Law&Crime Sidebar - Dad Chained Unconscious Girl to Hockey Table Before She Died: Police

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Pennsylvania father Rendell Hoagland has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the murder of his 12-year-old daughter, Malinda Hoagland. Investigators uncovered years of systematic abuse, starvation, and torture that left the girl weighing just fifty pounds when she died. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber dives into the shocking court documents and police reports detailing Hoagland’s crimes, as well as the role of his fiancée, Cindy Warren.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code SIDEBAR at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/sidebar HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A Pennsylvania father has been convicted of killing his own daughter after investigators say he tied her up, beat her and starved her for years before her tiny body finally gave out. Melinda Hoagland reportedly weighed just 50 pounds when she was rushed to a hospital for emergency surgery, but she didn't survive. We charged them with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, third-degree murder, kidnapping, and hundreds of related charges. Facing down 282 individual charges, Melinda's father agreed to plead guilty. And now he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison. And as his alleged accomplice awaits her own trial, we are getting a better idea of what police say happened inside this House of Horror. I will tell you that it appears that Melinda was reprogrammed to accept abuse as part of her life. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime.

I'm Jesse Weber. You know, I've got to say something. When I'm covering a lot of these stories, what really sticks out to me is how easy it is for total strangers to just find out anything about your life. I mean, your name, your phone number, your address, it's all out there, which is why I want everybody who follows sidebar, Sibbarians, Sibbinians, I don't know, we need a nickname there. But I want all of you guys to keep your data safe online, and that is where our sponsor, Incognite, comes down, because they track down all of those old posts and search sites that are exposing your information, and then they demand removal.

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So if you care about staying safe, take your privacy back with Incogny. Go to incogny.com slash sidebar and use code sidebar for 60% off an annual plan. This is a case with facts that are so disturbing. It's kind of hard to even believe. A 12-year-old girl, Pennsylvania girl named Melinda Hogan, underwent months and months of systemic abuse before she died. And now her own father's paying the price. We first told you about Rendell Hogan and his fiance, Cindy Warren.

When they were arrested in West Callan Township, Pennsylvania in 2024, Melinda had died at a hospital during surgery. And the injuries to her small body made for a little. laundry list of painful and life-altering injuries. And the injuries to her small body made for a laundry list of pain. And what a probable cause affidavit calls a, quote, clear timeline of the torture and abuse of Melinda. Shockingly, they found a 12-year-old girl who was broken and barely alive.

Our investigation revealed that Rendell Hoagland and Cindy Warren subjected Melinda to evil and torment that no child should ever have to endure, and they did it for months. So Hogle and Warren were charged with more than 250 counts each. We're talking murder, kidnapping, torture. And I will tell you this is a, this is a tough one, okay? This is not an easy one. There are a lot of really rough details and abhorrent allegations. So I'm just going to give you a warning right now.

I want you to take care when you're watching or listening. to this. But Chester County District Attorney Chris DeBerey Sarob told reporters at a 2024 news conference that his office planned to seek the death penalty against both defendants. January 16, 2025, Houghlin appeared in court. He agreed to a plea deal, and this is where he learned his sentence. In his statement, the district attorney's office said the plea was negotiated with the blessing of Melinda's family members, including three adult sisters. I always think it's very important in these kinds of cases. You don't always see that. But Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft, sentenced Hoagland to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 30 to 60 years.

He's never going to get out. And when asked if he wanted to speak during that hearing, Hogan reportedly said that he had, quote, nothing to say at this time. That's according to a report from a local outlet, the morning call. So what do we do? We dug through hundreds of pages of court documents and police reports that are related to Hogan's case to kind of get a sense of what exactly Melinda had been dealing with, what she'd been going through and the allegations that Warren is still facing, by the way. The extent of damage that was done to Melinda's body was discovered by investigators on May 4, 2024, when they say that Rendell Hoglein called 911 at around 7.30 p.m. First responders, they find Melinda, unresponsive in the backseat of Hougland's pickup truck. Hoglein, Warren, Melinda, and Warren's younger biological son had stayed at a campground the night before. A couple apparently told investigators that Melinda had been riding her bike at around 1230 in the morning when she hit a tree. but that she seemed to be okay, was up walking, talking, playing with the dog, even the claim that she woke up and ate breakfast with them the next day.

