In Pennsylvania, a 52-year-old father and a 45-year-old wife are being charged with torturing and abusing a 12-year-old girl to death earlier this year. They will be put to death.
The horrific murder of young Malinda Hoagland was officially charged this week against Rendell Hoagland and his wife, Cindy Warren. They are being charged with first-, second-, and third-degree murder, forced servitude, and other crimes.
The couple was first caught in May and charged with attempted murder. However, Malinda later died from her injuries, which led to the charges being upgraded to murder.
Prosecutors said there was a lot of proof that Hoagland and Warren were responsible for Malinda’s death.
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“Medical professionals and the Coroner’s Office have found evidence of a pattern of extensive torture and abuse that lasted for years,” Chester County District Attorney Christopher L. de Barrena-Sarobe said in a statement on Thursday. “Additionally, hundreds of videos and text messages show that the defendants planned and carried out a systematic plan to scare, manipulate, and dehumanize Malinda.” Malinda will get what’s due to her.
A news statement from the district attorney’s office says that at 12:30 a.m. on May 4, 2024, emergency medical workers were called to the family’s home in West Caln Township after a 911 call. The person who called, Roagland, said that his daughter Malinda “hit a tree while riding her bicycle.”
An EMT took the child to Paoli Hospital’s Trauma Unit, where they were admitted.
“EMS workers at the scene and medical staff at the hospital both noticed right away that the child was severely underweight and had many injuries all over her body,” the release says. “In the end, Malinda passed away during surgery at about 9:58 p.m.” The investigation by the Chester County Detectives that followed showed that Malinda had been abused and tortured for years.
Based on an autopsy done by a forensic pathologist, Malinda was killed and her cause of death was “starvation and multiple blunt force injuries.” The 12-year-old girl was only 50 pounds when she died, and her body had more than 75 “bruises, contusions, ulcers, and pressure sores” that could be identified.
She didn’t have any sickness, said de Barrena-Sarobe. “She was starved and had to work out—she had no fat on her at all.”
The police searched the defendants’ home and electronic devices and found “hundreds of videos and still images on the defendants’ cellphones and Blink Security Cameras,” according to the police.
Surveillance videos reportedly showed Hoagland and Warren putting handcuffs around Malinda’s ankles and yelling at her through a built-in speaker when they weren’t there in person for “perceived slights” and small offenses.
Text messages and conversations between the Defendants are said to show that Malinda was severely punished for things like forgetting to do her chores or schoolwork, “stealing” food, not smiling during Zoom school meetings, and going to the bathroom while being chained to furniture.
As punishment, they reportedly wouldn’t let Malinda eat for days at a time and made her do “endless amounts” of hard exercises while she was still chained up, like squats and running in place.
At the same time, Warren’s actual child, who is 9 years old, lived in the house and was safe and well cared for.
When the Coatesville Area School District told Children and Youth Services that they were worried about Malinda’s health, Roagland and Warren took her out of regular school and started teaching her only online in November 2023.
During a news conference, de Barrena-Sarobe confirmed that both defendants would be put to death by his office.
As he stood there, he said, “I can say that we plan to go for the death penalty in this case.”