October 25, 2023 • 25 mins
After years of advocacy by Troy, a judge finally decides to hear testimony from sworn witnesses about Catherine’s competency, and may even question Catherine directly. But as the clock counts down to the mandatory dismissal of charges, is it too little too late?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, so better, much better outcome than you were anticipating today.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Definitely, it's way better, a lot better than what we
thought was going to happen, for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
In August, I got a call from Troy. After so
many years, he finally got a break in Sarah and
Jacob's case, the case against their mother. In all the
time I've spent with Troy in listening to him tell
his devastating story, this is the first time he's ever
sounded hopeful.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
The judge determined that there needs to be a hearing
so that he can determine competency itself, which is something
we've been pushing for the whole time.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
At this point, it's been almost eight very long years
since Troy's kids, Sarah and Jacob, were taken by their mother,
and the state has accused her of killing them. Now,
in August twenty twenty two, after years of psychiatric evaluations
concluding that Catherine is incompetent to stand trial, a judge
is final insisting on a hearing so he can form
(01:02):
his own assessment. This hearing would be the first time
since Catherine's twenty fourteen arrest that any judge would hear
sworn testimony related to Catherine's competency. Until now, judges have
only reviewed periodic reports about Catherine prepared by doctors at
Clifton T. Perkins, a psychiatric hospital that she has been
(01:22):
held in since her arrest.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
And this is a new judge, right, It's definitely a
good thing. You know, we still have a long way
to go, and there's still a very good chance, we understand,
you know, there's a good chance that come December the
charges will get dropped. But we have a chance to
try to at least, you know, fight for Sarah and
(01:45):
Jacob and fight for what should be happening.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
For years, Troy has been watching a clock the countdown
to the dismissal of Catherine's murder charges. Remember, in Maryland,
a person cannot be held on charges indefinitely if they
are deemed incompetent. The clock will run out in four
months December. First, okay, so talk to me about next steps,
what happens next?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So the next steps are we let me see, So
October it's tenatively set for October seventh.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
This newly presiding judge doesn't just want to question Catherine's
doctors at Clifton T. Perkins Psychiatric hospital about the conclusions
of their competency evaluation. He's also suggested that he may
want to question Catherine to see how much she might
reveal about her state of mind and her ability to
withstand the scrutiny of the criminal justice system. For Troy,
(02:38):
it feels like taking a small step forward after so
many years of disappointment.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I mean, I can't remember anytime that we walked out
of the courtroom going okay, well this is where we
should be, or I mean, we're really not where we
should be at this point. Anyway. We shouldn't be anywhere near,
you know, the charges possibly being dropped. We should be
if anything, we should be years five years out from
that still and this should have happened, you know, four
(03:05):
or five years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Troy's story isn't just the story of one family. Every year,
millions of defendants with mental illness are jailed, and tens
of thousands of them will appear before a judge to
have their competency assessed, many of them with their own
trail of baggage in the form of desperate family members
or forgotten victims. But as Troy and his wife Stephanie
(03:29):
prepare for this hearing, as they nervously watch the clock.
They're consumed by the overarching sense that this is their
last chance, Troy's one shot at convincing a judge to
move forward with Catherine's prosecution, and that Catherine and her
attorney may well be able to maneuver their way out
of this very specific kind of accountability. The only thing
(03:52):
that Troy considers justice. I'm Sarah t Levin and this
is Unrestorable, an original podcast from Anonymous content and iHeartRadio.
(04:18):
This might not come as a big surprise, but the
hearing did not happen that October. In fact, it didn't
happen until mid November. My co host Beth Carris and
I connected with Troy and his wife, Stephanie the night
before the hearing was scheduled to start. So we'd love
if you could bring us up to speed in terms
of what's going on.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
I'll defer to my attorney, Okay. So there's been a
lot of developments in the last twenty four to thirty
six hours.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So oh wow, Okay, this is Troy's lawyer, Matt Alegi.
Like Troy, Matt is a bear of a man. He's
big and broad, with dark framed glasses. And a salt
and pepper beard.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
So I mean, well, there's a lot going Principally, Perkins
has not yet responded to the subpoena for records, which
is putting a bit of wrinkle in their plans to
have a full evidentiary hearing on Catherine's competency. The other
thing that happened that was big was the state requested
(05:20):
earlier this week that Troy be a witness and testify
significantly had the hearing, which we were really expecting.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Matt is actually a real estate lawyer, but he and
Troy go way back, and he's become Troy and Stephanie's
biggest advocate.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
I am not a criminal defense lawyer, but because I
grew up here in Gaithsburg, in Germantown, you know, as
I'm doing all the sophisticated work, I'm a lawyer in
the community. And everybody I grew up with, you know,
if they got in trouble with the police, or if
their mom died, or if they got a hip back,
you know what have they just you know, they don't
(05:56):
understand what different kinds of lawyers are. They just coy
and I've just never turned that away. And the firm
has been very gracious and letting me help these people,
especially when they have big problems.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Almost since the beginning, he's offered the services of his
large legal firm pro bono, providing Troy and Stephanie with
legal advice and representation. It would be tough for them.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
To afford, and it looks like the defense file of
protective order relating to evidence, probably her records, which we
haven't seen yet. We of course have concerned that this
is procedural nonsense with an intent to run out the
clock on the December first mandatory dismissal with the charges date.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
The stakes are really really high, and so Matt is
helping Troy and Stephanie prepare, guiding them through legal strategy
and helping Troy prep his testimony while cautiously tempering their hopefulness.
