's taken him for pizza. He's never seen alive again. So my timeline, which is, you know, where I always start, Cheryl, is Sunday night. That's they're not mentioning the little girl going. But that is when, in my mind, that's when the children are either sold or given away or worse.

Now, Cheryl McCollum, we know the next day the dad is at the Chick-fil-A and she leaves. What is her story about giving her children away? She's told everybody that she gave them away, but she refused to say who she gave them to. Cheryl White, Crime Stories contributor, she is insisting that she gave the children away and quote, they are safe, but she refuses to reveal where they are. Why? What reason do we speculate? Or what reason did she give? She gave the two babies away. Well, some are saying that there's trouble in the relationship between the father and Catherine, the husband and wife there. One thing we haven't talked about is the third child. So my question is, why the two younger children and not the older child?

Right, there is a third child. That child is safe and sound. We also have statements by the father. The father tells police that while he's at work on Sunday afternoon, Hoggle's own father drives them to the grandmother's house in Gaithersburg. Hoggle then borrows her father's car. It's a gray 2012 Nissan Rogue and tells her parents she's taking Jacob to get pizza. So now I'm confirming again, they're alive and well on Sunday, Sunday afternoon. The father and the grandfather and the grandmother placed them alive. Okay, so she disappears in the dad's Nissan Rogue. She returns three hours later without the son or without food, claimed she dropped the baby at a playmate's house and then came back,

went back to her home with her daughter. That's the last time either of them have been seen alive. Now, let me ask you this, Cheryl McCollum, were the children ever spotted on any surveillance video at a pizza place or anywhere? No, never. Tell me about the search that ensued Cheryl White. Well, it was a four-day search and it was one of those intensive searches. You have babies missing and so they just mobilized the entire community. It's police, it's family, it's friends, it's total strangers that are searching everywhere, not only for the children, but for Catherine as well, the mother too. She's missing at this point as well. This is what we have for a description.

Sarah Hoggle is just, the little girl, is just three feet, six inches tall. She only weighs 40 pounds. Brown eyes and brown hair. Brother Jacob, three feet tall, weighs 40 pounds. Brown eyes and brown hair. Brother Jacob, three feet tall, weighs 25 pounds. He has brown eyes and blonde hair. Let me go ahead and give you the tip line now. 301-279-8000. 301-279-8000.

Let's talk about Catherine Hoggle's description. 5'6", 160 pounds, brown eyes, black hair, wearing blue jeans and a black tank top. That's what she was wearing when the children go missing. When you run your own business, you know time equals money. That's not just an old saying. It's true. So why waste your valuable time dealing with issues LegalZoom can help with? You may already know over 2 million people have used LegalZoom to start their businesses. But LegalZoom services don't end there. Running a business comes with taxes, contracts, hiring employees, basically a lot of fine print. And that is why LegalZoom built a network of independent lawyers.

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Two little children, Jacob and Sarah Hoggle, are missing. Officers, police, citizens, canines extensively searched the area for the children that Saturday, according to Montgomery County Police Department. I remember very well when these two go missing. And for the life of me, I could not understand why the mother, Catherine Hoggle, would not divulge where her children were. Now, Shrinks will tell you that she was having trouble with her marriage and was overwhelmed with three children. She says she gave them away, gave them away and refuses to state where they went. Why?

Why would she refuse to state? Could it be because she hates her husband so much she doesn't want him to have them? Is she afraid she's going to be indicted for neglect or giving away her children? Let's take a careful look at her behavior. She is the key to the location of her children. Let's take a careful look at her behavior. She is the key to the location of these children. With me, Cheryl White, Crime Stories contributor, and Cheryl McCollum,

director of the Cold Case Research Institute. Cheryl, let's look at her mommy's behavior before and after the children's disappearance. Absolutely, Nancy. Pre and post behavior are going to be key in zero in her mindset here. So how was she before the Sunday night pizza at her mother's? The things that she said, the things that she did, was her focus on Jacob? Was she angry at him? Was she angry at their father? Something was going on that now people will be able to pick up and say, I remember this. The post behavior, her wandering around, saying that she gave them away. She hasn't called the police. She wasn't worried about them. She hasn't organized searches. All of that's going to be imperative. And I hate to tell you, it rings of Casey Anthony. Oh, I was thinking the same thing. I didn't even want to say the words tot mom.

