October 4, 2023 • 30 mins
A mentally ill mother. A family in crisis. And a father’s worst nightmare.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
How about your name?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Happened? Ashley Hockle? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
How old are you?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Thirty six?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's your birthday?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Eleven thirteen eighty six.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Standing before Judge James Bonavent is Catherine Hockle. It's November
twenty twenty two, and she's here in a Montgomery County,
Maryland courtroom because Judge Bonavent has to decide if the
thirty six year old mother of three might finally be
fit enough to stand trial for the murder of two
of her children.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Do you know what evidence is? Yes, sir, mat don't
want you to tell me anything about circumstances in this case,
but generally, what is evidence?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Something that makes things, something that's used for a case,
good or bad.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Today Catherine calls the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup, Maryland,
a psychiatric hospital home. She's been there, locked up for
nearly a decade, charged with the first degree murders of
two year old Jacob and three year old Sarah, but
yet to stand trial because for the past eight years,
(01:23):
Catherine has been deemed incompetent.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Do you know what attorneys do? Yes, Anna, tell me
what attorneys do?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
A pass q or defend.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
What should an attorney know.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What happened at the alleged crime.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Being incompetent to stand trial is not the same as
being found insane or not criminally responsible. Competency deals with
Catherine's state of mind since her arrest. In order for
Catherine to receive a fair trial, she has to understand
the proceedings, the role of the judge and jury, and
her lawyer and the prosecutor, the whole process.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Is there anything else that they should know?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I can't think of anything right now. I'm not very
good at pope speaking.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
As Catherine sits in that Marilyn courtroom, she does know
where she is, she understands what's happening to her and why.
But for the last eight years, psychiatrists have regularly determined
that she's not well enough to assist her lawyer in
her own defense, and that this is what makes her incompetent.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Have you ever heard of the phrase attorney client privilege? Yes, sir,
what do you think that means?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It's a private conversation with you and your attorney.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Thank you very much, Matt.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
She left with Jacob to go get pizza right up
the street and came back three and a half hours
without him.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
September seventh, twenty fourteen, would be the last Dey Troy
Turner would ever see his kids again, because not only
did Catherine fail to bring two year old Jacob back
home after a supposed pizza run, she also took her
three year old daughter, Sarah sometime that night or early morning.
She never came home with her either. To this day,
(03:28):
their bodies have not been found. It's not clear where
Catherine took the kids or why, and she continues to
insist that her children have not come to any harm.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
They were great kids. They both had very sweet souls.
I used to call Sarah my tomboy princess. She loved
to play fight with me and the boys. She would
come to defend her brothers because I would be, you know,
slamming them around stuff, and she would punch me in
spell MC and I would be like, okay, play time's over.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Oh.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
She was just a sweetheart, and.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
You know, she didn't take any stuff from her brothers.
And then Jacob was just super sweet. He always smiled,
he was just always happy.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
And.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
He would hate for any of his older siblings to
be in trouble.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
I found out about this story when I received a
Facebook message on January twenty third, twenty twenty two. It
was from a family member close to Sarah and Jacob's father, Troy,
pleading with me to help them. My name is Sarah Treleven.
I'm a journalist and I had recently appeared on an
episode of the news program twenty twenty about another podcast
I made, this one about a woman recently convicted of
(04:43):
murdering her two children, Lori Valo Davel. When the show aired,
I heard from a number of people who are desperate
in some way. They wanted help solving cases of their
missing children, parents, partners. They all wanted the media to
pay it attention to something that had gone terribly wrong
in their lives. This one was different. This message said
(05:07):
that if Catherine was not brought to competence, then the
charges against her would be dropped. In Maryland, if someone
charged with murder is unable to stand trial because they
are deemed incompetent, the state only has five years to
try and get them healthy enough to go before a
judge and face the charges. And if that doesn't happen,
if they go five years without being declared competent, then
(05:30):
those murder charges are dismissed, they all but disappear. Catherine
could be released from Perkins, Troy might never find out
what happened to his kids, And when I got that
Facebook message, the clock was running out. This is the
(05:56):
story of two kids whose definitive fates are unknown, other
who has been found not competent to stand trial for
their murders. But it's also the story of unintended consequences,
about a legal system that was set up to protect
people but actually raises questions about public safety and how
we balance the rights of the mentally ill with our
(06:17):
ideas about justice and accountability. This is Unrestorable, a podcast
from Anonymous content and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I spent some time working bars, nightclubs, cleaning them up,
things like that, and that'd be in between, you know,
times when I was in college, or during different parts
of my career, you know, day jobs or whatever.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Sometimes that was my career.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Troy and I talked for months over zoom, and I
soon got a sense of his warmth, his sly sense
of humor, his determination and tenacity. He's a classic tough
on the outside, teddy bear on the inside kind of guy.
But the camera concealed one thing. The true depth of
troy sorrow, the impossible sense of grief he wakes up
(07:12):
with every morning and carries with him until he falls
asleep every night. That I saw clearly the moment we
met in person, the second I looked in his eyes.
Troy and I finally did get to meet in person
in December twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Nice to meet you in person today.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Troy sells insurance, but at more than six feet tall,
he certainly looks like the former high school football player
and bouncer that he used to be. We start by
talking about how he and Catherine first met.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
She was wasting going to junior college, and let me see,
I mean, we didn't probably talk the first three or
four months that I was there.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
In pictures, Catherine is pretty and wholesome looking. She has
shoulder length, medium brown hair, a sun kiss complexion, and
a shy smile. It looks like someone it would be
easy to have a crush on. When she and Troy met,
she was twenty two, he was thirty six.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
We wound up talking more, and then we wound up
basically connecting. She got pregnant, and at that point it's like,
well we should probably, you know, see if this will
work or whatever.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
What was she like back then?
