Episode 5 – The Ticking Clock

Okay, so better, much better outcome than you were anticipating today.

Definitely, it's way better, a lot better than what we thought was going to happen, for sure.

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.

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.

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 his own assessment. This hearing would be the first time since Catherine's twenty fourteen arrest that any judge would hear

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 Jacob and fight for what should be happening.

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?

So the next steps are we let me see, So October it's tenatively set for October seventh.

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, it feels like taking a small step forward after so many years of disappointment.

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 or five years ago.

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 prepare for this hearing, as they nervously watch the clock.

I'll defer to my attorney, Okay. So there's been a lot of developments in the last twenty four to thirty six hours.

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.

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 earlier this week that Troy be a witness and testify significantly had the hearing, which we were really expecting.

Matt is actually a real estate lawyer, but he and Troy go way back, and he's become Troy and Stephanie's biggest advocate.

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 understand what different kinds of lawyers are. They just coy

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.

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.

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.

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?

Why did that happen.

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, 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.

You wish there was more to do.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, but is she competent today because she's been competent the whole time?

And Troy, how are you feeling about testifying tomorrow?

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 definitely happy to do.

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.

All right, Counsel and Ms Harrold.

My name is James Bonathan on the administrative judge here at the Court.

I will be taking.

Over this case the next day. November seventeenth, twenty twenty two, the hearing Troy has been waiting for finally began.

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.

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.

Tell us a little bit about the nature of their relationship and how long you've known.

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.

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.

Did she did any of those conversations discuss with you what was the best path for her to pursue in this case?

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.

You can remember the conversation.

Tell us about what was being said at the time that she indicated that that about the competency bad thing.

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.

Did she say to you why she didn't want to please guilty to killing the kids?

She said she didn't do it.

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 by her as a way to avoid accountability.

And did she ever speak about jail with you?

Yes?

What did she say about jail.

That she would not be safe in there?

How many different conversations do you think you had with Katherine once she arrived at Firk.

How many times you talked about for the first year and a half?

Let me see.

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.

The conversation relating to her wanting to remain income, when did that take place?

There were several of them, so it was over the course of from two thousand and fourteen through twenty eighteen.

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.

Thank you, sure, I think I'm done, Okay, mister Belson.

I need a minute just to organize my thoughts that I may, you may.

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, and Troy is about to find that out.

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 in that case.

Didn't it?

Honestly?

I don't remember. Okay.

That was a lawsuit to have you declared as her guardian of the person and her property.

Isn't that correct that I remember doing that? Yeah?

So good, Okay.

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, giving him power to direct her care and control her finances.

And this is when she was already in the Clifton ge Perkins Hospital.

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, 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.

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.

You swore that was true, Okay.

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.

Did you or did you not?

Ante, I asked, I don't remember if it's there or by times.

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 and Jacob.

Actually, what I wanted to do was get treatment, hoping if she.

If she was.

Talking to someone, that she would talk about my kids and say where they were.

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 missing kids in the windows of coffee shops, that he would stare at their empty, unmade beds night after night.

So that was an attempt when you followed us, it was an attempt.

To get information about where your children were.

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.

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.

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, like I understand on your job, but also the way that he goes about and the things that he's done.

It's just.

Troy is dismissed and steps off the witness stand.

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.

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.

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.

Perkins.

The state wants Catherine questioned, but Phelson argues that she has a right to remain silent.

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.

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.

You can't.

Plead incompetency and then refuse to answer questions.

I think that there's an implicit waiver of that Fifth Amendment Frickage.

In his argument to the judge, Felson attacked the state's position.

It's not pleading of inhabitants.

It's a suggestion of intrabinans that results in the ardors and evaluation.

And then I find if there's client, she doesn't planed anything.

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.

Not competent to do that.

Listening intently to all of this is Judge Bonavan. It's his call, and all eyes are on him as he makes a decision.

All right, what I'm going to do? Uh, mister Felson.

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.

This is it.

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.

How are your name happened?

Ashley Hacker? How old are you? Thirty six?

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 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