How do you compare Hoggle, Catherine Hoggle, to tot mom Casey Anthony, who murdered, I believe, murdered her little girl, Kelly? What about it, Cheryl McCollum? Well, here you are. You have her, you know, going with her own parents, riding in the car, having some fun. Let's go get pizza. It sounds like a great, normal, you know, going with her own parents, riding in the car, having some fun. Let's go get pizza. It sounds like a great, normal, you know, evening. Next thing you know, oh, I gave them away.

Gave them away. What? What? Just like top mom Casey Anthony blames Zenaida Gonzalez, the pretend nanny. What's so freaky about that? Correct. She, Tot Mom, had been looking at an apartment on Sawgrass Road, I believe it was. And police go to that apartment to check out her story. And Zenaida Gonzalez had actually been there before Tot Mom and signed in.

Signed in that she was going to look at a model apartment. So Totmom goes there, sees the name. That's where Zenaida Gonzalez came from. Correct. And it turned out to be a real person whose name was ruined by her connection to Totmom Casey Anthony and the disappearance of Kelly. She was forever connected to that. And it also wasted a whole lot of time.

Yeah, they had to find Zenaida Gonzalez, who had never met Casey Anthony in her life. Exactly. So here we've got the same thing as Cheryl McCollum is pointing out, a fabricated story and a refusal to divulge where the children really are. Now, by this time, there was a search. After Catherine Hoggle leaves the Chick-fil-A, there is a manhunt, or should I say a womanhunt, for Catherine Hoggle, who to this day, to this moment that you're hearing us here on SiriusXM 132 is still the key to the case. We still don't have the children. Take a listen to the guy that fortuitously spots Catherine Hoggle. Listen.

It was a little after 11.15 in the evening. Nicholas Stewart knew there was something unusual about the woman wandering about the parking lot of his Germantown complex as he went to take out the trash. He couldn't put his finger on it at first. I see her walking towards me. I didn't think anything. Maybe it was just a resident. I see her pacing back and forth. But the woman's behavior grows more unusual, especially, he says, as she went into a breezeway in the complex. He says she seemed lost and confused. She went like this. She saw me. She went like this and then I turned around and then I see her come out and she looked like this and then walked here

and then just stopped. He decided to keep an eye on her and they actually exchanged words. Something told me to just keep looking. She asked me for the time. I said I do not have the time. My phone was actually dead at the time and she said said, thank you. My phone's dead, too. Stewart says he ran to his apartment, looked at the flyer again and realized it was indeed Catherine Hoggle, the woman last seen earlier in the week and caught on camera in surveillance footage. I actually watched one of the surveillance videos of her 10 minutes before I spotted the lady. Stewart says he ran to a nearby police station to get help. They got to the scene at Century Boulevard and Crystal Rock Drive and took Hoggle into custody. So, you know, Cheryl White, Cheryl McCollum, it's just dumb luck, really, because this guy had just looked

at a flyer that was posted, I believe, above the mailboxes at this apartment complex or this this location the structure he sees the flyer of the two children and Catherine Hoggle then he less than a minute passes he sees Hoggle and he goes he says she was you know acting covertly just like you said she did in the Chick-fil-a Cheryl McCollum he goes up to her. They have a conversation. He says, well, I can't use my phone. It's dead. She goes, oh, mine's dead, too. She seemed absolutely, perfectly normal, Cheryl White.

Completely normal. One thing missing. Make that two. The children, Cheryl White. Yeah, the children are still missing then and now. And all she'll say is that they are safe and that they're with someone else.

And there was a chase, a short chase before police could apprehend her, which I find interesting that she ran. Interesting, Cheryl McCollum. When your children are missing, as Cheryl White says, the guy immediately calls the police, the number on the flyer. Police show up. A chase ensues.

If my children are missing, I'm laying on the front steps of the police station. I'm laying there screaming. She runs from police, Cheryl. She runs from police, Cheryl. She runs from police. And when they get her, she has snatched down one of the flyers that had been posted. She had taken it down so nobody could see it. And it was in her hand, Cheryl, when cops get her. After she runs, Cheryl.

