This blog is is about an older case that has been in the media again in recent months. It is about the September 2014 disappearance and probable murder of Sarah (3) and Jacob (2) Hoggle in Maryland. Their mother Catherine Hoggle is suspected of being the perpetrator and her case has been going on for over a decade, due to competency issues.
We will start with some background into the family.
Troy Turner is the father of both of the children and Catherine Hoggle is their mother. They were not married. Sarah Hoggle was born on November 20, 2010, and Jacob Hoggle was born on July 3, 2012. The children also have an older brother who we will not name here for privacy reasons.
Catherine’s mother Lindsey Hoggle has a Medium.com account and she has written many pieces about her daughter and her grandchildren. Lindsey says that Catherine is the eldest of four siblings and that she had struggled with mental health issues since middle school. Lindsey had separated from Catherine’s father Randy Hoggle.
According to media reports, Catherine was bright, but began to struggle with school work in middle school. She was diagnosed with a learning disability – problems with “executive functions” such as planning and organization. Then came doctors’ concerns about mood and bipolar disorder.
After high school, Catherine enrolled at a community college and, by the fall of 2007, had started waiting tables at the Greene Turtle, a Germantown, Md., sports bar, where she fell in love with a bouncer named Troy Turner. “It was a like a fairy tale,” she’d later say.
In the fall of 2008, Catherine gave birth to their first child, a son, and the family began a life in Harrisonburg, Va., with Troy starting a career selling timeshares. To give the young couple a break, Lindsey planned to watch the baby for two days. As Lindsey was leaving with her grandson, Catherine stuffed index cards into her mom’s back pocket: How to mix the formula, when to feed him, a reminder to keep pillows out of the crib.
Troy has said that around this time, Catherine started to become paranoid that someone was trying to break up their family. He thought she may have been suffering from postpartum depression. Catherine’s behavior in this regard did improve, so Troy did not worry further at this point.
As the years went on though, Catherine’s mental health worsened. Her family have said that she seemed to seek control by withholding basic information.
“Which 7-Eleven did you go to?” Troy asked one day. “The one in Germantown,” Catherine answered, knowing there were several in the area. “Which one?” “I already told you.”
In 2013, Catherine became convinced that Troy’s sister was breaking into their apartment. Catherine filed court papers claiming his sister had stolen a $12.09 pack of toddler undershirts and a $30 plastic toy with a lion image. “Matches our other yellow lion walker from the other kids,” Catherine wrote. “Except the missing one didn’t have a scratch on the eye from where the paint had worn from years of wear and tear and love.”
Catherine also alleged that Troy’s sister was following her. She tried to get a restraining order. “We go to the grocery store, she shows up there. We start going to a different grocery store, she starts showing up there,” Catherine told Montgomery County Judge Barry Hamilton. “I go to take my kids to the pediatrician, she shows up there. I go to my mom’s house, she shows up there.”
The judge declined Catherine’s request for the restraining order.
Troy has said that he encouraged Catherine to get professional help and to take her medication. He has said that he was not sure that she did either of those. One day when they were in their SUV, Catherine began whispering and looking around as if their vehicle had been bugged. Troy pulled over and told her that nobody could hear them. “No one’s listening to us. We’re boring,” he said.
He tried to calm her down by using slight humor, but he was becoming increasingly worried about his partner.
On August 13, 2013, when Jacob was around 13 months old, Catherine was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She was still nursing the baby, so she pumped milk and sent it to her mother, who would then feed Jacob.
On Christmas Eve in 2013, Catherine was admitted to the Shephard Pratt Psychiatric Hospital in Maryland. Catherine did not agree to being treated so was admitted involuntarily. According to Lindsey, Catherine was handcuffed in front of her children before being escorted to the facility.
Troy has spoken about what he told the children regarding their mother’s health. He had once gone to the hospital to be treated for his asthma and he said “Do you remember when Daddy had to stay in the hospital for two days? That’s what Mommy is doing. She just has to stay a little longer.”
After the Christmas Eve incident, Catherine transitioned from the psychiatric hospital, to a day hospital, to a residential facility, to an outpatient program. This took place over the period of nine months, to September 2014 (just prior to the children’ s disappearance).
During this period, Catherine was placed on a variety of different medications and was diagnosed with multiple conditions – Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder and other serious mental illnesses.
