On September 8, 2014, Troy Turner's world was shattered when he reported his girlfriend, Catherine Hoggle, and their two youngest children, Sarah and Jacob, missing. Catherine initially returned, claiming she had dropped the children off at a new daycare, but her erratic behavior soon raised alarms. As the day unfolded, she led Troy on a wild goose chase, directing him to multiple locations where the children were not found. In a chilling move, she slipped away from a Chik-fil-A, disappearing for four days.
Catherine was eventually arrested and charged with neglect and hindering an investigation. Despite her later indictment for murder, she was deemed incompetent to stand trial due to her history of paranoid schizophrenia. The murder charges were dropped, but Catherine remains committed to a psychiatric hospital, refusing to reveal any information about the children's whereabouts.
Ten years on, the mystery of Sarah and Jacob's disappearance continues to haunt their family and community. Their father, Troy Turner, has never given up hope, dedicating his life to finding his children. Join me as I delve into the complex and heartbreaking case of the Hoggle children, exploring the twists and turns of the investigation and the ongoing quest for justice. Will the truth behind their disappearance ever be revealed, or will it remain a haunting enigma forever?
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/30/hoggle-children-disappearance-competency-trial/
https://people.com/crime/troy-turner-speaks-missing-kids-sarah-jacob-hoggle/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/30/hoggle-children-disappearance-competency-trial/
https://medium.com/missing-sarah-jacob-hoggle/september-7-2014-6dabd9669224
Follow me here:
â–º YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SerialNapper/
â–º Twitter - https://twitter.com/serial_napper
â–º Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/serialnappernik/
â–º Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerialNapper/
â–º TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@serialnappernik
I will be in London at CrimeCon UK and I would love to meet you! Use my discount code NAPPER10 for 10% off the ticket price! Visit https://www.crimecon.co.uk/
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Mood.com and use my code SERIALNAPPER to save 20% off your first order. https://mood.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
[00:00:00] The case featured in this episode has been researched using police records, court documents,
[00:00:05] witness statements and the news. Listener discretion is advised. All parties mentioned
[00:00:11] our innocent until proven guilty in all opinions are my own. Hey everyone, my name is Nikki Young
[00:00:37] and this is Serial Napper, the True Crime Podcast for an apps. I'm back with another True Crime
[00:00:43] story too, while you to sleep or perhaps even nightmares. On September 8, 2014, Troy Turner
[00:00:50] walked into a police station in Maryland to report that his girlfriend, Katherine Hoggle and
[00:00:56] their youngest children were missing. He claimed that he had a woken in their apartment that
[00:01:01] morning to find them gone. Only their eldest son remained at their home. It was alarming,
[00:01:07] but Troy was relieved when just a few hours later, Katherine returned to explain that
[00:01:13] she had actually dropped three-year-old Sarah and two-year-old Jacob off at a new daycare center.
[00:01:19] Panic once again said in, when it was time to head out in their minivan to pick up the children
[00:01:24] and Katherine seemed to be giving him the wrong directions. Katherine, who had a history of
[00:01:30] mental illness, directed Troy to several different locations, but the children they'd brought
[00:01:36] there. Finally, she asked if they could stop at a Chick-fil-A for a drink which they did,
[00:01:43] but when Katherine walked inside the restaurant, she slipped out the back door and disappeared
[00:01:48] for four days. During that time, Troy had no idea where his two smallest children and his girlfriend
[00:01:55] could be. However, Katherine was picked up by the police after those four days and arrested on
[00:02:01] charges of neglect and hindering an investigation. She was not cooperative in providing any details
[00:02:08] of Sarah and Jacob's wearabouts. She would later have her charges upgraded to murder,
[00:02:14] though those charges would be dropped when she was committed to a state psychiatric hospital.
[00:02:20] It has been 10 years since Sarah and Jacob Hogel went missing, and the key to their wearabouts lies
[00:02:27] within their mother, Katherine, who continues to refuse to provide any information that could
[00:02:33] lead to finding them. So, dim the lights, put your phone down and listen to the story of Sarah
[00:02:40] and Jacob Hogel, an a decade long search to find out what happened to these children
[00:02:44] and how much their mother really knows. So let's jump right in.