Speaker 5 (08:20):
She was a pretty fun person.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
She appeared to kind of have you know, some animosity
with her family at times, things like that. But it
was like, you know, it's kind of normal stuff when
you're talking to and when you're here, you know, I mean,
just overall fairly normal.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
This pregnancy was not Sarah or Jacob. This child was
their first kid. Sarah was their second, and Jacob was
her third. This child, the eldest, is still alive, and
we won't be naming him. Everyone agrees his privacy is
more important. Did you feel like, because she got pregnant
so soon after you started dating obviously, were you like, oh,
(09:00):
this is a person I have a genuine connection with,
or were you like, well, we've got to make the
best of this situation.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
I felt like that I liked her.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
I enjoyed being around her, So there was, you know,
maybe some kind of connection, but a lot of it
was we should probably.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
See if this should work. I mean, she's pregnant with
my child.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
The first baby was hard in the way that all
babies are hard, but there was so much excitement and
a lot of support. Catherine was the first of her
four siblings to have a kid, so everyone wanted to
play with the new baby, to take pictures of him,
to make him laugh. Over the next few years, the
family continued to grow. Fewer than six years into the relationship,
(09:41):
Catherine and Troy had three children under the age of five.
The family was living in a small apartment. Money was tight,
It was a lot, and at times Troy did feel
that Catherine was a little wobbly.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
There were some things here or there where I was
kind of like, okay, that's you know, off or something,
but nothing major.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
We had some fun together.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
We you know, we went to the beach or whatever,
did things like that, took the kids to see the
dolphins down off was at Yorktown or whatever, you know,
stuff like that. So I mean like we had like
some decent times. We did some cool things. But it
was just with each child things seemed to progress differently.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
When Troy says that things progressed differently, what he means
is that Catherine was different. She was acting weird. But
Troy told me he put it out of his mind.
He figured that it was a lot to be pregnant
three times in five years.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
I'm obviously not a doctor. I can't say what happened
or what didn't. I know that she had told me
that she was on medication for ADHD and things like
that when we met and when she got pregnant. Initially,
I know she had quit smoking and drinking, you know,
right away, so she it could be that she was
on medication at that point and quit taking that too
(11:02):
right away without saying anything. I don't know, but there
was definitely kind of a change there. I think, very
black and white, you know. I thought it was like
hormones from the pregnancy. So I went and I looked
that up. I like googled stuff with that, and I'm like, oh,
it says it can last to a year after pregnancy.
So we get towards the end of that year a
part and then she's pregnant with Sarah. So I just
(11:23):
thought it was a continuation, same time frame kind of
between Sarah and Jacob.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
But as time went on, Catherine became more and more erratic,
doing things that Troy couldn't explain away. Sometimes she would
just disappear when she was supposed to be taking care
of the kids, leaving them alone. Other Times she seemed confused.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
So I'm on my way home from work and I
get a call from her that she's in DC and
running out of gas and she needs me to come
into DC to get gas in my car. So I
go in and she appears to be from an area
that's not, you know, a great neighborhood necessarily, and I'm
(12:04):
going with, are you even.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Doing now here?
Speaker 4 (12:05):
It's ridiculous and you don't even have a license. So
she said that she was trying to do something.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Christmas shopping west or something like that. You know, well,
let's get gas. You're gonna follow me home.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
I pull out, we hit a red light, I make
a left, she goes right, it goes off the other way.
She's supposed to be following me home because she doesn't
even her way out of there, So like, oh, I go,
what are you doing?
Speaker 5 (12:29):
She goes, oh, well, you know I'm going to different.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
With It happened again just a couple nights.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Later, she's calling me saying that she has no gas
or she needs gas, and she's asking me.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
I said, okay, well I'll come meet you.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
She's like, no, can you just drop twenty in cash
off with the cashier and I'll get.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
It from him.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
I'm going what So she's trying to get me to
drop cash off at different gas stations with the person
working to register.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Catherine also became increasingly paranoid. She kept insisting she was
being followed. At one she asked Troy to buy a
staple gun and shoot her with it. Troy couldn't ignore
things anymore.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
And Mike clin, there's been a progression here, like this
isn't the same as it was when she was pregnant
with my first child. This has gotten worse. Our relationship
was non existent pretty much. You get towards the end
of twenty twelve, we're sleeping in different places.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
It might have taken a few years for Troy to
figure out that Catherine had serious mental health issues, but
Catherine's mother, Lindsay Hoggle, says her daughter's problems started a
long time ago.
Speaker 6 (13:38):
She struggled in middle school and high school just with
a variety of different anxieties and mental health issues.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Signs of real serious issues started to show up when
Catherine was a young teenager.
Speaker 6 (13:54):
I had known that she was struggling, and Time magazine
had a front page article on bipolar and teens, and
so once I went through that, I just went I've
got to do something. I mean, these symptoms are this,
you know the same, and so that's when I decided that,
(14:15):
you know, I was going to take her to a psychiatrist.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Lindsay says that Catherine's issues affected the whole family, that
Catherine would often not leave her room, that her oldest
daughter was in constant conflict with her siblings and completely
disengaged from school. It seemed like Catherine was falling apart.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
It finally became a situation where, you know, she broke
the rules. Her father and I were divorced at that time,
and I just said, well, you know, you've broken the rules.
You need to find somewhere else to live, you know,
And so she went to live with her dad.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Can you tell me the story of how you learned
that she was pregnant with your first Have you already
heard that? I haven't heard it.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
Okay, So Catherine had been dating Troy, and you know,
and she would come over for dinner or something after.
You know, she really looks like she's pregnant.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
But Lindsay and her daughter's relationship was already strained, so
Lindsay just let it go. She didn't ask. She was
hoping she was wrong that her troubled daughter wasn't pregnant.
Speaker 6 (15:22):
And so I got this phone call and so she goes, hi, Mom.