Matt and Troy knew each other in high school and
they reconnected right after Sarah and went missing.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
I mean, this has been eight years. I don't know
how many thousands of hours. Navigating the American justice system
without a guide or a translator is impossible. When you
hear a layperson ask questions about why did this happen?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Why did that happen.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Why is this showing up on the docket, just being
the translator, just being there, being able to explain things
to have to navigate. Filing a motion in a criminal
case where you're the victim, just so you know if
your psychotic ex girlfriend escapes. Yeah, like those kinds of things,
(07:43):
Filing the victim notification motions, doing all the things that
are required so that the hospital tells him when certain
things happened that he's you know, we just we did
a lot of that.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
You wish there was more to do.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
When it's a criminal case and the defendant isn't competent
to stand trial, there's just not a lot to do.
But he did a lot. I'm the sherpa, know, I'm
the lawyer, like I'm helping fine, but this is all him.
This is his drive, this is his persistence, this is
his what can we do every day?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Romance seems like an inappropriate word to use in this
dark context, but there's such transparent affection between Matt and
Troy Stephanie too. Stephanie has described Matt to me as
their protector, but Matt is also yet another person sucked
into the vortex of this tragedy. Determined to do something
anything in what seems like an impossible situation.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
It was really kind of cynical looking at this whole
eight year saga would say that Catherine 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 (09:07):
That is the state's position, and I think everybody on
this side of the screen agrees with it. And that's
why they want Troy to testify, which again we were
surprised about, and the extent to which they're going to
want him to testify and the things they're going to
want to talk him to talk about willasurprising, but they're
going to want to go back and tell the story
to the judge.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So not only would this hearing be the first time
a judge is said to actively engage with testimony instead
of just relying on doctor's competency evaluations, it is going
to be the first time that Troy will get his
chance to offer his testimony on the record.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
The state's position is she's always been competent, and she's
always been lingering, and there is significant evidence through her
words and actions from when this started that Troy has
firsthand knowledge of that the judge needs to know about,
but he can make a determination not is she competent today,
(10:04):
but is she competent today because she's been competent the
whole time?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And Troy, how are you feeling about testifying tomorrow?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
It feels like if it's something I can do to
help my kids, then it's good that there is at
least something actively I can do, you know. At this point, finally,
it's been so long since anything has even had a
potential to make a difference. So that part, yeah, I mean,
that's that's something that I am. You know, I guess
I don't happy about it, but it's something that I'm
(10:42):
definitely happy to do.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
I don't want to keep you any later. Thanks for
making time again to speak with us. Thank you very
much for the update. We'll of course be thinking of
you guys tomorrow and we'll keep an eye on updates
on what happens. And good luck.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
All right, Counsel and Ms Harrold.
Speaker 7 (11:07):
My name is James Bonathan on the administrative judge here
at the Court.
Speaker 6 (11:12):
I will be taking.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
Over this case the next day. November seventeenth, twenty twenty two,
the hearing Troy has been waiting for finally began.
Speaker 8 (11:23):
Would you please state and name the spell your last
name for the record, short Turner to you are any
are mister Turner Howell at fifty.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Matt told us that after weeks of waiting for the
hospital to comply with the subpoena to deliver Catherine's medical records,
Perkins finally delivered thousands of pages, and Troy is called
to the witness stand to be questioned by State's attorney
John McCarthy.
Speaker 8 (11:48):
Tell us a little bit about the nature of their
relationship and how long you've known.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
We're coworkers. We met in November of two thousand and seven,
and in two thousand and eight we started to see
each other and we had our first child later that year,
and then Sarah and Jacob came later. We lived together
for about six and a half years, sixty and a
half years.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
McCarthy persuades the court that it's important that Troy testify,
in large part because no one at Perkins has ever
spoken to him about Catherine's competence, about his conversations with her,
and what he insists is not just lucidity, but literally
a plan to get away with murder.
