WEST CHESTER — The Chester County couple whose physical and emotional abuse of a 12-year-old girl authorities contend led to her death from starvation and blunt force trauma earlier this year were formally notified Thursday that the District Attorney’s Office intends to seek the death penalty against them.
Appearing via video link from the Chester County Prison, where they are being held without bail, for their formal arraignment, Rendell A. Hoagland and Cindy Marie Warren listened impassively as a member of the county court administration staff told them their cases would be certified as capital. Both entered pleas of not guilty.
The aggravating circumstances cited in the formal criminal information that allows the prosecution to seek the death penalty included that both defendants committed a killing while in the perpetration of a felony, and that the homicide was committed by means of torture. The case against Warren also included the aggravator that she was restricted from having contact with the girl under the terms of a custody order from Monroe County in 2020, when she and Hoagland lived there.
Authorities contend that Hoagland and Warren spent months physically and emotionally abusing Hoagland’s 12-year-old daughter, Malinda Hoagland, both before and after the couple moved to rural West Caln with Malinda and Warren’s biological son.
“The evidence shows that Malinda was regularly subjected to hours of physical punishment, deprived of sleep, and beaten when she family to comply with the unreasonable demands of Warren and Hoagland,” stated Chester County Detective Bernard Martin, the lead investigator in the case, in his detailed arrest affidavit.
Malinda died on May 4 after the family returned from a trip to a camping park in Lancaster County. They initially said that she had injured herself while riding a bicycle, but police soon discovered videos showing Malinda being abused.
In all, Martin wrote that “hundreds of videos” were recovered from phones and other devices depicting the abuse of the girl by both Hoagland, her biological father, and Warren, her stepmother. “Over 150 videos and still images were recovered depicting Malinda shackled to furniture and enduring physical abuse. Over 200 videos and images depict Malinda being subjected to forced exercise and physical punishment.”
The abuse came as punishment for such infractions as forgetting chores or homework, stealing food, failing to sit properly, and failing to continue with forced exercise,” the affidavit states.
In all, Martin wrote that “hundreds of videos” were recovered from phones and other devices depicting the abuse of the girl by both Hoagland, her biological father, and Warren, her stepmother. “Over 150 videos and still images were recovered depicting Malinda shackled to furniture and enduring physical abuse. Over 200 videos and images depict Malinda being subjected to forced exercise and physical punishment.”
The abuse came as punishment for such infractions as forgetting chores or homework, stealing food failing to sit properly, and failing to continue with forced exercise,” the affidavit states.
The twin cases have been assigned to Common Pleas Court Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft. But it could be months, if not years, before the matter goes to trial. For example, the other death penalty case in Chester County, that of Mamadou Kallie, who allegedly shot and killed two women, is still awaiting a trial date even though he was arrested in may 2022.
In order to obtain the death penalty for a first-degree murder conviction, prosecutors in Pennsylvania must show a judge or jury hearing the case that certain aggravating factors in the case — circumstances that make a killing more heinous — outweigh any mitigating factors — circumstances that favor a defendant. Specifically, prosecutors have 18 specific aggravating factors on which they can rely to seek the death penalty, and the defendants are required to be notified of those factors when they are formally arraignment.
The arraignment process is largely technical, and most defendants waive it. But under the law, defendants who face the death penalty cannot do so. Thus, both Hoagland and Warren sat in an office at the prison and listened for approximately 30 minutes while the court administrator read the legal language of each of the charges against them — some 280 counts. The charges against them include murder of the first, second, and third degrees, kidnapping of a minor, involuntary servitude, endangering the welfare of a child, false imprisonment, aggravated assault and conspiracy.
They appeared separately, both dressed in red prison clothing. Hoagland wore a gold cross necklace, while Warren had her hair down across her shoulders. They sat and read the criminal documents silently, putting their hands on their chins while scanning the pages of the information, and did not ask questions.
Stuart Crichton, Hoagland’s attorney, attended the proceeding in the conference room in the county Justice Center where arraignments are held. Assistant Public Defender Stephen Delano, Warren’s counsel, did not attend.
Pennsylvania hasn’t executed someone since 1999. Gov. Tom Wolf imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2015 but prosecutors can still seek it at trial.
It is rare for those accused of first-degree murder in Chester County to face the death penalty. The last time that a death penalty case was sought in the county was 2014 when then-District Attorney Thomas Hogan filed capital cases against Gary Lee Fellenbaum and Jillian Tait in the torture and beating death of Tait’s 3-year-old son, “Scotty” McMillan.
Hogan withdrew the death penalty against the two in exchange for guilty pleas — first-degree murder for Fellenbaum and third-degree murder and conspiracy for Tait. Fellenbaum is serving a life sentence in state prison, while Tait is serving a 42-to-94-year sentence.
The last time a county jury imposed the death penalty was in 2012, when a panel hearing the case of a Coatesville man, Laquanta Chapman, imposed the penalty for the grisly slaying of a city teenager. That decision was later overturned on appeal, as Chapman’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender P.J. Redmond, successfully argued that the lone aggravating circumstance cited by the prosecution had not been properly applied.
In addition, a jury made up of residents of the county imposed the death penalty in 2017 on a man described as a domestic terrorist in the 2014 ambush slaying of a state trooper and the wounding of another. The case was tried in Pike County, where the crime occurred.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544
Source: Berkshire mont
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