Speaker 7 (15:26):
I'm like hi.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
She goes, well, I have some news. I'm like okay.
She goes, You're a grandmother.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Catherine wasn't calling to say, oh, hey, congratulations, you're going
to be a grandmother in several months. Catherine was saying, surprise,
I have a baby. At first, Lindsay wasn't even sure
that she was serious, but it wasn't a joke. She
had to break the news to Catherine's dad, Randy.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
I could tell he was driving, so I said, pull
over in the side of the road and call me back.
And so he did, and so I told him. I said,
you know, I knew that this would be a little
bit of a shock, so I didn't want you to
be driving a car while I was telling you.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
So the whole family is reeling. Lindsay was in shock.
What are you supposed to do with a reveal like this?
But this was her first grandchild, a baby boy.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
And so I got in the car, you know, with
my middle daughter, and gave her money to go buy
a baby blanket at a nearby store, you know. Where
you get these ideas, And then we drove to Harrisonburg.
Luckily for Catherine, she was close to a hospital, and
so when I went in, one of the nurses took
(16:36):
me aside and said, you know, you're really lucky to
have both of them, the baby and Catherine, because she
had an emergency c section. She said, it's not uncommon
for us to lose one or the other or both
during this type of an event, and so, you know,
it was even more stunned and you know, thrilled. But
(16:57):
for whatever reason that was, that was how she chose
to tell me.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Catherine was twenty two. She and Troy hadn't been dating
for long, and neither of them really had a career.
Lindsay knew it would be a rough start.
Speaker 6 (17:16):
They had just gotten to Harrisonburg, didn't have a place
to live. They were in temporary housing, and so I
know helped find them somewhere to live and take care.
I can't remember how many days they kept her. And
he was less than five pounds when they left the hospital,
which I was very worried about him, and I have
(17:36):
eight pound babies, so five pound was just you know,
is small, and so they had a lot to get
done before they were ready to have a baby and
take care of a baby.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
That was the beginning of Catherine being a mom. It
was chaotic, surprising, disorganized. But people have told me that
Catherine was a good mom, that she loved her kids.
It's not unexpected in a way. It just makes what
would happen later so much more of a shock from.
Speaker 5 (18:07):
The very beginning.
Speaker 6 (18:09):
Yeah, she loved it. I think it helped because my
youngest daughter is I guess about seven years difference between,
and so Catherine had kind of grown up, you know,
taking care of my youngest daughter.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Lindsay says, Catherine took to motherhood right away, like it
was the only thing she ever wanted to do.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
I remember this. I had said, you know, let me
take him for a night or two on the weekend
and give you guys a break. And so on the
way out, she has index cards that she's stuffing in
the back pockets on my jeans as I'm walking out,
and of course I've been going, okay, I've raised children before,
(18:53):
I've done this before, I should know everything. And she's
laughing and she's like, but no, these are his like
little you know, these are the things that you got
to take care of them. I'm like, okay, so I'm
sure I'm going to get drilled when I get home.
You're going to call and ask me if I've read
a margin. She goes, yes, So yeah, she was. She
loved it, you know, she loved it.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
How is she doing over those years? How is she
managing those stresses? How is she managing being a mother?
Just you know, what is there of the narrative as
they build their family? How does she weather those years?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (19:33):
Gosh, sometimes better than others. Part of it, very much,
was just not the right fit of everything that they
were doing. I mean, Troy worked nights, which left her
with the children a lot, and so, you know, her
father and I tried to help a lot and picking
(19:53):
up you know, the slack and everything.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
But as Catherine became more erratic, it became clear that
something had to be done. It all came to a
head just before Christmas in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
I grabbed Randy, her father, and Lindsay her mom, and
I had them meet me at Lindsay's house and we
had to talk in her driveway. I said, you know,
we were coming up on Christmas. I said, look, so
let's get through Christmas with the kids if we can.
But at that point, I need you guys to be
with me on this. We need to sit down and
talk to her and say, hey, look, either you're going
(20:24):
to get help or we're going to get you help.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
The family desperately needed to get on the same page
for Catherine, for the kids, for everyone, but the cracks
were showing.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
I remember her father, and Randy is easily her biggest enabler.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
He was like, well, I don't know about this.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
And I remember Lindsay going off on him and custom
out in the driveway, pokeingon as chest, talking about how
you know, he's always enabled in this and this and
this is something that he needs to get on board with.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Despite her father's unease, the family decided that Catherine shouldn't
ever be left alone with the kids. She wasn't reliable
and she didn't seem to be making rational decisions. Lindsay's house,
a big suburban home on a nice piece of property
not far from Troy and Catherine's apartment, became central dispatch.
Catherine and the kids would come there while Troy was
(21:16):
at work. Family members rotated in and out, taking care
of the three young kids. And making sure another adult
was always with Catherine.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
I'm going, Okay, she's their mom. I want her to
be in their life.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
We just have to figure out a safe, healthy way
to do it at this point where and it wasn't
a safe healthy way in terms of I thought she
would be killing my kids or physically hurrying them. It
was just the decision making process, wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Despite all the attempts to help Catherine at home, eventually
the family realized she needed more help. Catherine was committed involuntarily.
She was placed in handcuffs and taken away, spending Christmas
twenty thirteen in the psych ward the suburban Baltimore Hospital
after being diagnosed with schizo effective disorder. Catherine and Troy's
(22:06):
oldest son was four, Sarah was two, and Jacob was
just one, a baby. A young family that should have
been brimming with hope, but this one was spiraling. After
a short period, Catherine was able to check herself out
of the hospital, but from then on, over the next year,
she was in and out of treatment. Did she reject
(22:29):
the diagnoses or was she at peace or as much
as one can be with the fact that she has
mental illness? It needs to be managed.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
I think the main thing that her feelings throughout that
time period were very much, my children could be taken
from me if I admit to having serious mental illness.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Were you afraid that Catherine would hurt herself?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
No?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Were you ever afraid she would hurt the kids?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
No.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
The family implemented new rules. Katherine couldn't be left alone
with the kids, she couldn't drive, and she had to
receive psychiatric treatment. Lindsay says that all of this just
made Catherine increasingly fixated on the idea that her kids
were going to be taken away from her.