Speaker 8 (12:30):
Did she did any of those conversations discuss with you
what was the best path for her to pursue in
this case?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yes, explain that in competency was the best path. The basically,
she was advised to remain incompetent. From my understanding and
from what she said to me, she understood everything.
Speaker 9 (13:00):
You can remember the conversation.
Speaker 8 (13:02):
Tell us about what was being said at the time
that she indicated that that about the competency bad thing.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
The ones she wanted to pursue, specifically was that she
was not going to plead guilty to killing the children,
and her way to not do that and not be
accountable for that was incompetency.
Speaker 8 (13:23):
Did she say to you why she didn't want to
please guilty to killing the kids?
Speaker 6 (13:29):
She said she didn't do it.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
The state's attorney is leading Troy down a familiar path,
but one that this new judge hasn't heard before. McCarthy
is getting Troy to explain how rational Catherine seems, how
motivated she appears to be to remain incompetent, That this
label wasn't simply applied by her doctors, but actively chosen
(13:53):
by her as a way to avoid accountability.
Speaker 9 (13:57):
And did she ever speak about jail with you?
Speaker 6 (14:01):
Yes?
Speaker 9 (14:02):
What did she say about jail.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
That she would not be safe in there?
Speaker 8 (14:07):
How many different conversations do you think you had with
Katherine once she arrived at Firk.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
How many times you talked about for the first year
and a half?
Speaker 6 (14:17):
Let me see.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I would say for the first year it was minimum
three or four times a week. A lot of weeks
was daily. I was calling quite often, trying to see
if she would slip up and say something about where
my kids were.
Speaker 8 (14:32):
The conversation relating to her wanting to remain income, when
did that take place?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
There were several of them, so it was over the
course of from two thousand and fourteen through twenty eighteen.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
Troy answers questions from the state's attorney for over an hour.
They covered Troy's early life with Catherine, his attempts to
get her to tell him what happened to the kids,
and his efforts to get anyone at Perkins to talk
to him about Catherine.
Speaker 6 (15:05):
Thank you, sure, I think I'm done, Okay, mister Belson.
Speaker 10 (15:24):
I need a minute just to organize my thoughts that
I may, you may.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
The state has just finished questioning Troy Turner, Sarah and
Jacob's father, as Catherine's attorney, David Felson takes time to
prepare his cross examination. Troy waits in the witness chair.
He has no idea what's coming. Despite all the years
of pushing for this hearing, the weeks of prep done
by him and Matt, you can't be prepared for everything,
(15:57):
and Troy is about to find that out.
Speaker 10 (16:01):
Sure, you filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court for
Montomery County, Maryland, number one two seven zero three zero
FL in the matter of Catherine Howard. You remember doing
that twenty fifteen vaguely, and you sign something under oath
(16:22):
in that case.
Speaker 9 (16:22):
Didn't it?
Speaker 6 (16:26):
Honestly?
Speaker 9 (16:26):
I don't remember. Okay.
Speaker 10 (16:29):
That was a lawsuit to have you declared as her
guardian of the person and her property.
Speaker 6 (16:37):
Isn't that correct that I remember doing that? Yeah?
Speaker 9 (16:39):
So good, Okay.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Catherine's lawyer isn't talking about the affidavit Troy signed attesting
to his belief that Catherine is malingering, and he's not
talking about Troy's successful petition to revoke Catherine's parental rights
of their eldest son. Felsen is talking about another approach
Troy made to the court. Just said, seven months after
the kids went missing, a request for guardianship over Catherine,
(17:05):
giving him power to direct her care and control her finances.
Speaker 10 (17:10):
And this is when she was already in the Clifton
ge Perkins Hospital.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Yes, when Troy filed this petition, Catherine had already been
declared incompetent. He tried desperately to get Catherine to tell
him what had happened to their children. He called the
hospital constantly, but Catherine wouldn't budge. She just kept saying
that Sarah and Jacob were fine. In his guardianship petition,
(17:38):
Troy indicated that Perkins wasn't keeping him looped into her treatment,
that they wouldn't let him visit, and for the sake
of the children, Troy needed to be kept in the loop.
Speaker 10 (17:51):
And you said, under oath with Hoddel lacked sufficient understanding
or capacity to make or communicate were reasonable to decicians
regarding her health care treatment, including the administration of medicine
or the administration of financial affairs.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
You swore that was true, Okay.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
Felson is pointing out what could be perceived as a
major contradiction. Back then, Troy was arguing that Catherine was
not competent enough to make her own decisions about her
health care, but Felson is pointing out that now Troy
wants the court to find her competent enough to help
in her own defense and to stand trial.
Speaker 9 (18:33):
Did you or did you not?