[00:02:50] Katherine Hogel struggled with mental illness began at a fairly early age. Born to her parents
[00:02:57] Lindsey and Randy Hogel, she was the eldest of four and she was known to be really smart.
[00:03:04] At one point, her IQ was tested at 135, which is considered to be high. Despite this,
[00:03:11] her struggles with completing her classwork began when she was in middle school. Her executive
[00:03:16] function issues caused her to struggle with planning and organization, and she was diagnosed with
[00:03:22] a learning disability, but it was more than that. Her parents noticed that she began to have
[00:03:28] extreme mood swings much more severe than the ones typically experienced by teenagers. The
[00:03:34] doctors thought that she could have bipolar disorder. This would be just the beginning of her
[00:03:40] long battle with mental illness. Katherine graduated from high school, enrolled in a community
[00:03:46] college and then found herself a job working as a waitress at a local sports bar called the Green
[00:03:52] Turtle. This is where she met Troy Turner, a balancer at the bar. The pair quickly fell in love,
[00:04:00] a romance that Katherine at one point described as like a fairy tale. Their love was real
[00:04:07] but not without difficulties. Katherine continued to struggle with severe mental illness over the
[00:04:13] years that would require strong medication and bouts of hospitalization, eventually leading to
[00:04:20] a diagnosis of schizophrenia. In between those difficult moments, there were times of joy as they
[00:04:28] grew their family together in a small apartment located in Clarksburg, Maryland. Their first
[00:04:34] child was a boy, born in the fall of 2008. We won't be naming him here. He's now a teenager and
[00:04:41] the poor boy has been through so much trauma. The only thing that he deserves is answers, not added
[00:04:47] unnecessary attention. Being a first-time mom and experiencing all of the physical and mental
[00:04:53] changes that come with motherhood was particularly difficult for Katherine. Troy worked full-time
[00:04:59] job selling time shares, which left Katherine to care for the baby. But with her mental health issues,
[00:05:07] it was far too much for her to handle all on her own. Luckily for Katherine, her family, especially
[00:05:13] her mother Lindsay, really stepped up to assist her with the new family taking the baby for two days
[00:05:19] each week so that Katherine could have a moment to breathe. But everyone noticed how Katherine was acting
[00:05:26] unusual, perhaps a little bit overtentive. On one occasion, when Lindsay was watching her new
[00:05:33] grandson, Katherine shoved an index card into her back pocket that had very specific instructions
[00:05:40] that she was to follow, including exactly how she was to mix the baby formula and the feeding
[00:05:46] schedule that she needed to follow, along with reminders not to have any pillows or stuffies in the
[00:05:56] same space in a different time. One where my bassinet was overflowing with blankets, pillows and toys,
[00:06:03] which is now not advised by medical professionals due to being a hazard for suffocation or since.
[00:06:10] But I trusted my parents to do their best to watch my children. At the same time, I also wanted
[00:06:15] to make sure that they followed my guidelines. Guidelines that they may not have necessarily had
[00:06:21] back then when they were raising me. However, Katherine's over attentiveness, it soon turned to Paranoia.
[00:06:29] According to her boyfriend Troy, Katherine became obsessively worried that people were trying to
[00:06:35] destroy their family to break them up to keep them apart. At the time, he brushed it off as postpartum
[00:06:42] depression, but things only became worse when they had their second child. A little girl named Sarah
[00:06:49] who was born in 2010. All of the worry, stress and paranoia from the first pregnancy,
[00:06:55] it seemed to double. Katherine's family rallied together to step in and help as much as possible,
[00:07:02] taking care of the babies for Katherine and providing her with any support that they could.