Speaker 6 (23:16):
So I had an office in my home and she
would come and say, you know, they're trying to take
the children from me, And so I just assumed that
it was that part of paranoia that had arisen. Things
started happening that I wasn't sure was true or not.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Troy says that during this time, as Katherine moved in
and out of the hospital, staff would release her, assuring
him that while his wife was definitely troubled, she was
not dangerous. But Troy was starting to worry that the
doctors were wrong.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
In that timeframe, she says things and does things that
show me she's definitely dangerous.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
The family felt like Catherine wasn't getting better, that she
she wasn't getting the help she needed. One time, after
Catherine was released from a psychiatric facility, she approached a
random stranger on the street and ended up spending the
night at her house.
Speaker 6 (24:10):
It gets to the point where you realize that someone's
not making good judgment and that they're emotional and your
expectations of how they should act are not the way
they're acting. I mean, just upset over things, irrational thinking.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
The family was coming apart and they couldn't keep limping along.
Troy wanted Catherine committed for longer stretches of time.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
So I took her up there one day and I said,
you guys need to keep her. I just walked in
and I said, you need to keep her. Here's why.
And now I walked out and they kept her.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
But it wouldn't last. Catherine would once again go through
the revolving doors of the hospital and come back home,
and while everyone around her kept trying to pull it
all together, tragedy felt imminent. Tragedy struck on Sunday, September seventh,
twenty fourteen. That night, as Troy got ready to go
(25:08):
to work. He said goodbye to his kids, as he
did every.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Night, So hugged and kissed the kids.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Sodim I loved them, said day guy got to work,
but I'll be back later this evening, you know, And
I left.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Troy never saw his two youngest kids again. Troy and
his current wife, Stephanie, the one who sent me that
letter and started this entire thing for me, have spent
the last nine years tirelessly looking for the children, advocating
for them, and hoping that Catherine would one day be
(25:42):
brought to justice. After the kids went missing, Catherine took
off that After five days on the run, she was
caught and arrested. She never told anyone where Sarah and
Jacob were, and she still hasn't. At first, Catherine was
charged with parental abduction and obstruction. Months after her arrest,
Catherine was found not competent to stand trial. Only years later,
(26:06):
after the children were presumed dead, would she be charged
with their murders. And then remember, there is this statute
in the state of Maryland that says that defendants charged
with felonies or violent crimes who have been found not
competent have to be tried within five years, or the
charges against them have to be dismissed. And that is
(26:26):
Troy and Stephanie's biggest fear and their motivation. It's what
got them to reach out to me in the first place,
because when I got her letter, there were less than
nine months left on that ticking clock. If Catherine couldn't
be restored to competency, the charges against her would be dismissed,
and the chances of ever finding out what happened to
Sarah and Jacob that September night in twenty fourteen would
(26:50):
grow dimmer and dimmer. In addition to a really complicated
personal story about a family tragedy, there are so many
complex issues here to tease out, regarding the law and
mental health, and how these systems intersect, about our perceptions
(27:11):
of mental illness, about our expectations from others, about how
we balance public safety versus the rights of the accused,
and what justice and accountability mean for the most heinous
of crimes. And you're going to hear from experts about
these bigger questions as we dig into the details of
this very complicated story.
Speaker 6 (27:34):
How's it going, well, We just went pretty well.
Speaker 7 (27:37):
I had an all Day Interview yesterday, right, I mean
I got off at we like, Actually I was up
since one am.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
One of those experts who will help us throughout this
podcast is my friend and colleague, Beth Carris. And here's
the thing about Beth, She's a bit of a legend.
Beth was a New York City prosecutor for years, and
then she moved on to Core TV. She's now been
an investigative journal list for decades and she's always popping
up on TV to talk about big cases. One time
(28:06):
I watched her get recognized by fans in the lobby
of a courtyard Marriant, and I knew she was the
perfect person to sort through all of the complex issues
in this case. If the charges are dismissed, could Catherine
be released. It's a thought that terrifies Troy and Stephanie
because they the police and prosecutors all believe that Catherine
(28:28):
murdered Sarah and Jacob and that there's a lot more
she's been hiding over the last nine years. Coming up
on Unrestorable.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
I'm thinking I'm going to the police station to basically
have them, you know, do whatever they need to do
to find out where my kids are. So I can
get my kids, and I'm thinking that I need to
get there before I lose control over my emotions. At
this point, it's just too much. At this point, I'm
like this, it's crazy. We're on the phone one night
and he just kind of stopped me and he told
(29:05):
me that his two kids were missing, and honestly, I
don't think that I believed him.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
There have been amendments to our mental health statutes throughout
the years, and two thousand and six there were major
amendments because they were concerned that people were just going to.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Be locked away.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
People would forget about them, you know, no oversight somebody.