Thing is, detectives discovered that none of that actually happened. Authorities determined that sometime that night, something had happened to Melinda to cause her to lose consciousness, and it seems she never woke up again. Two days after her death, a forensic pathologist did an autopsy on Melinda's body. And according to the probable cause affidavit, quote, the post-mortem examination found evidence of severe malnutrition and starvation. The body appeared greatly underweight with sharply visible bones and total lack of subcutaneous fat and internal fat around organs.

The autopsy found that Melinda's organs had begun to atrophy from starvation. It's pretty sickening. Now, according to the autopsy report, Melinda had internal injuries on almost every single one of her organs, as well as healing fractures on her pelvis, lower back, right forearm, both thigh bones. The report also noted Melinda, quote, had an unremarkable medical history until custody was granted to Hoagland. So police say Hoagland and his wife, they separated. He was granted custody of Melinda in 2020. And according to prosecutors, Melinda's biological mom had a lot of different health problems and illnesses. And so she needed to be in a care home for her own, so she couldn't take care for Melinda.

So she was stuck with Rendell. And in 2020, Rendell Hoagland met and started dating Cindy Warren. They moved in together. And this was along with Warren's biological son, who, by the way, was younger than Melinda. They moved several times before a finally setting in West Callan. So according to prosecutors, Hoagland and Warren had a blink home security system with cameras that were positioned all over the house so that Warren could monitor Melinda while Hoagland worked. And reports noted that the couple also used the camera speaker system to yell at Melinda when they were in home or were in another room.

Now, the probable cause statement says that when investigators asked Hoaglin about all these, cameras, you know what he said? He apparently said, oh, installed them after Melinda, quote, stole a Kit Kat, you know, the candy bar from his and Warren's bedroom. That's what justified it. Those cameras created a huge catalog of videos showing the couple's horrific treatment of the 12-year-old. This included chaining her to furniture, forcing her to stand or run in place for hours, physically assaulting her. And in addition to that critical digital evidence, police were able to match the timestamps from the security cameras to messages between Hoagland and Warren, as well as internet searches. And police say Warren had deleted those messages before turning her

phone over to them, but they were recovered. Can't really get rid of them as much as people try. And what you had were beatings and other apparent assault seen on the videos. They lined up with Melinda's long and unexplained absences from school. This is according to investigators. You know, the DA talked about what a large task force had figured out at a second news conference in July of 2024. Take a listen. And so to my left and in the packets is a timeline of abuse. We are able to determine through text messages that the first instance that we can say right now is that in November of 2021 that that was the first instance in which we have some sort of recording that the defendants caused a physical injury to Melinda. Coincidentally, that was also

the same month that she was last seen by a pediatrician. At that visit in November of 2021, she weighed 77 pounds. And we could not fit enough bullets to make this legible, but we've chosen some of the lowlights from the defendants of use in one page. What is detailed across are dozens of pages of information in the affidavit of probable cause. Melinda, experience, torture that was progressively ratcheted up over time. She was removed from school in December of 2023. She was still excelling at cyber school in March of 2024. And in May and on May 4th, we have a detailed timeline of what these defendants knew

and how they failed to provide her medical care as demonstrated by their own text messages and their own phones and phone searches. So before we dive further into the probable cause statement, I just want to tell you a little bit more about Houglin and Warren for you. So Hogan, who was 52 when he was arrested, apparently had law enforcement and first responder jobs in his work history. Yeah, he was an elected state constable from 2004 to 2010, which is a peace officer position,

which would have included like delivering a summons or transporting inmates, serving arrest warrants. And according to police, Hogan admitted during an interview that the shackles that Melinda was forced to wear, those were from his time as a constable. He also apparently had done some work as a volunteer firefighter, and at the time of Melinda's death, he worked as a welder.