Speaker 11 (18:36):
Ante, I asked, I don't remember if it's there or
by times.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
I know one policeman, But Troy has consistently maintained that
Catherine is and always has been competent, that she can
and should be held responsible for whatever happened to the kids,
That she is mentally ill, but not so mentally ill
that she's unaccountable to him, to society, and to Sarah
(19:03):
and Jacob.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Actually, what I wanted to do was get treatment, hoping
if she.
Speaker 6 (19:09):
If she was.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Talking to someone, that she would talk about my kids
and say where they were.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
From Troy's perspective, this guardianship petition wasn't about whether Catherine
was competent or not. His kids were gone and he
was desperate with so few options, so that petition was
just another tool he was willing to use. And just
like he never expected, he would post flyers of his
(19:37):
missing kids in the windows of coffee shops, that he
would stare at their empty, unmade beds night after night.
He never expected this petition could haunt him, that it
would be thrown back in his face years later, during
his one shot to convince the court that Catherine knows
exactly what she's doing and always has.
Speaker 10 (20:00):
So that was an attempt when you followed us, it
was an attempt.
Speaker 9 (20:05):
To get information about where your children were.
Speaker 11 (20:09):
Of course, okay, so it wasn't to care for his
hot in terms of caring for her as to find
out where my children were, the only way I felt
was for her to get someone to properly talk to her.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
Trying to explain himself from the witness stand, Troy is
racked with anxiety and sadness. Catherine is sitting right there,
refusing to make eye contact with him. He can see
her whispering to her attorney making notes. When Sarah and
I talked to him later, he explained what was going
through his mind at that moment.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Very angry. I mean, right now, I think it's towards Catherine.
I'm hearing some of the stuff I heard in the
hearing towards her parents, even more so than before towards
her attorney, because he's the piece of garbage. I mean,
(21:07):
like I understand on your job, but also the way
that he goes about and the things that he's done.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
It's just.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
Troy is dismissed and steps off the witness stand.
Speaker 8 (21:32):
First of all, you are, I guess I should address
the fact that we are going to be requesting the
court to conduct a bladir of Obun's hoggle an open
court on the record.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
All day, since before Troy first took the stand, McCarthy
and Felson have been sniping over a key issue, maybe
the key issue of the day, whether Catherine can be
questioned by Circuit Court Judge James A. Bonafadt.
Speaker 8 (22:00):
I think the examination of her today on the record
would be particularly timely in allowing you to read those
records with a more intelligent eye as to what is
important and whether you agree or disagree with any of
the observations are made by the doctors at Clifton T.
Speaker 9 (22:17):
Perkins.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
The state wants Catherine questioned, but Phelson argues that she
has a right to remain silent.
Speaker 9 (22:24):
She has a did themendic privilege not to test. But
more important, more important, I was already has it for me.
Any interview that Port does in this set is not
going to be relevant.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Troy also wants Catherine to be questioned because he wants
the judge to see what he sees a woman who's competent,
a woman who can assist her counsel, a woman who
was more than capable of acting in her own best interests,
even if she couldn't do that for her own kids.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
You can't.
Speaker 8 (23:02):
Plead incompetency and then refuse to answer questions.
Speaker 9 (23:06):
I think that there's an implicit waiver of that Fifth
Amendment Frickage.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
In his argument to the judge, Felson attacked the state's position.
Speaker 9 (23:16):
It's not pleading of inhabitants.
Speaker 10 (23:18):
It's a suggestion of intrabinans that results in the ardors
and evaluation.
Speaker 9 (23:22):
And then I find if there's client, she doesn't planed anything.
Speaker 10 (23:27):
And the reason she hasn't plant anything, she doesn't play
not guilty. She doesn't play an see all, she hasn't
played guilty just because she's.
Speaker 9 (23:34):
Not competent to do that.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
Listening intently to all of this is Judge Bonavan. It's
his call, and all eyes are on him as he
makes a decision.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
All right, what I'm going to do? Uh, mister Felson.
Speaker 7 (23:58):
I appreciate your statement that I'm persuaded by the crash
now and legal reasoning that the Fifth Amendment does not
arise when the defended statements are used solely for the
limited neutral purpose of determining competency to stand trial.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
This is it.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
This is the moment that Troy has been waiting for
for the first time since Sarah and Jacob disappeared without
a trace. Catherine will have to answer questions posed by
the judge. No filter, no doctors, nowhere to hide this hole.
Speaker 9 (24:38):
How are your name happened?
Speaker 6 (24:39):
Ashley Hacker? How old are you? Thirty six?