Speaker 7 (29:25):
It was really kind of cynical looking at this whole
eight year Saga would say that Katherine Hoggle has been
a master manipulator his entire time right until now. She's
avoiding this final hearing and she may prevail in getting
her criminal charges dismissed and being civilly committed.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Unrestorable is executive produced and hosted by me, Sarah Trelevin,
and Beth Carris. Our story editor is Kathleen Goldhar. Mixing
and sound designed by Reza Daya for anonymous content. Jessica
Grimshaw is our executive producer. Jennifer Sears is our executive
in charge of production, and Nick Yanas is our legal
council for iHeart executive producer Christina Everett and supervising producer
(30:11):
Abu Zafar
How about your name?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Happened? Ashley Hockle? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
How old are you?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Thirty six?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's your birthday?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Eleven thirteen eighty six.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Standing before Judge James Bonavent is Catherine Hockle. It's November
twenty twenty two, and she's here in a Montgomery County,
Maryland courtroom because Judge Bonavent has to decide if the
thirty six year old mother of three might finally be
fit enough to stand trial for the murder of two
of her children.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Do you know what evidence is? Yes, sir, mat don't
want you to tell me anything about circumstances in this case,
but generally, what is evidence?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Something that makes things, something that's used for a case,
good or bad.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Today Catherine calls the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup, Maryland,
a psychiatric hospital home. She's been there, locked up for
nearly a decade, charged with the first degree murders of
two year old Jacob and three year old Sarah, but
yet to stand trial because for the past eight years,
(01:23):
Catherine has been deemed incompetent.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Do you know what attorneys do? Yes, Anna, tell me
what attorneys do?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
A pass q or defend.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
What should an attorney know.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What happened at the alleged crime.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Being incompetent to stand trial is not the same as
being found insane or not criminally responsible. Competency deals with
Catherine's state of mind since her arrest. In order for
Catherine to receive a fair trial, she has to understand
the proceedings, the role of the judge and jury, and
her lawyer and the prosecutor, the whole process.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Is there anything else that they should know?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I can't think of anything right now. I'm not very
good at pope speaking.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
As Catherine sits in that Marilyn courtroom, she does know
where she is, she understands what's happening to her and why.
But for the last eight years, psychiatrists have regularly determined
that she's not well enough to assist her lawyer in
her own defense, and that this is what makes her incompetent.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Have you ever heard of the phrase attorney client privilege? Yes, sir,
what do you think that means?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It's a private conversation with you and your attorney.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Thank you very much, Matt.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
She left with Jacob to go get pizza right up
the street and came back three and a half hours
without him.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
September seventh, twenty fourteen, would be the last Dey Troy
Turner would ever see his kids again, because not only
did Catherine fail to bring two year old Jacob back
home after a supposed pizza run, she also took her
three year old daughter, Sarah sometime that night or early morning.
She never came home with her either. To this day,
(03:28):
their bodies have not been found. It's not clear where
Catherine took the kids or why, and she continues to
insist that her children have not come to any harm.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
They were great kids. They both had very sweet souls.
I used to call Sarah my tomboy princess. She loved
to play fight with me and the boys. She would
come to defend her brothers because I would be, you know,
slamming them around stuff, and she would punch me in
spell MC and I would be like, okay, play time's over.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Oh.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
She was just a sweetheart, and.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
You know, she didn't take any stuff from her brothers.
And then Jacob was just super sweet. He always smiled,
he was just always happy.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
And.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
He would hate for any of his older siblings to
be in trouble.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
I found out about this story when I received a
Facebook message on January twenty third, twenty twenty two. It
was from a family member close to Sarah and Jacob's father, Troy,
pleading with me to help them. My name is Sarah Treleven.
I'm a journalist and I had recently appeared on an
episode of the news program twenty twenty about another podcast
I made, this one about a woman recently convicted of
(04:43):
murdering her two children, Lori Valo Davel. When the show aired,
I heard from a number of people who are desperate
in some way. They wanted help solving cases of their
missing children, parents, partners. They all wanted the media to
pay it attention to something that had gone terribly wrong
in their lives. This one was different. This message said
(05:07):
that if Catherine was not brought to competence, then the
charges against her would be dropped. In Maryland, if someone
charged with murder is unable to stand trial because they
are deemed incompetent, the state only has five years to
try and get them healthy enough to go before a
judge and face the charges. And if that doesn't happen,
if they go five years without being declared competent, then
(05:30):
those murder charges are dismissed, they all but disappear. Catherine
could be released from Perkins, Troy might never find out
what happened to his kids, And when I got that
Facebook message, the clock was running out. This is the
(05:56):
story of two kids whose definitive fates are unknown, other
who has been found not competent to stand trial for
their murders. But it's also the story of unintended consequences,
about a legal system that was set up to protect
people but actually raises questions about public safety and how
we balance the rights of the mentally ill with our
(06:17):
ideas about justice and accountability. This is Unrestorable, a podcast
from Anonymous content and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I spent some time working bars, nightclubs, cleaning them up,
things like that, and that'd be in between, you know,
times when I was in college, or during different parts
of my career, you know, day jobs or whatever.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Sometimes that was my career.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Troy and I talked for months over zoom, and I
soon got a sense of his warmth, his sly sense
of humor, his determination and tenacity. He's a classic tough
on the outside, teddy bear on the inside kind of guy.
But the camera concealed one thing. The true depth of
troy sorrow, the impossible sense of grief he wakes up
(07:12):
with every morning and carries with him until he falls
asleep every night. That I saw clearly the moment we
met in person, the second I looked in his eyes.
Troy and I finally did get to meet in person
in December twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Nice to meet you in person today.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Troy sells insurance, but at more than six feet tall,
he certainly looks like the former high school football player
and bouncer that he used to be. We start by
talking about how he and Catherine first met.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
She was wasting going to junior college, and let me see,
I mean, we didn't probably talk the first three or
four months that I was there.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
In pictures, Catherine is pretty and wholesome looking. She has
shoulder length, medium brown hair, a sun kiss complexion, and
a shy smile. It looks like someone it would be
easy to have a crush on. When she and Troy met,
she was twenty two, he was thirty six.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
We wound up talking more, and then we wound up
basically connecting. She got pregnant, and at that point it's like,
well we should probably, you know, see if this will
work or whatever.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
What was she like back then?