Catherine suffered many side effects from the medication changes including drooling, slurred speech, hand tremors, GI issues and drowsiness. Lindsey has said that in many cases, these side effects were worse than Catherine’s actual mental illness.
A quote from Lindsey’s Medium article:
After so many attempts, I dubbed these horrid psychotropic meds — “open heart surgery with a chain saw.”
By Summer 2014, Catherine was at home and seemed to be doing much better. Doctors suggested that another adult be present when Catherine was with the children – apparently not due to any harm risk, but due to the sedative effects of her medications. Lindsey has said that she saw this effect multiple times and expressed concern about Catherine being able to react in an emergency such as a fire.
Randy has said that after her treatment, Catherine appeared to return to being the attentive parent that she had previously been. She would read books to the kids and ask them why they thought the story was funny or what it really meant. Randy did also say though that he did notice Catherine’s fatigue and disconnection. Sometimes she would open a book and stare at it, leaving the children to turn the pages and try to figure out the story for themselves.
Troy has said that at that point, he did not believe Catherine would intentionally hurt the children. He knew though that her mental illness could be unpredictable and he wanted to avoid leaving her along for the toddlers. He along with family members – Lindsey, Randy, Troy’s mother, his sister, Catherine’s siblings, Troy’s friends and a babysitter – all worked together to ensure that another adult was around to help Catherine with the children.
The care of the children generally took place at two locations – Troy and Catherine’s apartment, and Lindsey’s home.
As Lindsey was one of the primary caregivers, she has spoken about the days leading up to the disappearance of the children. She has said that she made plans for a college friend to visit for the weekend of September 5-7 (Friday to Sunday) 2014. She told Catherine (and presumably Troy) that she would be unable to help with the children for that period of time and offered to help coordinate alternative carers for them.
Lindsey picked up her friend Karen on the Friday and they spent time together. Lindsey texted Catherine on Saturday and said that she wanted to take Karen to the oldest grandchild’s soccer game the following day. She responded negatively, saying “Isn’t it early to be waking up on a Sunday. Wouldn’t you rather sleep in and go to church and show her off there?’
On Sunday September 7, Lindsey texted her ex-husband Randy to ask about the Hoggle children.
At 2:26 PM, I text Catherine’s dad to ask “Where are babies today?
At 3:03 PM, he texts back: “At your house”
At 3:04 PM, I text back: “With whom?”, “I wasn’t aware of those plans. I am getting crabs tonight.” then “There is other food for babies.”
Lindsey and her friend Karen headed back to her home to help care for the children. They arrived back at 6pm. When Lindsey walked in, Catherine was not there and Lindsey said there was an odd feeling in the home. Randy and Lindsey had a conversation and Lindsey soon discovered that Catherine had taken his car to get pizza, and she had taken Jacob with her. This was against the care protocols that had been put in place with her family.
Randy said that at about 4pm, Catherine told her father she had a coupon for a pizza and asked to borrow his car to pick it up. Jacob was clinging to her. “Let me just take him,” Catherine said.
The family went driving and looking for Catherine after she did not return. She arrived back at the home at 7.20pm, without Jacob. When she was asked where the child was, Catherine said he was at a sleepover at a friend’s house. She also said that she had taken quite a while to return to the home as she had difficulty getting a pizza Lindsey has said that she expressed her unhappiness at the situation as Catherine was not meant to be driving and that she believed 2-year-old Jacob was too young for an overnight sleepover.
During all of this commotion, Karen (the friend) had purchased a princess dress for Sarah. Sarah tried it on and Lindsey took a photo of her. Catherine asked to see the phone and she immediately deleted the photo.
By 8.30pm, Lindsey was becoming increasingly unsettled with the evening’s events. Randy was asked to take Catherine, Sarah and the oldest grandchild back to their apartment. He was also asked to pick up Jacob from his sleepover. He did drop the others to the apartment, but it doesn’t seem from all reports that Jacob returned home that night.
These are some quotes from media articles that confirm that Jacob was not seen that night:
Troy arrived from work about midnight. He noticed that Jacob wasn’t in his toddler bed in the master bedroom. That wasn’t unusual. The little boy often got up and crawled into bed with a sibling. Troy went to sleep.
“No one calls me when she comes back without my child,” Troy said. “Had I received that call, then Sarah would still be with us, because the second I got that call, I would have called the police.”