[00:07:07] Just two years after Sarah was born, Katherine and Troy's family was completed with the birth
[00:07:13] of a little boy named Jacob in 2012. The apartment that they were living in was now much too small,
[00:07:20] so they moved into a larger three-bedroom apartment that was located in the family-friendly
[00:07:25] neighborhood of Montgomery. They enjoyed family time at nearby parks and the pool. Meanwhile,
[00:07:32] Katherine's paranoia was about to come to a head. In 2013, Troy alleged that Katherine became obsessed
[00:07:41] with the idea that his sister was breaking into their apartment and stealing things. She claimed that
[00:07:47] his sister had taken a pack of toddler undershirts, valued at about $12, and a $30 toy yellow lion
[00:07:55] walker. Katherine also believed that Troy's sister was following her, watching her,
[00:08:02] to the point that she attempted to file a restraining order against her. She wrote in her request
[00:08:08] quote, We go to the grocery store. She shows up there. We start going to a different grocery store.
[00:08:14] She starts showing up there. I go to take my kids to the pediatrician. She shows up there.
[00:08:21] I go to my mom's house. She shows up there. The restraining order was denied and the police decided
[00:08:27] that there was wasn't enough evidence to pursue charges against Troy's sister with regards to those
[00:08:33] theft allegations. Troy wasn't really sure what to believe. He was stuck between what his girlfriend
[00:08:39] was alleging and his sister who was denying that any of it was true. However, it was soon
[00:08:46] becoming clear that Katherine was imagining things. She was supposed to be taking her medications
[00:08:52] and continuing to see her doctor but as her behavior worsened, it wasn't clear if she was
[00:08:59] continuing to do either of those things. Katherine constantly spoke about being watched,
[00:09:06] followed and listened to, even alleging that their vehicle was bugged. She believed that there were
[00:09:12] people in her circle that were trying to maliciously have her committed to an institution
[00:09:16] and take her children away from her. Troy shared his concerns about Katherine's behavior with
[00:09:23] her family and together they thought that the best course of action would be to seek a court-ordered
[00:09:29] psychiatric evaluation. Katherine was uncooperative, so when the police showed up at the family
[00:09:36] apartment on August 13, 2013 she had to be handcuffed in front of the children and taken to the hospital.
[00:09:44] At the time she was committed, her youngest baby Jacob was still breastfeeding, so she actually
[00:09:50] tried to express milk and then send it to her family in order to keep nourishing her baby.
[00:09:56] Although she was mentally suffering, her love for her children did not waver.
[00:10:02] The hospital couldn't hold her for long, so she would be released back home until her next
[00:10:07] episode when the police would need to be called again to intervene. Eventually, she would be involuntarily
[00:10:14] committed to the Shepherd Pratt Psychiatric Hospital. This is where she was treated for her
[00:10:19] schizophrenia with a whole slew of medications that caused horrible side effects like slurred
[00:10:26] speech and hand tremors. Over the course of about nine months of treatment, she was eventually
[00:10:32] moved to an outpatient program where she could have supervised visits with her children,
[00:10:38] and then eventually she was released back to her family in the summer of 2014.
[00:10:44] According to her family, once she was released, she seemed to be doing a lot better.
[00:10:49] Katherine seemed to understand that, in order to live with her children,
[00:10:53] in order to keep custody of them, she needed to keep her mental illness under control by
[00:10:58] continuing to take her medications consistently and by continuing to go to therapy.
[00:11:04] It was obvious that she wanted to be there for her children. She enjoyed reading them bed time
[00:11:10] books and taking her eldest son to his soccer games, but she would need a lot of help to do it.
[00:11:17] Katherine was on heavy medications to treat her mental illness, so she wasn't supposed to be
[00:11:23] alone with the babies. It wasn't a matter of her not caring for them. Katherine was a very
[00:11:28] loving and attentive mother. Her children were her world, but the medications that she was on
[00:11:34] they could make her drowsy and out of it. Not a great situation when having to care for three little ones.
[00:11:41] Katherine's parents didn't want the state to have to step in and take her children away from
[00:11:46] that would absolutely devastate her. So together they created this plan that included her siblings,
[00:11:53] some of their friends and other babysitters. It was important. It was key. It was crucial
[00:11:59] that Katherine always had another adult around when she was taking care of her children.