You want it away. She doesn't want the children found. She doesn't want to be captured herself. And again, holding that fire in her hand tells you she didn't want anybody else to find them either. This is where the search for the babies takes a very

unusual turn. Of course, Hoggle is taken into custody and questioned about the location. And for children, take a listen to what her husband says regarding the children's disappearance. I want to thank all of you in the community and in the media for all your support. You have shown me, myself, Sarah and Jacob, my family, throughout the entire process. As I'm sure you understand, it's been a very emotional time for myself and others who love my family and my children. I've just decided to go ahead and read a prepared statement and then not take questions today.

Catherine Hoggle has murdered my children, and I hope Sarah and Jacob get the justice they deserve. I have held out hope that something else may have happened, as I think that any parent under these circumstances would. But it has always been a faint hope, and I know now with the passage of time that Catherine killed my babies. From the very beginning of this process, three years ago, the Montgomery County Police Department and the State Attorney's Office have been very consistent in their

theory on this case. I know that they are right and I fully support the charges handed down here today. I also knew there was a good chance they were right from the beginning. In addition to the investigation by the local police with the support of the family and family and friends, I've had my own professional private investigator study the facts. And this isn't part of the written part, but in the beginning they came in with an open mind. After investigating, they came to the same conclusion as the state's attorney's office and the police. I actually hired two or three of them kind of like getting a second opinion from a doctor and they all came back the same.

Everyone who has reviewed this agrees that Catherine murdered Sarah and Jacob. I'm sure a jury will agree and I hope Sarah and Jacob get their day in court. No, I don't know if that's somebody's, I'm sorry. I want again to express my sincere thanks to the community and to you, the media, for all your support and everything you guys have done. Please keep my family, Sarah and Jacob, in your prayers. I hope with the charges handed down today, we're moving closer to getting justice for them and that's what it needs to be about from beginning to end, getting justice for my babies. Cheryl White with me, Crime Stories contributor.

Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute. Cheryl McCollum, what? I mean, this is right after she is brought into court by police, and she is questioned under oath by the judge about where are your children, and she still refuses to say. The husband says two conflicting statements. One, he believes his wife had been drugged when all this happened, okay, and two, that she's acting, that she says she wants to be found incompetent so she can't be charged with giving away her children.

Cheryl McCollum. Now that I think we're getting somewhere. Because Nancy, she's been play acting the whole time. She pretended to take Jacob for pizza. She pretended they were at a new school. She pretended to go buy a coat. That's what she's good at. And when they get close to her, she tries to escape in some way.

She hides her face. She hides her identity. She runs from police. That's what she's good at. And when they get close to her, she tries to escape in some way. She hides her face. She hides her identity. She runs from police. The breaking news that Catherine Hoggle, the mother of the two missing children, was located in Germantown there in Maryland and immediately taken into custody after she leaves them on a brief foot chase. When they get her, mommy is clutching a flyer that has been posted, tearing it down so nobody else can see the children

or the tip line number. She refuses to say what happened to the children. At this moment, police still searching for the two children, Sarah and Jacob. Then they give a statement. They are extremely concerned for the children's welfare. She has taken us all down the garden path, Cheryl McCollum. Just hours after she slips out the back door of a Chick-fil-A,

she boards a county bus near that restaurant, goes down Route 118, Germantown Road, between Interstate 270, and goes to the Germantown Commons Shopping Center. She takes that bus after giving the husband a slip at Chick-fil-A. She rides the bus to the transit center I told you about to Lake Forest Mall and gets off. She's sighted there on videotape and she is seen going in and out of various locations in that shopping mall, Cheryl McCollum. Then police go there. They go there to retrace her steps, hoping to find a trace of the children. Instead, they found the contents of her pocketbook thrown in a bathroom in the building.

What does that mean, Cheryl? What's she trying to get rid of? Her identity, who she is. So when somebody catches her, even if it's in another town or city, she can make up a name and a date of birth. It's not going to be her. She's not going to exist anymore. You know, this plot seemingly gets more and more

intricate. So we have her, let's retrace it, Cheryl and Cheryl, Cheryl White and Cheryl McCollum. We have her with the children alive at her mother's house. We have her father, the children's grandfather, giving her his car. She puts Jacob in the car, claiming they're going for pizza, coming back without him three hours later, stating that he stayed with his friend. She takes the baby away, claiming they're going home. The husband's at the night shift. Whoever she gave baby Jacob to that night or whatever she did with him, she takes the little girl. She leaves with the little girl. The little girl is never seen alive again.

