Catherine Hoggle, the 27-year-old Montgomery County woman who had been missing for days along with two of her children, was questioned on-and-off for more than 16 hours by detectives Saturday but provided no solid information about what has happened to 2-year-old Jacob and 3-year-old Sarah.
At times, Hoggle indicated that the children were unharmed, indoors and with someone. The “kids are safe,” she told detectives.
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But she didn’t offer anything specific, and detectives were unable to verify the vague statements she was providing, police said.
“Our interest is the safety of the children,” Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said Saturday. “That’s the information we are most interested in.”
Hoggle, who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, had been the subject of an intense police search since Monday. Images of her and her children had been widely distributed in media reports and on missing-persons fliers posted by friends, family and the children’s father, who is Hoggle’s longtime boyfriend.
Late Friday, a resident recognized Hoggle walking along a street in Germantown and called his girlfriend, who called 911, police said. When officers arrived, she tried to flee and was apprehended. Officers found that she had been carrying one of the missing-persons fliers, which had photographs of her and the two children. She was wearing the same clothes she had been wearing when she went missing on Monday, police said.
The development late Friday night that Hoggle had been found brought hope to family members and police that she would lead them to the children. But as Saturday dragged on, and different detectives questioned her, that hope faded.
At one point, detectives let the children’s father, Troy Turner, speak to Hoggle, hoping that would produce answers. He begged her to tell him where the children were.
“She really didn’t have much to say to me,” Turner recalled afterward.
Hoggle told him that the children were safe but wouldn’t say more, Turner said.
He said he thinks that Hoggle knows where their children are but won’t say. “I can’t even describe what it feels like,” Turner said Saturday afternoon.
Until Sept. 7, Turner, Hoggle and their three children were living in an apartment in Clarksburg. He helped take her to medical appointments and would remind her to take her medication. When healthy, Hoggle was well known among friends and family members as being an attentive, caring mother.
Turner said that after seeing Hoggle in custody, it seemed clear that she had recently stopped taking medication. He said he hopes that she will resume her medication and that it will help her to reveal what she knows about the children’s location.
“I hope that alters her reality back to normal,” Turner said.
By late Saturday afternoon, detectives appeared to have run out of questions for Hoggle. Later in the day, they took her to the county jail. Several days ago, they had obtained a warrant charging her with two counts of child neglect.
In the warrant, detectives said that Hoggle’s actions had put the children in danger.
Detectives wrote that they believed she “engaged in conduct that created a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury to” the children, according to court records.
In the warrant, detectives said there had been “no confirmed contact” with Jacob since 4 p.m. Sept. 7 and “no confirmed contact” with Sarah since 9:30 p.m. that day. Family members didn’t immediately know that Jacob was missing, because Hoggle had told them he was at a sleepover at a friend’s house, which turned out to be false. The exact last known whereabouts of Sarah are unclear from the warrant — she may have slept in the family apartment and was taken somewhere early the next morning, according to the warrant.
That day, Monday, Hoggle told Turner she had taken Sarah and Jacob to a trial day at a day-care center. As the day went on, she couldn’t tell Turner specifically where the day-care center was. He said they should go to the police. On the way there, she asked to stop at a Chick-fil-A so she could get something to drink. She managed to slip out the back door.
Detectives would later learn that Jacob had never gone to the friend’s house. They also were able to confirm that Hoggle spent Monday night inside a building near the Chick-fil-A, based on video surveillance.
On Saturday, police also charged Hoggle with obstruction and hindering.
Despite the lengthy questioning of Hoggle on Saturday, police appeared to be no closer to finding the children or learning what happened to them. But detectives were trying to operate as if they were alive. Officials said that such urgency was in the children’s best interest.
“I still have some hope,” said Assistant Police Chief Russell Hamill.
But in an ominous sign, search teams on Saturday were using dogs trained to sniff cadavers, police said. Search teams planned to use those dogs on Sunday as well.
When Hoggle was apprehended late Friday, she appeared disheveled, and police say they believe she had spent previous days and nights on the streets. She also appeared to have cut her hair, police said.
While Hoggle was being questioned, detectives tried to make her feel comfortable by letting her sit on a sofa. They also brought in food from McDonald’s.
Days earlier, during a news conference to draw attention to the search, police said Hoggle likes to go to McDonald’s almost every day.