Speaker 5 (08:20):
She was a pretty fun person.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
She appeared to kind of have you know, some animosity
with her family at times, things like that. But it
was like, you know, it's kind of normal stuff when
you're talking to and when you're here, you know, I mean,
just overall fairly normal.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
This pregnancy was not Sarah or Jacob. This child was
their first kid. Sarah was their second, and Jacob was
her third. This child, the eldest, is still alive, and
we won't be naming him. Everyone agrees his privacy is
more important. Did you feel like, because she got pregnant
so soon after you started dating obviously, were you like, oh,
(09:00):
this is a person I have a genuine connection with,
or were you like, well, we've got to make the
best of this situation.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
I felt like that I liked her.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
I enjoyed being around her, So there was, you know,
maybe some kind of connection, but a lot of it
was we should probably.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
See if this should work. I mean, she's pregnant with
my child.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
The first baby was hard in the way that all
babies are hard, but there was so much excitement and
a lot of support. Catherine was the first of her
four siblings to have a kid, so everyone wanted to
play with the new baby, to take pictures of him,
to make him laugh. Over the next few years, the
family continued to grow. Fewer than six years into the relationship,
(09:41):
Catherine and Troy had three children under the age of five.
The family was living in a small apartment. Money was tight,
It was a lot, and at times Troy did feel
that Catherine was a little wobbly.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
There were some things here or there where I was
kind of like, okay, that's you know, off or something,
but nothing major.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
We had some fun together.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
We you know, we went to the beach or whatever,
did things like that, took the kids to see the
dolphins down off was at Yorktown or whatever, you know,
stuff like that. So I mean like we had like
some decent times. We did some cool things. But it
was just with each child things seemed to progress differently.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
When Troy says that things progressed differently, what he means
is that Catherine was different. She was acting weird. But
Troy told me he put it out of his mind.
He figured that it was a lot to be pregnant
three times in five years.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
I'm obviously not a doctor. I can't say what happened
or what didn't. I know that she had told me
that she was on medication for ADHD and things like
that when we met and when she got pregnant. Initially,
I know she had quit smoking and drinking, you know,
right away, so she it could be that she was
on medication at that point and quit taking that too
(11:02):
right away without saying anything. I don't know, but there
was definitely kind of a change there. I think, very
black and white, you know. I thought it was like
hormones from the pregnancy. So I went and I looked
that up. I like googled stuff with that, and I'm like, oh,
it says it can last to a year after pregnancy.
So we get towards the end of that year a
part and then she's pregnant with Sarah. So I just
(11:23):
thought it was a continuation, same time frame kind of
between Sarah and Jacob.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
But as time went on, Catherine became more and more erratic,
doing things that Troy couldn't explain away. Sometimes she would
just disappear when she was supposed to be taking care
of the kids, leaving them alone. Other Times she seemed confused.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
So I'm on my way home from work and I
get a call from her that she's in DC and
running out of gas and she needs me to come
into DC to get gas in my car. So I
go in and she appears to be from an area
that's not, you know, a great neighborhood necessarily, and I'm
(12:04):
going with, are you even.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Doing now here?
Speaker 4 (12:05):
It's ridiculous and you don't even have a license. So
she said that she was trying to do something.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Christmas shopping west or something like that. You know, well,
let's get gas. You're gonna follow me home.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
I pull out, we hit a red light, I make
a left, she goes right, it goes off the other way.
She's supposed to be following me home because she doesn't
even her way out of there, So like, oh, I go,
what are you doing?
Speaker 5 (12:29):
She goes, oh, well, you know I'm going to different.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
With It happened again just a couple nights.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Later, she's calling me saying that she has no gas
or she needs gas, and she's asking me.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
I said, okay, well I'll come meet you.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
She's like, no, can you just drop twenty in cash
off with the cashier and I'll get.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
It from him.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
I'm going what So she's trying to get me to
drop cash off at different gas stations with the person
working to register.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Catherine also became increasingly paranoid. She kept insisting she was
being followed. At one she asked Troy to buy a
staple gun and shoot her with it. Troy couldn't ignore
things anymore.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
And Mike clin, there's been a progression here, like this
isn't the same as it was when she was pregnant
with my first child. This has gotten worse. Our relationship
was non existent pretty much. You get towards the end
of twenty twelve, we're sleeping in different places.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
It might have taken a few years for Troy to
figure out that Catherine had serious mental health issues, but
Catherine's mother, Lindsay Hoggle, says her daughter's problems started a
long time ago.
Speaker 6 (13:38):
She struggled in middle school and high school just with
a variety of different anxieties and mental health issues.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Signs of real serious issues started to show up when
Catherine was a young teenager.
Speaker 6 (13:54):
I had known that she was struggling, and Time magazine
had a front page article on bipolar and teens, and
so once I went through that, I just went I've
got to do something. I mean, these symptoms are this,
you know the same, and so that's when I decided that,
(14:15):
you know, I was going to take her to a psychiatrist.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Lindsay says that Catherine's issues affected the whole family, that
Catherine would often not leave her room, that her oldest
daughter was in constant conflict with her siblings and completely
disengaged from school. It seemed like Catherine was falling apart.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
It finally became a situation where, you know, she broke
the rules. Her father and I were divorced at that time,
and I just said, well, you know, you've broken the rules.
You need to find somewhere else to live, you know,
And so she went to live with her dad.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Can you tell me the story of how you learned
that she was pregnant with your first Have you already
heard that? I haven't heard it.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
Okay, So Catherine had been dating Troy, and you know,
and she would come over for dinner or something after.
You know, she really looks like she's pregnant.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
But Lindsay and her daughter's relationship was already strained, so
Lindsay just let it go. She didn't ask. She was
hoping she was wrong that her troubled daughter wasn't pregnant.
Speaker 6 (15:22):
And so I got this phone call and so she goes, hi, Mom.
Speaker 7 (15:26):
I'm like hi.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
She goes, well, I have some news. I'm like okay.
