Catherine Hoggle, Accused Of Killing Her 2 Children, Incompetent To Stand Trial: Reports

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD — Catherine Hoggle, who for years was accused of killing two of her three children after they disappeared in Montgomery County, will not stand trial for their murders after a judge ruled her mentally incompetent, according to multiple reports.

On Wednesday, a judge said Hoggle was a danger to herself and others and ordered her to be civilly committed, NBC Washington reported. The judge also dismissed murder charges against Hoggle.

The court had previously upheld the charges against Hoggle in the deaths of her children, then 3-year-old Sarah Hoggle and 2-year-old Jacob Hoggle, who disappeared in 2014, police said.

Montgomery County police arrested Hoggle and charged her with child neglect, obstruction and hindering. At the time, Hoggle told investigators that Sarah and Jacob were safe, but she would not reveal their location.

In 2017, the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office indicted Hoggle on two murder charges connected to the disappearance of Sarah and Jacob.

Hoggle has paranoid schizophrenia and earlier this year, her attorney filed a request for a hearing to determine if doctors could find Hoggle to be "restorable," meaning that she could eventually stand trial. Hoggle has been held in a state psychiatric center since she was charged and has repeatedly been found unfit to participate in her defense.

Over the past eight years, 19 assessments found Hoggle incompetent to stand trial, her attorney told Fox 5 DC. Hoggle was most recently found unfit to stand trial after a medical examination conducted by the state in April 2022.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided in September 2021 that her case may be dropped in December 2022 — five years after she was charged with murder — if she continues to be found incompetent to stand trial throughout that period. The court said that clock started when she was charged with a felony, not when she was charged with the earlier misdemeanors.

In a 2022 interview with a true crime podcaster, the father of Sarah and Jacob accused the system of failing to protect his children.

"We still don't know where my kids are," Troy Turner said on the podcast. "We still don't have them home in any way, shape or form."

At the time, Turner said he hired a private investigator to look into the disappearance of his children. While the investigator chased down leads, most were dead ends, he said. He also spoke about a reported sighting of his children right after they went missing, but the kids in the video footage were significantly older.

"Sometimes people want to help so badly they see things that aren't really there," he said