Instead, he said he got home on the later side and decided not to wake the kids with a good night kiss.
“I say this with great regret,” he says, “it’s the one that I didn’t go in, when I got back later, to kiss my kids and you know, kneel by the bed.”
“I was tired and perhaps it was selfish,” he added. “I said, if I wake them up, then I’m up too, so I went to sleep.”
Randy stayed the night at the apartment and left early the next morning. Troy’s oldest son woke him up and was eager to get to school. This is when Troy realised that Catherine, Sarah and Jacob were not in the home.
Troy got the oldest son ready for school and put him on the school bus, trying not to alarm him. He called Lindsey at 8.03am and he asked her where everybody was. Lindsey told him to call 911.
He then called 911. He told the operator that Catherine and the two children were missing, along with the family’s vehicle. While he was on the phone, Catherine drove up to their apartment. Troy told the 911 operator to wait while he spoke to her.
“I got up early so you could sleep in,” she said. “I took Sarah and Jacob to a day care that is having a trial program.” She told Troy the day care was in Germantown and that he might want to take a tour when they picked up the children.
Troy was upset that she had taken the toddlers without telling him, but her story rang true. Troy went back to the 911 operator and said that the incident had been a false alarm.
Troy then drove Catherine to her treatment program. Lindsey called Catherine at 1.40pm to enquire about the children. Catherine told her that she couldn’t talk because it was her ‘last day at group therapy.’ Catherine would later deny saying this, but Lindsey had written it down in a journal that she kept. Troy picked her up at 2pm and said that he wanted to go with her to pick up the children. Catherine told Troy that she could not remember the name of the day-care centre, but that she could direct him how to get there.
As they drove, Catherine became increasingly evasive. Lindsey was also calling and texting her daughter, trying to get information. Catherine did not divulge anything to her either.
Lindsey asked to pick up the oldest child from the bus, but Troy and Catherine were closer so they got him. Lindsey asked Troy to pull over and she drove to meet them in Rockville, Maryland. Lindsey went to their vehicle and removed the child as she was concerned for his safety. This made Catherine furious. She got into Lindsey’s car and sat next to her son in the back seat. Catherine told Lindsey that she was going with her. Lindsey said that was fine, but they were taking the child to her home until they could locate Sarah and Jacob.
Catherine got out of the car and said she was going to get her phone. At this point, Lindsey drove away with the child in the car. Catherine began calling and texting on both her phone and Troy’s phone, requesting that Lindsey return the child. She alleged that Lindsey was kidnapping him. Lindsey said that as soon as Catherine could produce Sarah and Jacob, she would return the oldest child.
By this point, Troy was demanding that Catherine tell him where the children were. “Where are my kids?” he demanded. “Where are my kids?”
Troy told Catherine that they were going to the police. Catherine requested that they stop first at a Chick Fil A so that she could get a soda as she needed to take her medication. Some reports say that she needed to take caffeine with her medication, so Troy allowed her to stop. The police station was apparently right next to the restaurant. When the car stopped, Catherine took off.
Troy texted Lindsey and said ‘she’s gone.’ They both went to the police station to explain the situation.
The search for Catherine then went on for four days.
This is part of the press release issued at the time by the Montgomery PD:
At approximately 11:00 a.m. on September 8, Troy dropped Catherine off at a daily medical appointment. At approximately 2:00 p.m., Troy picked up Catherine from her appointment and expressed to her that he wanted to pick up Sarah and Jacob. Catherine was not forthcoming with information about the children’s whereabouts so Troy decided that they would go to the 5th District police station to ask for assistance. Before going to the police station, Troy and Catherine stopped at a restaurant near the Germantown Transit Center (located at 19945 Aircraft Drive). Unbeknownst to Troy, Catherine left the restaurant and he then contacted police. A K9 bloodhound track indicated that Catherine had exited the restaurant and walked to the Germantown Transit Center.
Catherine Hoggle is described as a white female, 5’06” tall, 160 pounds, with brown eyes and shoulder length black hair. She was last seen wearing blue jeans and a black tank top. Sarah is described as a biracial female, 3’6? tall, 40 pounds, with brown eyes and medium length brown hair. Jacob Hoggle is described as a biracial male, 3’0” tall, weighs 25 pounds, with brown eyes and a curly, blond afro.