The dad gets home from work. Where are the children? Oh, I took them to a new daycare. Nobody's seen the children since the night before Sunday night. They start looking for the daycare. Can't find it. She goes into Chick-fil-A. She wants a Coke. She slips out the side. She then eludes her husband who's sitting in the parking lot,

takes a bus, gets away from him and goes to a shopping center. She goes in and out of several locations. Police find out about it. They go, they retrace her steps. They don't find her. They find her pocketbook has been emptied. Why? Flyers, over 10,000 flyers go up all over town. A guy is looking at the flyer over a mailbox, then turns around to see Catherine Hockle. She has a perfectly normal, sane conversation with him. His girlfriend immediately calls police. They come. She leads them on a brief but fast-paced foot chase. When they get her, she is torn down the flyer of the children with the tip line.

She's taken to police headquarters. She's questioned in court. She refuses to say where the children are, and the husband insists she's acting. Listen to what he says one more time. Catherine Hogwell has murdered my children, and I hope Sarah and Jacob get the justice they deserve. I have held out hope that something else may have happened, as I think that any parent under these circumstances would. But it has always been a faint hope, and I know now with the passage of time that Catherine killed my babies.

From the very beginning of this process, three years ago, the Montgomery County Police Department and State Attorney's Office have been very consistent in their theory on this case. I know that they are right and I fully support the charges handed down here today. I also knew there was a good chance they were right from Where is Jacob? Where is Sarah? Tip line 301-279-8000. Then in another twist, Cheryl White Crime Stories contributor, she now claims she's paranoid schizophrenic. Okay. Her husband says she's acting.

The children are still missing. When did that come about? So now we see a mental defect. I mean, she told her husband she wants to be found incompetent so she can't be charged or go to jail. What do we know about her claims of paranoid schizophrenia, Cheryl White? Well, she has a history of mental issues. Here's something I find extremely odd, is that shortly after she was taken into custody, she told her family members that she would take police to her children, but she had to do it personally. So she went to court then to get a judge's okay that she could take them to the children,

but that's not what ended up happening. Well when she got to court, her attorneys said Hoggle was in no mental condition to make the claim to take them on the journey to the children, and that, in fact, she did not want to help, and that her condition was so deteriorated, she should not even be interrogated. Wow, that's convenient, Cheryl McCollum. So she says, okay, okay, I'm tired of jail. Let me out, and I will take you to the children.

You know what? Do you remember that wild goose chase that top mom Casey Anthony led police on in the search for uh Zenaida Gonzalez they went all over town they went to Sawgrass Apartments she claimed she worked at Universal man she had it down she even got to the security entrance and told them that she worked there and uh they're like wow we can't find you on the employee list and she goes yeah well i did work here hey you can call my my co-employees and she gave names and phone numbers extensions or names of people that worked at universal and the the

security was calling them and so police are on to her so they take her in and and they get all the way up to the door and they're going into universal and she says okay uh-huh you got me like it's some kind of a game i don't really work at universal anymore and all this time she'd been sitting on her parents sofa eating their food out of their fridge and letting them take care of the baby, claiming she worked at Universal. She would even put on a Universal outfit with tags, old ID tags, and leave to go lay up at her boyfriend's apartment. So it's such a charade. And Cheryl McCollum, it sounds like the same thing with Katherine Hoggle. Yeah, I think Katherine is overplaying her hand a little bit because you know Nancy better than me.

Schizophrenic doesn't mean you don't go to jail. The only reason you're going to stay out of jail is if you can demonstrate you don't know right from wrong. Well, she's already, to me, proven beautifully she knows what she's done is wrong. Again, from trying to hide her face, to running from the police, to not wanting to involve the police and not her face, to running from the police, to not wanting to involve

the police and not calling 911, to taking down the poster, she knows. So now this is her latest game. Well, let me tell you a little story, okay? Alan Duke, I hear you groaning in the background, but Alan, I once, my boss, the longest serving district attorney in the country at that time, it was Louis Slayton. And oh boy, let me tell you, Louis Slayton was like a grandfather to me. You know, when I first started prosecuting, women and minorities were not in many jurisdictions allowed to try cases. They would be relegated to child support recovery you know deadbeat dads Cheryl McCullum remember this or they'd have to go to GV court where there were no juries where you'd write appeals a jury. So I managed to beg my way in to the courtroom.