[00:12:05] They weren't concerned that she was going to hurt her babies. They were just worried about the
[00:12:09] possible effects of her medications or worst case scenario, her delusions returning.
[00:12:16] The family plan involved a lot of helping hands, a lot of work and a lot of balancing
[00:12:22] between Katherine and Troy's apartment and her mother Lindsay's house, but it worked for the most part.
[00:12:29] One small slip-up from the usual routine would change the course of their lives forever.
[00:12:35] The date was September 7, 2014. Katherine had only been out of the outpatient program for a few
[00:12:42] months at this point. The day started off as any other Sunday. Their eldest son had a soccer
[00:12:49] game and the whole family including Troy, Katherine and their youngest babies Jacob and Sarah
[00:12:54] they went to this game. When the game was over they all went to a park. It was a happy family day
[00:13:02] where the kids had a total blast. One that Troy now says he'll never forget. It will be
[00:13:08] forever ingrained in his mind. Later that evening Troy had to leave for work so he drove Katherine,
[00:13:16] their eldest boy, Sarah and Jacob over to Katherine's mom's Lindsay's house. Lindsay was out that
[00:13:22] night but Katherine's dad Randy was around to watch things. It was around 4pm when Katherine
[00:13:28] mentioned to her dad Randy that she had a coupon for pizza so she asked for permission to take
[00:13:34] his card to go pick it up. She also asked if she could take her son, her little-ass one,
[00:13:39] Jacob, who was basically hanging off of her. Normally the plan was to always have another adult
[00:13:45] with Katherine and her children but Randy thought just this once it should be fine. He had been
[00:13:52] watching his daughter interact with her children the last few months and she seemed to be doing
[00:13:57] so well. So Katherine left to go get the pizza with little to-year-old Jacob in tow.
[00:14:05] Approximately two hours later Katherine's mom Lindsay returned to the home and she and Randy
[00:14:11] discussed how they were worried that Katherine and Jacob hadn't returned yet. How long could it
[00:14:16] possibly take to just go grab some pizza? So Randy jumped in Lindsay's car and he drove around
[00:14:22] the whole town looking for the two but there was no sign of her or Jacob. It wasn't until around
[00:14:29] 720pm that Katherine returned to the house but without Jacob. When her parents asked where Jacob
[00:14:36] was she said she had left him with her downstairs neighbor for a sleepover. It was a plan to sleep
[00:14:42] over that. Apparently she hadn't mentioned until now. Jacob was only two years old at this point.
[00:14:47] Far too young to enjoy a sleepover and this was the first time she had mentioned this supposed
[00:14:53] plans to sleepover. So this immediately raised some alarms but her parents tried not to make the
[00:15:00] situation any more tense in that moment. About an hour later it was decided that Katherine's dad
[00:15:06] Randy would drive her and her two older children back home to their apartment where they would then
[00:15:12] wait for Troy to come home. Later that evening around midnight Troy arrived back to the apartment
[00:15:18] from work. He noticed that Jacob wasn't in his bed but he just assumed that he had crawled into bed
[00:15:25] with his older sibling because it was something that he often liked to do. So he went to
[00:15:30] bed and lay down next to Katherine unaware that anything was wrong until the following morning.
[00:15:36] Troy was awakened by his eldest son who was eager to get to school. At that point he realized
[00:15:44] that Katherine and the two younger children Jacob and Sarah they weren't there. So he tried not to
[00:15:50] panic, he called Katherine's mother to see if maybe she had heard from her but she hadn't.
[00:15:56] And after the prior evening's odd events regarding the pizza and asleepover she told Troy
[00:16:02] that he should probably call 911. Troy didn't want to alarm his eldest son so first he walked
[00:16:08] the boy to the bus stop to drop him off and then he called 911 but that's when Katherine showed
[00:16:15] up in their minivan without either of their children. She told Troy not to worry he didn't need to
[00:16:21] call 911 she just wanted to let him sleep so she had dropped the kids off at a new day care
[00:16:27] because they were having these trial classes. They could go together to pick them up later on.