Speaker 5 (24:44):
That's next time on Unrestorable. Unrestorable is executive produced and
hosted by me Beth Carras and Sarah tre Our. Story
editor is Kathleen Goldhar, Mixing and sound design by Mitchell
(25:05):
Stewart for Anonymous content. Jessica Grimshaw is our executive producer,
Jennifer Sears is our executive in charge of production, and
Nick Janiez is our legal counsel. For iHeart. Executive producer
Christina Everett and supervising producer Abu Zapfer
Okay, so better, much better outcome than you were anticipating today.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Definitely, it's way better, a lot better than what we
thought was going to happen, for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
In August, I got a call from Troy. After so
many years, he finally got a break in Sarah and
Jacob's case, the case against their mother. In all the
time I've spent with Troy in listening to him tell
his devastating story, this is the first time he's ever
sounded hopeful.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
The judge determined that there needs to be a hearing
so that he can determine competency itself, which is something
we've been pushing for the whole time.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
At this point, it's been almost eight very long years
since Troy's kids, Sarah and Jacob, were taken by their mother,
and the state has accused her of killing them. Now,
in August twenty twenty two, after years of psychiatric evaluations
concluding that Catherine is incompetent to stand trial, a judge
is final insisting on a hearing so he can form
(01:02):
his own assessment. This hearing would be the first time
since Catherine's twenty fourteen arrest that any judge would hear
sworn testimony related to Catherine's competency. Until now, judges have
only reviewed periodic reports about Catherine prepared by doctors at
Clifton T. Perkins, a psychiatric hospital that she has been
(01:22):
held in since her arrest.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
And this is a new judge, right, It's definitely a
good thing. You know, we still have a long way
to go, and there's still a very good chance, we understand,
you know, there's a good chance that come December the
charges will get dropped. But we have a chance to
try to at least, you know, fight for Sarah and
(01:45):
Jacob and fight for what should be happening.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
For years, Troy has been watching a clock the countdown
to the dismissal of Catherine's murder charges. Remember, in Maryland,
a person cannot be held on charges indefinitely if they
are deemed incompetent. The clock will run out in four
months December. First, okay, so talk to me about next steps,
what happens next?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So the next steps are we let me see, So
October it's tenatively set for October seventh.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
This newly presiding judge doesn't just want to question Catherine's
doctors at Clifton T. Perkins Psychiatric hospital about the conclusions
of their competency evaluation. He's also suggested that he may
want to question Catherine to see how much she might
reveal about her state of mind and her ability to
withstand the scrutiny of the criminal justice system. For Troy,
(02:38):
it feels like taking a small step forward after so
many years of disappointment.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I mean, I can't remember anytime that we walked out
of the courtroom going okay, well this is where we
should be, or I mean, we're really not where we
should be at this point. Anyway. We shouldn't be anywhere near,
you know, the charges possibly being dropped. We should be
if anything, we should be years five years out from
that still and this should have happened, you know, four
(03:05):
or five years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Troy's story isn't just the story of one family. Every year,
millions of defendants with mental illness are jailed, and tens
of thousands of them will appear before a judge to
have their competency assessed, many of them with their own
trail of baggage in the form of desperate family members
or forgotten victims. But as Troy and his wife Stephanie
(03:29):
prepare for this hearing, as they nervously watch the clock.
They're consumed by the overarching sense that this is their
last chance, Troy's one shot at convincing a judge to
move forward with Catherine's prosecution, and that Catherine and her
attorney may well be able to maneuver their way out
of this very specific kind of accountability. The only thing
(03:52):
that Troy considers justice. I'm Sarah t Levin and this
is Unrestorable, an original podcast from Anonymous content and iHeartRadio.
(04:18):
This might not come as a big surprise, but the
hearing did not happen that October. In fact, it didn't
happen until mid November. My co host Beth Carris and
I connected with Troy and his wife, Stephanie the night
before the hearing was scheduled to start. So we'd love
if you could bring us up to speed in terms
of what's going on.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
I'll defer to my attorney, Okay. So there's been a
lot of developments in the last twenty four to thirty
six hours.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So oh wow, Okay, this is Troy's lawyer, Matt Alegi.
Like Troy, Matt is a bear of a man. He's
big and broad, with dark framed glasses. And a salt
and pepper beard.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
So I mean, well, there's a lot going Principally, Perkins
has not yet responded to the subpoena for records, which
is putting a bit of wrinkle in their plans to
have a full evidentiary hearing on Catherine's competency. The other
thing that happened that was big was the state requested
(05:20):
earlier this week that Troy be a witness and testify
significantly had the hearing, which we were really expecting.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Matt is actually a real estate lawyer, but he and
Troy go way back, and he's become Troy and Stephanie's
biggest advocate.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
I am not a criminal defense lawyer, but because I
grew up here in Gaithsburg, in Germantown, you know, as
I'm doing all the sophisticated work, I'm a lawyer in
the community. And everybody I grew up with, you know,
if they got in trouble with the police, or if
their mom died, or if they got a hip back,
you know what have they just you know, they don't
(05:56):
understand what different kinds of lawyers are. They just coy
and I've just never turned that away. And the firm
has been very gracious and letting me help these people,
especially when they have big problems.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Almost since the beginning, he's offered the services of his
large legal firm pro bono, providing Troy and Stephanie with
legal advice and representation. It would be tough for them.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
To afford, and it looks like the defense file of
protective order relating to evidence, probably her records, which we
haven't seen yet. We of course have concerned that this
is procedural nonsense with an intent to run out the
clock on the December first mandatory dismissal with the charges date.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
The stakes are really really high, and so Matt is
helping Troy and Stephanie prepare, guiding them through legal strategy
and helping Troy prep his testimony while cautiously tempering their hopefulness.