And I had a guy one day, Mr. Slayton called me and goes, we got a problem. I'm like, what is he goes? I want you to handle this case, come out of the courtroom and focus on this case. I'm like great there was a woman who had apparently committed suicide and I didn't know exactly what he wanted me to do but you know I started with going to the crime lab and looking at the evidence and I met with this old guy he had an accent much worse than mine believe it or not and we put the bed sheet she had was naked and had laid down in the bed and shot herself in the head and we were just standing there looking at them and he had a light behind them we were looking at them they were hanging up like a poster and we noticed he noticed I'm going to give him the credit, there was a blood spatter underneath where the pillow had been.

Obviously, it was not a suicide. First of all, women, if you look at the method and assessment of homicide and suicide, you would know it's extremely rare for a woman to shoot herself in the head or the chest, but especially the head. Second, never, never, never, very rarely does a female commit suicide without her clothes on. Don't ask me why. This is just what I know by statistics. So right then, we knew, and as I had suspected, this was no suicide. Okay, so we immediately start looking

at the husband I find I do a whole handful of subpoenas and start stalking his friends and colleagues I mean sitting out in the parking lot waiting for them to come out of work behind cars and when they come out I hand them a subpoena dukes teak and which is his payment for documents for any letters he has written them well guess what he writes them and says um something about they're going to find if they decide if they believe that I killed my wife, I'm going to make sure they think that I'm crazy. And I'll just stay in the crazy house for a few years making sand sculptures. And you know how you pour sand into a little bottle and make a picture? And at the end, and then I'll get out and keep it cool. And P.S. Don't kill your wife.

Okay, you know, we had no money. I had to pay my own money to go to Kinko's to turn all of his letters into giant posters. The joy I felt when I put up all those posters in the courtroom and would go through each one word for word. I was so happy. So here you go. Now she's paranoid schizophrenic. I still don't know where the children are.

The most recent development is there has been a charge, a charge against the mother, Catherine Hoggle, that has gone down in the last weeks. The schizophrenic, allegedly schizophrenic mother, 30 years old, of two missing children, has now been charged with murder. Catherine Hoggle, age 30, has been indicted on two counts of first degree murder accused of killing her two-year-old son and her three-year-old daughter I want to go to you Cheryl McCollum they've never been found the people she allegedly gave her children to have never been found how do we know they weren't sold how do we know she didn't just give them away there's no body how is she charged with murder Cheryl well it's a no body homicide Nancy, and what we do know is at this point, years have gone by. The children would have started school. Whoever she gave the children to would have had to take them way. They haven't done anything wrong,

but they're not raising two children with, you know, no paperwork, no birth certificate or anything like that. It's not true. So again, common sense tells us by her actions, trying to escape all the time, trying to hide her identity, trying to hide out in a mental institution, that she has done something horrible with these two children. We are

posting right now on CrimeOnline.com an artist impression, an age progression of what the children would look like today if alive. We're getting this from National Center of Missing and Exploited Children,

and you can see that on crimeonline.com. As of right now, these two children have been deemed murder victims. Do we know if any evidence was found, such as blood, their clothing, a shallow grave, anything to suggest that they are dead, Cheryl White. Well, what I do know is that state's attorney, John McCarthy, says we would never have filed the charges, indicted her on two murder charges if we didn't feel we have a case. Take a listen to what the state attorney in Montgomery County has to say. Under Maryland law, an individual charged with only misdemeanors can only be hospitalized and detained in a formal hospital slash prison setting for a maximum period of three years. She has been incarcerated

in that facility, essentially receiving evaluations on a regular basis for her competency to stand trial over the last three years. The deadline for those three years came today. have had to dismiss the charges against her and we would have had to release Ms. Hoggle as a matter of law because she could not be held any longer on those misdemeanors. Therefore, we sought an indictment from the grand jury yesterday charging her with the two counts of murder. Again, there was no advantage to moving forward. I will tell you that as long, and I think I've publicly said this before, as long as there's not an indictment, you are allowed to continue to use a grand jury for the purposes of a criminal investigation. Once you indict a case, you lose that option, you lose that right. That was an investigative tool that we had available to us.