Now, Warren, on the other hand, didn't work. Instead, she served as a caretaker, caretaker for the children at home. Again, big air quotes on caretaker. Our investigation has revealed that Cindy Warren's biological son, a younger son was living in that house and actually some of the evidence reviewed showed that when she would get up to go do something else in another room and was trying to record Melinda, that she would have her son do the recording for her. He, there's no indication that he was abused by all counts he was treated well in that house.

And how old is he? I don't know. I'm not a position to want to describe his age at this point because he is a juvenile, but I will say that he is younger than Melinda. And it seems from police reports that Warren treated her biological son very well. The social media pages of both defendants reflects that, often showing off selfies with him, posting about his achievements. Very different when it came to Melinda. There were very few photos of Melinda. Although I will tell you, we found a chilling post from July 4th, 2023 where Hoagland says,

Happy 12th birthday, Melinda, hope you have many, many more. We love you. Now, Warren's criminal history, especially relating to the abuse and death of at least one child, is critical in this case because according to the probable cause statement in December of 2000, Warren and her then husband, McKinley Warren, took their two-year-old daughter to the hospital.

You see, this little girl evidently had hemorrhages in her brain and bruises all over her body. She didn't survive. And at the time, the family was being monitored for what's called failure to thrive. But the Warrens apparently had another baby after that. And in 2007, a neighbor reported that Warren's 4-year-old son was covered in bruises.

police determined that he'd been starved, he'd been beaten, forced to exercise. Does all this sound very familiar? So Cindy Warren ended up pleading guilty to endangering the welfare of a child. She received the maximum prison sentence seven years, and McKinley Warren got a sentence of 25 to 50 years. And according to police, Hougland knew all about it. Quote, Hougland admitted that he was aware of Warren's prior history with law enforcement and child welfare. And yet felt it was a good idea for. her to be around Melinda.

In fact, Warren's criminal history was explicitly mentioned in the custody agreement, by the way. Quote, interviews, court records, and correspondence recovered show that Hoagland and Warren actively pursued sole custody of Melinda as her biological mother. Rondolin Smith became incapacitated and unable to care for Melinda due to her multiple significant health conditions. The Court of Common Pleas of Monroe County entered a finalized custody agreement on July 30th, 2020 granting primary physical custody of Melinda to Hoagland. And I got to mention this as well, the language of the agreement. It addressed the terms of Warren's involvement with specificity,

stating the minor shall not be left in the care of Warren, father's fiance, for any period of time exceeding one hour unless expressly agreed upon by mother and father through written communication. From each year that passes from the date of this stipulation, Warren shall be permitted an additional two hours in which she shall be permitted to supervise the minor child without another individual present. But Hoagland and Warren just ignored that completely, moved in together. The earliest instances of abuse being referenced in messages as well as on camera, according to police was in 2021. And reading from the problem cause statement, quote, Melinda was subjected to extended periods of physical punishment, including running in place

while shackled to furniture, holding books or arms overhead, push-ups, jump squats, forced running and biking and extended periods of stress positions. Melinda spent hours in these physical punishments. Hogan and Warren forced Melinda to do chores while shackled and deprived of the ability to use the bathroom freely. Warren and Hogan used forced cold or scalding showers as punishment. Melinda frequently slept on the floor, chained to the air hockey table. The timestamps on the videos recovered along with text conversations indicate that Melinda

was regularly sleep deprived and forced to complete physical punishments as Warren and Hoagland slept. Oh, isn't that nice? Quote, in at least one instance, Warren degraded and humiliated Melinda by making her dance on camera while Warren mocked her. Up until 2023, Melinda was still attending school, although I will tell you she switched schools and districts a few times as the family moved around, and you had court documents say teachers describe Melinda Hoagland as an outgoing child and excellent student. She maintained well above average grades and had no reported disciplinary issues. School records and text show that in the months leading to her death, Melinda had difficulty coming up with life events to share with the class about weekends and holidays.

And the records received by CISD, handwritten thank you notes were also received. And Melinda thanked the cafeteria staff for giving her food and being so nice to her. In all the interviews and records received, Warren and Houghlin were the only people who ever identified problems with Melinda's behavior. Man, makes you wonder what exactly they were saying. I mean, how heartbreaking is this? You see a girl who ostensibly was trying to just thank people for being nice to her because what was going on at home, right? And you think about the promise of what her young life was. It's just horrifying on so many levels.