[00:16:33] So Troy told the 911 operator it was a false alarm. Then Troy took Katherine to her treatment
[00:16:39] program that afternoon. Around 2 p.m. Troy picked Katherine up from treatment and then he waited
[00:16:45] for directions to this supposed day care where she said she had left Sarah and Jacob.
[00:16:51] Again, he tried not to panic as Katherine gave him directions but the directions seem to
[00:16:57] lead him to dead ends. Katherine claims that she couldn't remember the name of the day care
[00:17:03] but she thought that she could give him the directions to find it so they drove around for
[00:17:09] several hours with Katherine directing him to locations where there was no sign of the children
[00:17:15] or a day care. That's when Troy became frustrated and very concerned so he began driving towards
[00:17:22] the police station. Katherine asked if they could first stop but a chick delay so that she could get a
[00:17:28] drink and Troy agreed. He parked in the lot and Katherine walked into the front doors of the
[00:17:34] restaurant and she never walked out. As he waited for her to return, he realized she wasn't going
[00:17:41] to because she had slipped out the back door. It's time for a quick break and a word from tonight
[00:17:47] sponsors. Hang on I'll be back before you know it. Now back to our story. She would disappear
[00:17:58] for four grueling days as her boyfriend, her family and the police all scrambled to find
[00:18:05] her and her two children. Good morning. I'd be remiss if I didn't start
[00:18:11] Lazy and Joe and By thinking Montgomery County Police Department. They have worked tirelessly.
[00:18:17] There are so many people trying to help and we just appreciate that tremendously. I don't
[00:18:24] use the cry so I apologize. Lazy and Joe and By could I really am saying this for my daughter
[00:18:31] and this is a plea to my daughter to come home and have help. Many people deal with mental illness,
[00:18:41] many families deal with mental illness. It's always a judgment about medication and
[00:18:48] the delicate balance of medication being taken. We know she's probably not been on medication
[00:18:53] for two weeks and thus we know Katherine this is not you and this is not who you're about and what
[00:18:58] you do. You were the first to four kids to give me a chance to be soccer coach.
[00:19:06] Probably it was never good at it but certainly did my best. You and Troy have given me a chance to
[00:19:14] have on the soccer team. Next week we're going to work on going toward the right goal
[00:19:21] but we want Sarah and Jacob to have those same kind of opportunities. The first kids,
[00:19:26] the first homecoming, the last prom and a full life and we want you to do that as well.
[00:19:33] Everyone here is committed to if you just come and get help, we'll all help you.
[00:19:39] And for that I just want to say please come home. We miss you and we miss the kids.
[00:19:45] There was no sign of any of them. Then on the fourth day of the search the police apprehended
[00:19:51] Katherine and she was found wandering the streets without her children. When they took her down
[00:19:56] to the station to question her about the whereabouts a little Sarah and Jacob,
[00:20:01] she flat out refused to give them any information. They called Katherine's family and her boyfriend
[00:20:08] Troy to give them the update. She had been found safe but the children they were still missing
[00:20:13] and she wasn't telling them where they were. Investigators thought that maybe Troy could get
[00:20:18] information from her so they asked him to speak with her in the interrogation room. Now according
[00:20:24] to Troy, when you went in there Katherine seemed incredibly calm, especially considering the
[00:20:29] circumstances. Much more calm than she had been in recent weeks. Troy asked her point blank where
[00:20:37] the children were and the only new details that she was willing to provide was that she had
[00:20:42] left them with some mystery woman named Erin. No one knew who Erin was and Katherine,
[00:20:48] she wasn't giving anything more than this name. To her parents, she assured them that the
[00:20:54] children were safe it was all a part of the plan but she couldn't tell them anything else.
[00:21:00] No one knew whether she was being truthful or not, whether the kids were safe with a woman
[00:21:06] named Erin or if Katherine had done the unthinkable and hurt her babies. Because she wasn't
[00:21:13] cooperating, she was charged with abduction, neglect and hindering a police investigation to find
[00:21:19] the missing children. However her mental state was questionable. Katherine would be held in
[00:21:25] the Maryland jail for 11 days without any medication or the opportunity to speak with a psychiatrist.