Matt and Troy knew each other in high school and
they reconnected right after Sarah and went missing.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
I mean, this has been eight years. I don't know
how many thousands of hours. Navigating the American justice system
without a guide or a translator is impossible. When you
hear a layperson ask questions about why did this happen?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Why did that happen.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Why is this showing up on the docket, just being
the translator, just being there, being able to explain things
to have to navigate. Filing a motion in a criminal
case where you're the victim, just so you know if
your psychotic ex girlfriend escapes. Yeah, like those kinds of things,
(07:43):
Filing the victim notification motions, doing all the things that
are required so that the hospital tells him when certain
things happened that he's you know, we just we did
a lot of that.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
You wish there was more to do.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
When it's a criminal case and the defendant isn't competent
to stand trial, there's just not a lot to do.
But he did a lot. I'm the sherpa, know, I'm
the lawyer, like I'm helping fine, but this is all him.
This is his drive, this is his persistence, this is
his what can we do every day?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Romance seems like an inappropriate word to use in this
dark context, but there's such transparent affection between Matt and
Troy Stephanie too. Stephanie has described Matt to me as
their protector, but Matt is also yet another person sucked
into the vortex of this tragedy. Determined to do something
anything in what seems like an impossible situation.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
It was really kind of cynical looking at this whole
eight year saga would say that Catherine 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 (09:07):
That is the state's position, and I think everybody on
this side of the screen agrees with it. And that's
why they want Troy to testify, which again we were
surprised about, and the extent to which they're going to
want him to testify and the things they're going to
want to talk him to talk about willasurprising, but they're
going to want to go back and tell the story
to the judge.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So not only would this hearing be the first time
a judge is said to actively engage with testimony instead
of just relying on doctor's competency evaluations, it is going
to be the first time that Troy will get his
chance to offer his testimony on the record.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
The state's position is she's always been competent, and she's
always been lingering, and there is significant evidence through her
words and actions from when this started that Troy has
firsthand knowledge of that the judge needs to know about,
but he can make a determination not is she competent today,
(10:04):
but is she competent today because she's been competent the
whole time?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And Troy, how are you feeling about testifying tomorrow?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
It feels like if it's something I can do to
help my kids, then it's good that there is at
least something actively I can do, you know. At this point, finally,
it's been so long since anything has even had a
potential to make a difference. So that part, yeah, I mean,
that's that's something that I am. You know, I guess
I don't happy about it, but it's something that I'm
(10:42):
definitely happy to do.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
I don't want to keep you any later. Thanks for
making time again to speak with us. Thank you very
much for the update. We'll of course be thinking of
you guys tomorrow and we'll keep an eye on updates
on what happens. And good luck.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
All right, Counsel and Ms Harrold.
Speaker 7 (11:07):
My name is James Bonathan on the administrative judge here
at the Court.
Speaker 6 (11:12):
I will be taking.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
Over this case the next day. November seventeenth, twenty twenty two,
the hearing Troy has been waiting for finally began.
Speaker 8 (11:23):
Would you please state and name the spell your last
name for the record, short Turner to you are any
are mister Turner Howell at fifty.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Matt told us that after weeks of waiting for the
hospital to comply with the subpoena to deliver Catherine's medical records,
Perkins finally delivered thousands of pages, and Troy is called
to the witness stand to be questioned by State's attorney
John McCarthy.
Speaker 8 (11:48):
Tell us a little bit about the nature of their
relationship and how long you've known.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
We're coworkers. We met in November of two thousand and seven,
and in two thousand and eight we started to see
each other and we had our first child later that year,
and then Sarah and Jacob came later. We lived together
for about six and a half years, sixty and a
half years.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
McCarthy persuades the court that it's important that Troy testify,
in large part because no one at Perkins has ever
spoken to him about Catherine's competence, about his conversations with her,
and what he insists is not just lucidity, but literally
a plan to get away with murder.
Speaker 8 (12:30):
Did she did any of those conversations discuss with you
what was the best path for her to pursue in
this case?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yes, explain that in competency was the best path. The basically,
she was advised to remain incompetent. From my understanding and
from what she said to me, she understood everything.