Now, eventually, after multiple unexplained absences from school and with Hoagland and Warren apparently having to do a lot more work to try to hide Melinda's injuries and avoid detection, according to their text messages, they pulled her and enrolled her in Commonwealth Charter Academy. It's a cyber school that she took. took classes via Zoom while just off screen, her leg was shackled to a piece of furniture. According to investigators, Warren would watch Melinda nitpicking on how Melinda was behaving, telling her she had to smile and seem happy. The affidavit even alleges that Warren was recorded on the home security system telling Melinda to turn off her laptop camera so that Warren could hit her.

The affidavit also says, Hoagland can be seen in the video seated next to Melinda and holding a belt, appearing ready to strike Melinda, while Melinda attends online. line classes. So Melinda was reportedly beaten with belts, metal spatulas, phone chargers, electrical cords. There were locks on the refrigerator and cabinets. Hoagland apparently tried to tell detectives that it was just a snack cabinet that was locked. That wasn't true. Family often ordered takeout or delivery, according to investigators, but the text messages and the receipts showed they got food for just three people, not four. When Melinda was given food, Warren allegedly made it intentionally gross or foul tasting.

Again, you could see why she was thanking the cafeteria. And Warren also allegedly only spoke to Melinda when she was punishing her and pretty much ignored her the rest of the time. She sent thousands of texts to Hoagland complaining about the 12-year-old. Probable cause statement says, quote, messages sent by Warren to Hoagland on December 8th, 2023 read, I think you should come home and deal with your kid. Yo, I swear on God, I'm a choke this B word out on God. Quote, in total, hundreds of videos were recovered depicting the abuse of Melinda by

Hogan and Warren. Over 150 videos and still images were recovered depicting Melinda's shackled of furniture and enduring physical abuse. Over 200 videos in images depict Melinda being subjected to forced exercise or physical punishment. Text messages and conversations captured on video establish that Melinda was punished for infractions like forgetting chores or paperwork for school, stealing food, not smiling during school Zoom session, sitting or failing to hold positions when forced, inability to continue with forced exercise, urinating, and, or defecating herself while restrained or asking questions at school. So I want to drill down to the days leading up to Melinda's death.

April 29th, so less than a week before she died, there was a camera that recorded just a heartbreaking scene. Quote, an additional blink video from around noon on the same date captured Melinda sitting at the desk in her bedroom with her computer off, communicating with Warren via the blink camera, begging, I shouldn't live, I'm sorry, please respond. and, quote, I'm not going to act stupid. I'm not going to make you mad. I know I ruined everything. Please allow me to change it. You know, during a forensic interview with Warren's son, investigators learned a little bit more about what happened at that campground. Quote, the son reported that Melinda did not eat dinner while they were at the campground because she lied to Warren. The son reported that Warren was mad at Melinda for lying that Melinda does not eat a lot because she lies a lot, lies a lot. The son stated that when Melinda lies, she gets beaten sometimes, and that Hoagland is the one who beats her, often using a black belt.

He said she gets beat everywhere. The son reported that Melinda says stop and pretends to cry. The son said he knew Melinda was pretending because Warren told him Melinda was pretending. Or maybe she was actually crying. And by the way, he also told detectives that he didn't actually see Melinda hit a tree while riding her bike. Remember, that's what his mom had apparently told investigators what happened. Now, in reality, forensic specialists were able to track Hoagland from May 3rd into May 4th via GPS on his phone and his own cameras, which showed Hoagland took Melinda back to the house from the campground, chained her unconscious body to the air hockey table, left her there.

And Warren apparently was looking at her remotely, at one point texting Hoagland that Melinda, quote, moved and made a noise. And when they all got home and Melinda was still unconscious, the couple made some very damning Internet searches, including hospitals near me, where can I buy smelling salts, ammonia sticks CVS, can someone be knocked out for hours? So they eventually made the decision to call 911 and trauma surgeons tried to do what they could to repair her unimaginable injuries, but they just couldn't. Police consulted with a board certified child abuse pediatrician, Dr. Stephanie and Deutsch to determine how severe the charges against Hogan and Warren should be.