Investigators believe that it is possible that a friend or someone known to Catherine may be watching the children and not realize that family members and police do not know the children’s whereabouts.
Anyone with information about the whereabouts of Catherine and/or her children is asked to immediately call 9-1-1.
Lindsey has said that while they were being questioned by police, Troy told them that Catherine had been diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia. Lindsey told them that she believed Catherine had actually been diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder.
On September 11, 2014, Randy was asked by authorities to make a public plea for her to return with the children. He was said to be the closest to her, which is why he made the plea.
According to MissingKids.org, Catherine was found four days later, wandering the streets of Germantown, Maryland.
Police questioned her for hours. They then brought Troy into the same room.
“What are you doing here?” Catherine asked when he walked in. She seemed relaxed. Nothing like the year before, when Catherine thought the car was bugged or someone was breaking into their apartment.
“I’m here, hopefully, to find out where my kids are, and I’m here to see you, too,” Troy remembers saying.
Troy asked Catherine the same questions that the detectives had asked – where are the children? Catherine mentioned that she had left them with a woman named Erin, but would not give any further information.
On September 10, 2014, CCTV of Catherine at the Chick Fil A was discovered and authorities learned more about her movements.
This info about Catherine’s whereabouts is from Lindsey’s Medium article:
Additional details were that she had walked to a restaurant next to Chick-Fil-A, borrowed the host’s cell phone and called a childhood friend who lived in the area. She had then been caught on camera in a building across from Chick-Fil-A, just moments after she disappeared and then at 4:30 AM. She also checked voice mail from this location (without her cell phone) four times that evening.
Catherine was taken to a psychiatric hospital where she was evaluated to determine if she could participate in court proceedings. There is an article from the Moultrie Observer in November 2014 that outlines how the family begged her for information:
“I’m asking you as a mother,” Lindsey implored her daughter earlier this month. “Tell us where the children are.”
“They’re fine, Dad,” Catherine recently told Randy. “I promise you they’re alive.” He asked her to be specific. “I can’t talk about that where I am,” she said.
That same month, Catherine told authorities that she wanted to lead police to the children. Troy and Lindsey went to court on that day.
Catherine was brought in, hands cuffed behind her back, a blank expression on her face. Lindsey tried to make eye contact, but Catherine only looked down. State’s Attorney John McCarthy asked the judge to let Catherine leave for a few hours with the police. But her attorney, David Felsen, said Catherine had just told him that she didn’t want to talk to the police or go anywhere with them. Judge Eugene Wolfe denied the request. As the hearing ended, Lindsey walked toward Catherine. She wanted to tell her something: You are my daughter, and I love you. A bailiff stepped between them. But it didn’t matter. Catherine had turned away and was walking out.
The search for Sarah and Jacob was carried out using helicopters, dogs and trained grid searchers.
Lindsey looked at phone and technology records and discovered that at 2pm on the day that the children were discovered to be missing, a call from CCHR came into her house. She googled and found that stands for ‘Citizens Commission on Human Rights” — an spinoff organization of Scientology.
Lindsey said they told law enforcement about this call but could never link it to the disappearance of the children.
In 2014, Catherine was charged with three misdemeanors: parental abduction, neglect and hindering or obstructing an investigation.
She was deemed incompetent to withstand trial and had been undergoing treatment at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital, the state psychiatric hospital. Prosecutors said they believed that Catherine was faking her mental illness to avoid trial.
In September 2017, Catherine was indicted in two courts of murder.
The murder charges may have been prompted by a legal deadline. Catherine’s previous misdemeanor charges all carry three-year limits on how long a defendant can be considered mentally unfit for trial.
After these charges were laid, Troy spoke to the media and said that he believed Catherine had murdered the children.
“Catherine Hoggle Murdered my children and I hope Sarah and Jacob get the justice they deserve,” he said at the time. “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.”
He also spoke about what he had told his oldest child regarding the situation.
“I told him, ‘They may never come home, you understand that?’ ” Troy said. “I haven’t outright said they died, but he’s come to me and said, ‘Daddy, I know there’s a good chance they’re with God.’ I said, ‘Yes, there is.’ He said, ‘Even if they’re dead, they’re okay.’ And he hugged me.”
“There’s times when I feel like I have to remind him, ‘I’m daddy,’ I have to be strong for him,” Troy said. “I let him know that he doesn’t have to be strong for me.”