Speaker 9 (13:00):
You can remember the conversation.
Speaker 8 (13:02):
Tell us about what was being said at the time
that she indicated that that about the competency bad thing.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
The ones she wanted to pursue, specifically was that she
was not going to plead guilty to killing the children,
and her way to not do that and not be
accountable for that was incompetency.
Speaker 8 (13:23):
Did she say to you why she didn't want to
please guilty to killing the kids?
Speaker 6 (13:29):
She said she didn't do it.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
The state's attorney is leading Troy down a familiar path,
but one that this new judge hasn't heard before. McCarthy
is getting Troy to explain how rational Catherine seems, how
motivated she appears to be to remain incompetent, That this
label wasn't simply applied by her doctors, but actively chosen
(13:53):
by her as a way to avoid accountability.
Speaker 9 (13:57):
And did she ever speak about jail with you?
Speaker 6 (14:01):
Yes?
Speaker 9 (14:02):
What did she say about jail.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
That she would not be safe in there?
Speaker 8 (14:07):
How many different conversations do you think you had with
Katherine once she arrived at Firk.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
How many times you talked about for the first year
and a half?
Speaker 6 (14:17):
Let me see.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I would say for the first year it was minimum
three or four times a week. A lot of weeks
was daily. I was calling quite often, trying to see
if she would slip up and say something about where
my kids were.
Speaker 8 (14:32):
The conversation relating to her wanting to remain income, when
did that take place?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
There were several of them, so it was over the
course of from two thousand and fourteen through twenty eighteen.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
Troy answers questions from the state's attorney for over an hour.
They covered Troy's early life with Catherine, his attempts to
get her to tell him what happened to the kids,
and his efforts to get anyone at Perkins to talk
to him about Catherine.
Speaker 6 (15:05):
Thank you, sure, I think I'm done, Okay, mister Belson.
Speaker 10 (15:24):
I need a minute just to organize my thoughts that
I may, you may.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
The state has just finished questioning Troy Turner, Sarah and
Jacob's father, as Catherine's attorney, David Felson takes time to
prepare his cross examination. Troy waits in the witness chair.
He has no idea what's coming. Despite all the years
of pushing for this hearing, the weeks of prep done
by him and Matt, you can't be prepared for everything,
(15:57):
and Troy is about to find that out.
Speaker 10 (16:01):
Sure, you filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court for
Montomery County, Maryland, number one two seven zero three zero
FL in the matter of Catherine Howard. You remember doing
that twenty fifteen vaguely, and you sign something under oath
(16:22):
in that case.
Speaker 9 (16:22):
Didn't it?
Speaker 6 (16:26):
Honestly?
Speaker 9 (16:26):
I don't remember. Okay.
Speaker 10 (16:29):
That was a lawsuit to have you declared as her
guardian of the person and her property.
Speaker 6 (16:37):
Isn't that correct that I remember doing that? Yeah?
Speaker 9 (16:39):
So good, Okay.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Catherine's lawyer isn't talking about the affidavit Troy signed attesting
to his belief that Catherine is malingering, and he's not
talking about Troy's successful petition to revoke Catherine's parental rights
of their eldest son. Felsen is talking about another approach
Troy made to the court. Just said, seven months after
the kids went missing, a request for guardianship over Catherine,
(17:05):
giving him power to direct her care and control her finances.
Speaker 10 (17:10):
And this is when she was already in the Clifton
ge Perkins Hospital.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Yes, when Troy filed this petition, Catherine had already been
declared incompetent. He tried desperately to get Catherine to tell
him what had happened to their children. He called the
hospital constantly, but Catherine wouldn't budge. She just kept saying
that Sarah and Jacob were fine. In his guardianship petition,
(17:38):
Troy indicated that Perkins wasn't keeping him looped into her treatment,
that they wouldn't let him visit, and for the sake
of the children, Troy needed to be kept in the loop.
Speaker 10 (17:51):
And you said, under oath with Hoddel lacked sufficient understanding
or capacity to make or communicate were reasonable to decicians
regarding her health care treatment, including the administration of medicine
or the administration of financial affairs.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
You swore that was true, Okay.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
Felson is pointing out what could be perceived as a
major contradiction. Back then, Troy was arguing that Catherine was
not competent enough to make her own decisions about her
health care, but Felson is pointing out that now Troy
wants the court to find her competent enough to help
in her own defense and to stand trial.
Speaker 9 (18:33):
Did you or did you not?
Speaker 11 (18:36):
Ante, I asked, I don't remember if it's there or
by times.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
I know one policeman, But Troy has consistently maintained that
Catherine is and always has been competent, that she can
and should be held responsible for whatever happened to the kids,
That she is mentally ill, but not so mentally ill
that she's unaccountable to him, to society, and to Sarah
(19:03):
and Jacob.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Actually, what I wanted to do was get treatment, hoping
if she.