And Dr. Deutsch is an expert in the field of child torture. David says. Dr. Deutsch found that Melinda experienced particularly cruel, callous, psychological mistreatment by Warren and Hogan for years. She was the target of frequent taunts, berating, and derogatory name-calling, humiliated, forced to position, hold while scantily clad, forced to dance the cha-cha, shamed over urinary incontinence, incessantly degraded about her intelligence and school performance, threatened with injury, including possible beatings, broken bones and choking, and even death. Deutsch noted the corroborated video footage

depicting the profound emotional distress and psychological injury Melinda experienced because of her torture, including tearful, desperate pleas made by Melinda to Warren to just give her another chance in the days before her death. The psychological impact on Melinda of Warren and Hoagland's torture is a crucial element of the type of abuse endured by Melinda, which meets all aspects of the medical definition of torture. Dr. Deutsch noted that Hoagland and Warren paid little attention to the gravity of Melinda's physical condition.

Melinda experienced presumed cardiac arrest at home with possible observation, appreciation of agonal respirations, but Hoagland and Warren failed to seek medical intervention for more than 12 hours. Video footage continues to support the malicious treatment of Melinda by Warren, even while Melinda lay dying after being shackled to the air hockey table by Hoagland while Warren berates her. So as I mentioned, the judge accepted Rendell Hogan's guilty plea, sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Cindy Warren's still in jail. She waits trial. It's been pushed back several times, but for the moment, scheduled to start June 8th. And during his news conference back in 2024, the district attorney addressed questions about the possible culpability of state agencies here, whether anything could have been done to prevent Melinda's abuse and eventual murder. Take a look.

What in the world could we have done to perform? this, it's really difficult for me to be able to say in this case because on one hand, when you read what we've chronicled in the affidavit of probable cause, you have to feel like we do that there has to be something that we could have done, that we could have done better for Melinda. But I want to say that part of the reason I'm here and why this is such a critical press conference to me is we're dealing with the unimaginable and I think it's important for school districts law enforcement CYFs across the state and across the country to see what happened here because although

it doesn't get a ton of press this does happen on exceedingly rare occasions in different parts of the country and it's time that we all go back and look at our processes and make sure that that we are doing everything we can to help our children, to make sure that they're not being subjected to this. But on the other hand, I want to make something perfectly clear. We are here because there is evil in this world. We all like to, I think sometimes forget about that simple fact. And sometimes, no matter what everyone does,

no matter how much we try, evil harms innocent people, even innocent children. And so we are here today because of what these defendants did, and for no other real reason. Because we've reviewed scores of school records. We were scored all kinds of records here in this case. And the evidence shows here that teachers, school districts, whether they were cyber school or in school, like,

in-person school, they cared about Melinda. They checked in with her. She was reprogramed. And they did that the best that they could with the evidence that they had. There is no investigation into any agency for failing to act in this case. This is not a case where abuse was actually reported and no one did anything. But Melinda's three older adult sisters who say they weren't allowed to see her for years, they don't agree with that assessment. They have filed a civil lawsuit. And while at first the defendants they're suing, including multiple school and school districts and counties and their county children services agencies as well as individual employees, the suit has now been whittled down to just three. You have Chester County and two directors of Chester County Children, Youth, and Family Services.

But the sisters claim that officials knew that Melinda was living with a convicted child abuser and they didn't do anything about it. The lawsuit says the defendants failed to adequately train their agents and employees on the proper and legal means. and methods of reporting and investigating suspected child abuse and neglect, proper and legal means, and methods of child placement, oversight of children during custody litigation, and supervision of children living in homes with known or convicted child abusers. That litigation is ongoing. We'll continue to keep a careful eye on what happens next.

And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can also check us out on NBC's Peacock as well. bars up there. If you want to follow me, you can check me out on X or Instagram or my News Nation show, Jesse Weber Live. See you next time, everybody.