She goes, You're a grandmother.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Catherine wasn't calling to say, oh, hey, congratulations, you're going
to be a grandmother in several months. Catherine was saying, surprise,
I have a baby. At first, Lindsay wasn't even sure
that she was serious, but it wasn't a joke. She
had to break the news to Catherine's dad, Randy.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
I could tell he was driving, so I said, pull
over in the side of the road and call me back.
And so he did, and so I told him. I said,
you know, I knew that this would be a little
bit of a shock, so I didn't want you to
be driving a car while I was telling you.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
So the whole family is reeling. Lindsay was in shock.
What are you supposed to do with a reveal like this?
But this was her first grandchild, a baby boy.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
And so I got in the car, you know, with
my middle daughter, and gave her money to go buy
a baby blanket at a nearby store, you know. Where
you get these ideas, And then we drove to Harrisonburg.
Luckily for Catherine, she was close to a hospital, and
so when I went in, one of the nurses took
(16:36):
me aside and said, you know, you're really lucky to
have both of them, the baby and Catherine, because she
had an emergency c section. She said, it's not uncommon
for us to lose one or the other or both
during this type of an event, and so, you know,
it was even more stunned and you know, thrilled. But
(16:57):
for whatever reason that was, that was how she chose
to tell me.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Catherine was twenty two. She and Troy hadn't been dating
for long, and neither of them really had a career.
Lindsay knew it would be a rough start.
Speaker 6 (17:16):
They had just gotten to Harrisonburg, didn't have a place
to live. They were in temporary housing, and so I
know helped find them somewhere to live and take care.
I can't remember how many days they kept her. And
he was less than five pounds when they left the hospital,
which I was very worried about him, and I have
(17:36):
eight pound babies, so five pound was just you know,
is small, and so they had a lot to get
done before they were ready to have a baby and
take care of a baby.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
That was the beginning of Catherine being a mom. It
was chaotic, surprising, disorganized. But people have told me that
Catherine was a good mom, that she loved her kids.
It's not unexpected in a way. It just makes what
would happen later so much more of a shock from.
Speaker 5 (18:07):
The very beginning.
Speaker 6 (18:09):
Yeah, she loved it. I think it helped because my
youngest daughter is I guess about seven years difference between,
and so Catherine had kind of grown up, you know,
taking care of my youngest daughter.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Lindsay says, Catherine took to motherhood right away, like it
was the only thing she ever wanted to do.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
I remember this. I had said, you know, let me
take him for a night or two on the weekend
and give you guys a break. And so on the
way out, she has index cards that she's stuffing in
the back pockets on my jeans as I'm walking out,
and of course I've been going, okay, I've raised children before,
(18:53):
I've done this before, I should know everything. And she's
laughing and she's like, but no, these are his like
little you know, these are the things that you got
to take care of them. I'm like, okay, so I'm
sure I'm going to get drilled when I get home.
You're going to call and ask me if I've read
a margin. She goes, yes, So yeah, she was. She
loved it, you know, she loved it.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
How is she doing over those years? How is she
managing those stresses? How is she managing being a mother?
Just you know, what is there of the narrative as
they build their family? How does she weather those years?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (19:33):
Gosh, sometimes better than others. Part of it, very much,
was just not the right fit of everything that they
were doing. I mean, Troy worked nights, which left her
with the children a lot, and so, you know, her
father and I tried to help a lot and picking
(19:53):
up you know, the slack and everything.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
But as Catherine became more erratic, it became clear that
something had to be done. It all came to a
head just before Christmas in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
I grabbed Randy, her father, and Lindsay her mom, and
I had them meet me at Lindsay's house and we
had to talk in her driveway. I said, you know,
we were coming up on Christmas. I said, look, so
let's get through Christmas with the kids if we can.
But at that point, I need you guys to be
with me on this. We need to sit down and
talk to her and say, hey, look, either you're going
(20:24):
to get help or we're going to get you help.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
The family desperately needed to get on the same page
for Catherine, for the kids, for everyone, but the cracks
were showing.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
I remember her father, and Randy is easily her biggest enabler.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
He was like, well, I don't know about this.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
And I remember Lindsay going off on him and custom
out in the driveway, pokeingon as chest, talking about how
you know, he's always enabled in this and this and
this is something that he needs to get on board with.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Despite her father's unease, the family decided that Catherine shouldn't
ever be left alone with the kids. She wasn't reliable
and she didn't seem to be making rational decisions. Lindsay's house,
a big suburban home on a nice piece of property
not far from Troy and Catherine's apartment, became central dispatch.
Catherine and the kids would come there while Troy was
(21:16):
at work. Family members rotated in and out, taking care
of the three young kids. And making sure another adult
was always with Catherine.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
I'm going, Okay, she's their mom. I want her to
be in their life.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
We just have to figure out a safe, healthy way
to do it at this point where and it wasn't
a safe healthy way in terms of I thought she
would be killing my kids or physically hurrying them. It
was just the decision making process, wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Despite all the attempts to help Catherine at home, eventually
the family realized she needed more help. Catherine was committed involuntarily.
She was placed in handcuffs and taken away, spending Christmas
twenty thirteen in the psych ward the suburban Baltimore Hospital
after being diagnosed with schizo effective disorder. Catherine and Troy's
(22:06):
oldest son was four, Sarah was two, and Jacob was
just one, a baby. A young family that should have
been brimming with hope, but this one was spiraling. After
a short period, Catherine was able to check herself out
of the hospital, but from then on, over the next year,
she was in and out of treatment. Did she reject
(22:29):
the diagnoses or was she at peace or as much
as one can be with the fact that she has
mental illness? It needs to be managed.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
I think the main thing that her feelings throughout that
time period were very much, my children could be taken
from me if I admit to having serious mental illness.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Were you afraid that Catherine would hurt herself?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
No?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Were you ever afraid she would hurt the kids?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
No.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
The family implemented new rules. Katherine couldn't be left alone
with the kids, she couldn't drive, and she had to
receive psychiatric treatment. Lindsay says that all of this just
made Catherine increasingly fixated on the idea that her kids
were going to be taken away from her.