Speaker 6 (19:09):
If she was.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Talking to someone, that she would talk about my kids
and say where they were.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
From Troy's perspective, this guardianship petition wasn't about whether Catherine
was competent or not. His kids were gone and he
was desperate with so few options, so that petition was
just another tool he was willing to use. And just
like he never expected, he would post flyers of his
(19:37):
missing kids in the windows of coffee shops, that he
would stare at their empty, unmade beds night after night.
He never expected this petition could haunt him, that it
would be thrown back in his face years later, during
his one shot to convince the court that Catherine knows
exactly what she's doing and always has.
Speaker 10 (20:00):
So that was an attempt when you followed us, it
was an attempt.
Speaker 9 (20:05):
To get information about where your children were.
Speaker 11 (20:09):
Of course, okay, so it wasn't to care for his
hot in terms of caring for her as to find
out where my children were, the only way I felt
was for her to get someone to properly talk to her.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
Trying to explain himself from the witness stand, Troy is
racked with anxiety and sadness. Catherine is sitting right there,
refusing to make eye contact with him. He can see
her whispering to her attorney making notes. When Sarah and
I talked to him later, he explained what was going
through his mind at that moment.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Very angry. I mean, right now, I think it's towards Catherine.
I'm hearing some of the stuff I heard in the
hearing towards her parents, even more so than before towards
her attorney, because he's the piece of garbage. I mean,
(21:07):
like I understand on your job, but also the way
that he goes about and the things that he's done.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
It's just.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
Troy is dismissed and steps off the witness stand.
Speaker 8 (21:32):
First of all, you are, I guess I should address
the fact that we are going to be requesting the
court to conduct a bladir of Obun's hoggle an open
court on the record.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
All day, since before Troy first took the stand, McCarthy
and Felson have been sniping over a key issue, maybe
the key issue of the day, whether Catherine can be
questioned by Circuit Court Judge James A. Bonafadt.
Speaker 8 (22:00):
I think the examination of her today on the record
would be particularly timely in allowing you to read those
records with a more intelligent eye as to what is
important and whether you agree or disagree with any of
the observations are made by the doctors at Clifton T.
Speaker 9 (22:17):
Perkins.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
The state wants Catherine questioned, but Phelson argues that she
has a right to remain silent.
Speaker 9 (22:24):
She has a did themendic privilege not to test. But
more important, more important, I was already has it for me.
Any interview that Port does in this set is not
going to be relevant.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Troy also wants Catherine to be questioned because he wants
the judge to see what he sees a woman who's competent,
a woman who can assist her counsel, a woman who
was more than capable of acting in her own best interests,
even if she couldn't do that for her own kids.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
You can't.
Speaker 8 (23:02):
Plead incompetency and then refuse to answer questions.
Speaker 9 (23:06):
I think that there's an implicit waiver of that Fifth
Amendment Frickage.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
In his argument to the judge, Felson attacked the state's position.
Speaker 9 (23:16):
It's not pleading of inhabitants.
Speaker 10 (23:18):
It's a suggestion of intrabinans that results in the ardors
and evaluation.
Speaker 9 (23:22):
And then I find if there's client, she doesn't planed anything.
Speaker 10 (23:27):
And the reason she hasn't plant anything, she doesn't play
not guilty. She doesn't play an see all, she hasn't
played guilty just because she's.
Speaker 9 (23:34):
Not competent to do that.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
Listening intently to all of this is Judge Bonavan. It's
his call, and all eyes are on him as he
makes a decision.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
All right, what I'm going to do? Uh, mister Felson.
Speaker 7 (23:58):
I appreciate your statement that I'm persuaded by the crash
now and legal reasoning that the Fifth Amendment does not
arise when the defended statements are used solely for the
limited neutral purpose of determining competency to stand trial.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
This is it.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
This is the moment that Troy has been waiting for
for the first time since Sarah and Jacob disappeared without
a trace. Catherine will have to answer questions posed by
the judge. No filter, no doctors, nowhere to hide this hole.
Speaker 9 (24:38):
How are your name happened?
Speaker 6 (24:39):
Ashley Hacker? How old are you? Thirty six?
Speaker 5 (24:44):
That's next time on Unrestorable. Unrestorable is executive produced and
hosted by me Beth Carras and Sarah tre Our. Story
editor is Kathleen Goldhar, Mixing and sound design by Mitchell
(25:05):
Stewart for Anonymous content. Jessica Grimshaw is our executive producer,
Jennifer Sears is our executive in charge of production, and
Nick Janiez is our legal counsel. For iHeart. Executive producer
Christina Everett and supervising producer Abu Zapfer
Hosts And Creators
Beth Karas
Sarah Treleaven
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