[00:21:33] This is a young woman who suffered with severe mental issues and she was on a very strong
[00:21:39] medication that helped to keep her thoughts straight. Her children were now missing, she was the
[00:21:45] only one who held the details to find them and while she wasn't speaking, she would have been going
[00:21:51] through intense withdrawal from not taking her meds on top of experiencing moments of the psychosis.
[00:21:58] Unfortunately, the procedure for dealing with suspects who suffer from mental illness is that they
[00:22:04] will be transferred to a psychiatric facility but within 14 days. Two weeks is an awful long time for
[00:22:13] someone who requires serious intervention to go with other medications. We'll never know now if
[00:22:19] Katherine had access to her meds, whether or not she may have been in a better position to think
[00:22:24] clearly about the situation but I thought it was important to know. Eventually, she would be
[00:22:29] transferred to a maximum security psychiatric hospital where doctors would need to determine whether or not
[00:22:35] she was mentally competent enough to stand trial. During that time, she gave no specific
[00:22:41] information regarding the children's wearabouts. However, one evaluation indicated that she was
[00:22:48] not mentally competent to understand her surroundings or what was happening. On November 6, 2014,
[00:22:55] almost two months after the children vanished. A court hearing was held for the very first time in
[00:23:01] person. It was highly emotional, especially when it was revealed that Katherine had told several
[00:23:07] family members over the phone that she had wanted to take investigators to wear the children were.
[00:23:14] While psychiatric patients aren't typically allowed to ever leave the hospital grounds for any reason,
[00:23:19] the state attorney petitioned the judge to give Katherine permission to go with the police in a car
[00:23:24] and direct them to wear the children were, especially because she kept claiming that the kids
[00:23:29] were still alive so the matter was urgent. Maybe they could be found and saved.
[00:23:36] Her family hoped that the judge would agree to this request, but Katherine's own attorney thought
[00:23:42] against it. He reminded the court that Katherine had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia
[00:23:48] and she had only recently been suffering from psychosis. He also stated that Katherine told
[00:23:55] him directly that she changed her mind and she didn't want to go with the detectives anymore.
[00:24:00] To the disappointment of many, the judge denied the prosecutors' request to allow Katherine
[00:24:06] to leave the hospital to go with the police to lead them to her children. He also ordered
[00:24:12] the police to not conduct any further interviews with her until she had been declared
[00:24:17] mentally competent. It was frustrating, defeating, but the search for little Sarah and Jacob Hoggle continued.
[00:24:26] Police dogs, altering vehicles and horses were used to complete a thorough investigation,
[00:24:32] a thorough search for any and everywhere that they could think to look. There wasn't really much
[00:24:39] to go on though, unfortunately. They had a lot of tips come in, but nothing really paned out.
[00:24:44] However early on in the investigation, police found something that they thought could be
[00:24:50] evidence. They thought it could be a tip. It was possible that Katherine had changed
[00:24:56] two year old Jacob's appearance. The adorable little boy was known for his curly blonde hair,
[00:25:03] but some of his hair had been found in Troy's hair trimmer back at the apartment days after
[00:25:08] disappearance. Katherine may have shade the little boy's head, which would have drastically changed
[00:25:15] his appearance and made it much more difficult for people to immediately recognize the child.
[00:25:21] Did she also change little Sarah's appearance? Anything was possible. Katherine continued to insist
[00:25:29] that her children were alive, but as time passed on with no solid leads, no eye sightings,
[00:25:36] witnesses, the police began to wonder how truthful her statements really were. In April 2015,
[00:25:44] July in September of 2015 and again in June 2016, court hearings were held a determined weather
[00:25:50] Katherine was competent to stand trial. And each time she was found not to be. She was coming
[00:25:56] up on three years of being held in an institution while waiting to be tried for her crimes.