“My job is to find my kids,” Troy said, “and bring them home.”
Lindsey has said that she spoke on the phone to Catherine daily following the disappearance of the children. Catherine was allowed to use the phone for 20 minutes, every 2 hours.)
She never ONCE gave even a slight bit of information, nor slipped up and disclosed any bit of evidence about the children being dead. It is a paradox of sorts that even with mental illness, she could keep a secret for so long.
After Sarah was indicted on the murder charges, a judge ruled she was incompetent to stand trial and imposed continuing court-ordered treatment. Under state law, authorities had five years to restore her competency before the charges must be dismissed.
In 2022, a Montgomery County judge dropped the charges against her, citing the five-year time limit. Catherine was ordered to remain involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment because she was still considered a danger to herself or others.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said then that if she’s deemed no longer a threat and released, he was prepared to charge her again with murder.
Catherine was voluntarily committed at Clifton T Perkins Hospital.
The Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center (CTPHC) is a 289-bed secure psychiatric hospital in Jessup, Maryland. It is the forensic hospital providing forensic psychiatric behavioral health care, with areas offering maximum, medium, and minimum security.
According to Lindsey, Catherine assumed a civil commitment which allowed her to receive therapy outside of her medication regiment. Therapy for Perkins patients with criminal charges is not allowed.
In 2024, Troy spoke to the media on the ten-year anniversary of the children’s disappearances:
“I say this, not negating the support that we’ve had or the work that people have put into it,” he said. “We realize that, we appreciate that, but it just feels like no one is helping us. It feels like no one who is in a position to help is willing to help, and it’s just frustrating.”
“If I find my children in the woods somewhere buried, that’s not closure,” he said. “My kids aren’t here. That hole just gets bigger. There’s no happy ending here, no matter what happened, no matter what you want to believe.”
“In the end, reality is, what I’ll probably find is what’s unfortunately left of them, their bodies,” Troy said. “It’s a terrible thing to know. But there’s people who even ask, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you never found them? At least you can kind of hang on to hope.’ No, because it’s not about me. It’s about them and they deserve better than this.”
“For Catherine, if I had anything to say to her, it would just be: ‘Just tell the truth,’ because that’s the whole thing … you have someone who has the key to all this, who knows the answers, and she just won’t say it,” Troy said.
“I’ve never, ever denied that Catherine is mentally ill,” he said. “In fact, I’ve said the opposite. I tried to get her help. But when you look at the system, it’s not doing anyone justice, including Catherine Hoggle at this point.”
In June 2025, Catherine was discharged from Perkins to a group home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
On 1 August 2025, Catherine was re-charged with two courts of murder. She was held without bail for 96 days at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, before she was transferred back to Perkins on November 5, 2025.
A competency hearing was held for Catherine on December 8 and 9, 2025. The point of this hearing was to determine if she was/is:
1 – Competent to stand trial
2 – Dangerous to herself or others
3 – Restorable
During the hearing, it was revealed that Catherine was allowed to have an iPad and that she had been communicating with Troy’s new partner, a woman named Stephanie.
This info about that is from NBC Washington:
Several people said on the stand that it’s a very odd relationship, since Hoggle is facing charges of killing two of her and Turner’s children.
Several people said Hoggle realizes it’s an odd relationship, but both sides are getting something out of the relationship. News4 has not learned Stephanie’s last name, but according to testimony, there are hopes that perhaps Stephanie eventually will learn from Hoggle what has happened to the children.
Fox 5 DC reported this information after the hearing:
Prosecutors say they have drawings that were found with Catherine Hoggle when she was first arrested, days after she went into hiding after her children went missing. One of the drawings shows stick figures and a trash can.
Catherine is also reported to have told a person she was in a counseling session with around that time that she had strangled her kids.
On December 10, 2025, Catherine was deemed competent to stand trial for the murders of her children. A judge tentatively scheduled a hearing for Dec. 23, as attorneys and the judge determine when trial dates will be scheduled.
Fox 5 have reported that they expect the trial to take place in 2026.
SOURCE LIST
https://www2.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcgportalapps/Press_Detail_Pol.aspx?Item_ID=29432
https://people.com/crime/troy-turner-speaks-missing-kids-sarah-jacob-hoggle