It did not make any sense, if she incompetent to lose that tool. Well, because of the law that would have dictated she would become free without any ability for us to check on her whereabouts or her medical station, it became incumbent on us to take the additional step to seek the indictment for the two counts of murder that we did yesterday. The law has now changed in terms of how long we can hold her for the purposes of the evaluation. Ms. Hoggle can now be held five years, now charged with a felony for the purposes of the doctors to attempt to restore her to competency. Competency just basically means you have to have a basic understanding of the nature of the charges against you and you have to be able to assist your attorney in defending yourself. This has nothing to do with her guilt or innocence. I am tremendously frustrated

and I've said this in court before. Am I frustrated that we are here three years into this and she's not been restored to competency? Absolutely I am. Why am I frustrated? Well, she's been, look, this is a woman who had a, and again, I'm talking about things that are in the public record. This was a young woman who'd had prior hospitalizations. She had been identified with psychiatric issues prior to the disappearance of her kids. She had been in various hospitals. She had been restored to competency before through psychotropic medications and reintroduced back into the community. I had every hope when she went to Perkins three years ago that we would have that same thing occur. She would

fall into the care of psychiatrists, they would determine what her need was and they would begin through a regimen of medications to restore competency that would allow us to move forward. So I am tremendously frustrated. As I can tell you, look, I'm sure any member of the family on either side of this will tell you above all, they are tremendously frustrated. They knew the psychiatric history. They knew about the restoration of competency in other cases. And they want to know why hasn't the hospital been able to do that.

It's a frustration for all of us. But again, we've just taken steps legally to give them additional time to do that. And I don't think we had any other option but to seek the indictment we sought yesterday. It was the only way to adequately, I think, protect the public and protect some individual people in particular. Back to Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute. Cheryl, for the longest time, Catherine Huggle stays at a cushy psych facility, repeatedly attempting to escape. And then when she's caught trying to escape, she says she wants to go see her children and she'll leave police to her children in order to get out. What do you make of that, Cheryl McCollum? The key is eight times she has

attempted to escape. If she wanted her children to be okay, she would tell them where to go get them and let the children be okay. So what does this say to you? Every time she wants to get out, she says she'll lead the police to her children. That doesn't sound crazy to me. Sounds like a stunt to me. That sounds like if you let me out, I will do something for you. That's extortion. Another issue to Cheryl White Crime Stories contributor is this charge has just come down because the legal time limit, the statute of limitations on the three misdemeanors, the child neglect misdemeanors that she had been charged with initially were about to give out, which means she would have walked free. Okay. Right after they go missing, you've got like, you know, a year or so on the statute of limitations on misdemeanors. It's one to three years.

And once that ends and you haven't been prosecuted, you walk free. Of course, unless you filed a demand for speedy trial, which she did not. So she's about to walk free and this murder charge comes down. Is that the way it goes, Cheryl White? That's the way it goes, exactly. So time was running out. So she was indicted on two counts of murder for the two missing children. And now she can be held for five years under medical care now that she's been indicted on the murder charges. She can only be held for five years

if she is deemed incompetent. So I guess the first step, Cheryl McCollum, is going to be a competency trial. That is not necessarily a trial on the merits of the case. It's simply to determine whether she is competent. That does not go to insanity. It's very simply, can you aid your lawyer during your trial? Absolutely. Are you competent enough to help your lawyer get during your trial? Absolutely. Are you competent enough to help your lawyer get through the trial?

That's all this hearing is, Cheryl. That's all it is. And I think it is imperative that the prosecution get their own doctor to examine her, not the folks from this institute that she's been at. Why do you say that? Because you need to have somebody that is just seeing her and evaluating her from right now, not the people that have already bought into her game. They already have their mind made up. The search for the children goes on. As of right now,

these two children still missing. Last seen, when her husband wakes up to find all three of them no longer in their home, she comes back in the minivan without the children. Where, where are Jacob and Sarah? Are they dead or alive? Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. If so, join the CrimeCon Cold Case Club and work alongside experts and fellow crime sleuths to help uncover new leads and theories in the cold cases they adopt. Their first cold case focuses on the mysterious disappearance of nursing student Mara Murray in 2004, and it's free to join thanks to Oxygen. Sign up now or find more info at club.crimecon.com. That's club.crimecon.com. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.