[00:26:01] And this was a problem for the prosecution because Marilyn, they have a law that states a person
[00:26:08] who has been found mentally incompetent and who is facing misdemeanor charges,
[00:26:12] they could only be held for a maximum of three years. With absolutely no indication
[00:26:18] that the children were still alive despite what Katherine maintained, her charges were upgraded to
[00:26:24] two counts of felony murder, which would hopefully buy them more time to try to get her in a position
[00:26:30] where she could be found competent to stand trial. That day would never come. In November 2022,
[00:26:39] a judge dismissed the murder charges. Katherine Hoggle would not be found competent to stand trial,
[00:26:45] and the law only allowed for those charges to stick around for five years before they had to be dropped.
[00:26:52] Of course, that doesn't mean that she's been released. She continues to be institutionalized
[00:26:58] to this day, and she continues to maintain that the children are alive. That this was all a part
[00:27:05] of a plan to keep her children from being taken away from her by the state. Sadly, in enacting
[00:27:12] this plan, she has taken Sarah and Jacob away from everyone, including their father Troy
[00:27:19] and their older brother. So what really happened to Sarah and Jacob Hoggle? The first theory is that
[00:27:26] Katherine has been telling the truth. That the children were given to someone and that they are still alive.
[00:27:33] This is something that she has continued to tell her family, including her ex-boyfriend Troy,
[00:27:39] that she gave them to someone who she trusted, someone possibly named Erin.
[00:27:45] It's a difficult theory to believe after so much time has passed and with all of the media attention
[00:27:50] that this case has received. But age-progress photos of both children who would now be in their early
[00:27:56] teens, they continue to be released. There's just been a new one released since it's been 10
[00:28:01] years since their disappearance. They were both very little, just two and three when this happened.
[00:28:07] So it's possible that if they are alive today, they have no recollection of Katherine,
[00:28:14] Troy or their other family members, or what happened to them.
[00:28:18] Obviously, this is all a theory that we want to believe, that we'd love to believe. But the police
[00:28:25] and even Troy himself, they don't think it's the most likely theory. The other theory is that
[00:28:32] Katherine killed the children, perhaps in a state of psychosis. Her family had noted that she
[00:28:38] did seem to be doing better, but she had only been out of a mental health facility for a couple of months
[00:28:44] when all of this happened. So it's possible that Katherine did kill her children and doesn't
[00:28:49] even remember doing it herself. According to her defense attorney David Felsin,
[00:28:55] we may never know the truth of it. In a recent interview he said quote,
[00:29:00] At the time of the children's disappearance, Miss Hoggle was in the throes of a severe mental
[00:29:05] health crisis. She was schizophrenic, she was paranoid, she was delusional. As a result I don't think
[00:29:12] ever have a credible story of what happened to the children, and that is a tragedy for everyone.
[00:29:19] And yet there are those including Katherine's ex-boyfriend and Sarah Jacobs' father, Troy,
[00:29:25] who believe that she knows more than what she is letting on. That with a high IQ of 135,
[00:29:33] she has avoided facing a jury all of these years by exaggerating her mental incapacity,
[00:29:39] that she's much more aware of what she did and the crimes that she's facing than people think,
[00:29:46] that she's doing this to avoid jail time and she knows what's up. Unfortunately,
[00:29:52] there is only one person who knows the truth of it all, and it's unclear whether those memories
[00:29:58] have been lost forever to her battle with mental illness. Sarah and Jacobs' family, especially their
[00:30:04] father, Troy, is not giving up looking for them and will not give up until they are found.
[00:30:11] If you have any information about the Miss Hoggle children, please call NCMEC at 1-800-843-5688 or you can
[00:30:21] call the Montgomery County Police at 301-279-8000. That's it for me today. If you want to read
[00:30:31] you can find me on Facebook at serial number. You can find my audio, on Apple or Spotify or
[00:30:39] wherever you listen to podcasts. I post all of my episodes in video format over on YouTube so go check
[00:30:46] out and if you're watching on YouTube, I'd love if you can give me a thumbs up and subscribe.
[00:30:53] I'm over on X formerly known as Twitter at serial underscore napper and at postings on tiptock serial
[00:31:00] napper nicken that's all one word. Until next time, sweet dreams stay kind, especially in the comments. Bye!