Speaker 6 (23:16):
So I had an office in my home and she
would come and say, you know, they're trying to take
the children from me, And so I just assumed that
it was that part of paranoia that had arisen. Things
started happening that I wasn't sure was true or not.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Troy says that during this time, as Katherine moved in
and out of the hospital, staff would release her, assuring
him that while his wife was definitely troubled, she was
not dangerous. But Troy was starting to worry that the
doctors were wrong.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
In that timeframe, she says things and does things that
show me she's definitely dangerous.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
The family felt like Catherine wasn't getting better, that she
she wasn't getting the help she needed. One time, after
Catherine was released from a psychiatric facility, she approached a
random stranger on the street and ended up spending the
night at her house.
Speaker 6 (24:10):
It gets to the point where you realize that someone's
not making good judgment and that they're emotional and your
expectations of how they should act are not the way
they're acting. I mean, just upset over things, irrational thinking.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
The family was coming apart and they couldn't keep limping along.
Troy wanted Catherine committed for longer stretches of time.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
So I took her up there one day and I said,
you guys need to keep her. I just walked in
and I said, you need to keep her. Here's why.
And now I walked out and they kept her.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
But it wouldn't last. Catherine would once again go through
the revolving doors of the hospital and come back home,
and while everyone around her kept trying to pull it
all together, tragedy felt imminent. Tragedy struck on Sunday, September seventh,
twenty fourteen. That night, as Troy got ready to go
(25:08):
to work. He said goodbye to his kids, as he
did every.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Night, So hugged and kissed the kids.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Sodim I loved them, said day guy got to work,
but I'll be back later this evening, you know, And
I left.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Troy never saw his two youngest kids again. Troy and
his current wife, Stephanie, the one who sent me that
letter and started this entire thing for me, have spent
the last nine years tirelessly looking for the children, advocating
for them, and hoping that Catherine would one day be
(25:42):
brought to justice. After the kids went missing, Catherine took
off that After five days on the run, she was
caught and arrested. She never told anyone where Sarah and
Jacob were, and she still hasn't. At first, Catherine was
charged with parental abduction and obstruction. Months after her arrest,
Catherine was found not competent to stand trial. Only years later,
(26:06):
after the children were presumed dead, would she be charged
with their murders. And then remember, there is this statute
in the state of Maryland that says that defendants charged
with felonies or violent crimes who have been found not
competent have to be tried within five years, or the
charges against them have to be dismissed. And that is
(26:26):
Troy and Stephanie's biggest fear and their motivation. It's what
got them to reach out to me in the first place,
because when I got her letter, there were less than
nine months left on that ticking clock. If Catherine couldn't
be restored to competency, the charges against her would be dismissed,
and the chances of ever finding out what happened to
Sarah and Jacob that September night in twenty fourteen would
(26:50):
grow dimmer and dimmer. In addition to a really complicated
personal story about a family tragedy, there are so many
complex issues here to tease out, regarding the law and
mental health, and how these systems intersect, about our perceptions
(27:11):
of mental illness, about our expectations from others, about how
we balance public safety versus the rights of the accused,
and what justice and accountability mean for the most heinous
of crimes. And you're going to hear from experts about
these bigger questions as we dig into the details of
this very complicated story.
Speaker 6 (27:34):
How's it going, well, We just went pretty well.
Speaker 7 (27:37):
I had an all Day Interview yesterday, right, I mean
I got off at we like, Actually I was up
since one am.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
One of those experts who will help us throughout this
podcast is my friend and colleague, Beth Carris. And here's
the thing about Beth, She's a bit of a legend.
Beth was a New York City prosecutor for years, and
then she moved on to Core TV. She's now been
an investigative journal list for decades and she's always popping
up on TV to talk about big cases. One time
(28:06):
I watched her get recognized by fans in the lobby
of a courtyard Marriant, and I knew she was the
perfect person to sort through all of the complex issues
in this case. If the charges are dismissed, could Catherine
be released. It's a thought that terrifies Troy and Stephanie
because they the police and prosecutors all believe that Catherine
(28:28):
murdered Sarah and Jacob and that there's a lot more
she's been hiding over the last nine years. Coming up
on Unrestorable.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
I'm thinking I'm going to the police station to basically
have them, you know, do whatever they need to do
to find out where my kids are. So I can
get my kids, and I'm thinking that I need to
get there before I lose control over my emotions. At
this point, it's just too much. At this point, I'm
like this, it's crazy. We're on the phone one night
and he just kind of stopped me and he told
(29:05):
me that his two kids were missing, and honestly, I
don't think that I believed him.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
There have been amendments to our mental health statutes throughout
the years, and two thousand and six there were major
amendments because they were concerned that people were just going to.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Be locked away.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
People would forget about them, you know, no oversight somebody.
Speaker 7 (29:25):
It was really kind of cynical looking at this whole
eight year Saga would say that Katherine Hoggle has been
a master manipulator his entire time right until now. She's
avoiding this final hearing and she may prevail in getting
her criminal charges dismissed and being civilly committed.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Unrestorable is executive produced and hosted by me, Sarah Trelevin,
and Beth Carris. Our story editor is Kathleen Goldhar. Mixing
and sound designed by Reza Daya for anonymous content. Jessica
Grimshaw is our executive producer. Jennifer Sears is our executive
in charge of production, and Nick Yanas is our legal
council for iHeart executive producer Christina Everett and supervising producer
(30:11):
Abu Zafar
Hosts And Creators
Beth Karas
Sarah Treleaven
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.