Search Expert Joins Hunt for Missing Hoggle Siblings

A national missing children’s organization is now working with the family of Montgomery County’s missing Hoggle children to better plan a community search this weekend.

Brad Dennis, director of search operations for the Klaas Kids Foundation, told Montgomery Community Media his organization will educate the family on the proper way to conduct a search and how to prepare volunteers. The foundation was established in 1994 following the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas in California.

Volunteers ages 18 and older are asked to report to the Germantown Community Center at 18905 Kingsview Road both Saturday and Sunday any time from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. They will be given a specific search area and special GPS device that will help document search efforts.

“Let’s start look outside of the obvious and maybe start looking in reverse,” Dennis said, adding that the police agencies’ search efforts have been well-orchestrated. “We want to eliminate every conceivable possibility because this family, this community and law enforcement want to believe they are alive, but until we can get into that direction of the investigation we have to rule out this other one which is a homicide.”

A vigil is expected to be held at 8:30 a.m. Oct. 4 where Troy Turner, father of Sarah, 3 and Jacob, 2, will speak to volunteers. Turner’s mother, Debbie Beckward, will read poems she has written about the children.

Catherine Hoggle, 27, of the 12200 block of Elm Forest Court in Clarksburg, and her children, Jacob Hoggle, 2, and Sarah Hoggle, 3, went missing on Sept. 8. Hoggle was found a few days later, but the children remain missing.

The mother has been described by family members as a paranoid schizophrenic who quit taking her medication a few weeks before she disappeared with the toddlers.

Troy Turner, the father of two young children missing from Montgomery County for almost a month, firmly believes his children are alive and in the county.

Hoggle was arrested on Sept. 12 and initially charged with child neglect and obstructing and hindering. She has refused to give any information about the children’s location to her parents, Turner or police.

“Anyone who knows anything, please just call,” Turner told Montgomery Community Media. “If you are someone out there who has the kids or know someone who’s helping them, drop them off at a hospital, a library, a fire department, anything.”

Montgomery County police say the case is shifting over to a homicide investigation, but Turner still believes the toddlers are alive.

Turner told Montgomery Community Media that because Catherine Hoggle continued to return to Germantown in the days after the children went missing, he believes his children are still in Montgomery County.

“She was predictably in that area,” Turner said.

A FindJacobandSarah Facebook page has been set up to spread awareness of the Hoggle case. A Go Fund Me account has been established to create a reward in the case and had $2,767 in the account Friday afternoon.

Related Stories:

• Father Tearfully Pleads for Missing Daughter to come Home
• Father Believes Missing Kids Are Alive; Police Call Case a Homicide
• Residents Asked to Look in Backyards for Missing Kids
• New Charges Against Mom of Missing Toddlers
• Candlelight Vigil Caps Weekend Search for Missing Siblings
• Montgomery County Search Continues for Jacob and Sarah Hoggle

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