WEBVTT - Episode 1 – Crisis 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:07.320 How about your name? 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:09.600 Happened? Ashley Hockle? Thank you? 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:10.600 How old are you? 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:11.640 Thirty six? 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:13.720 What's your birthday? 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:15.360 Eleven thirteen eighty six. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:21.239 Standing before Judge James Bonavent is Catherine Hockle. It's November 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.000 twenty twenty two, and she's here in a Montgomery County, 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:29.040 Maryland courtroom because Judge Bonavent has to decide if the 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.519 thirty six year old mother of three might finally be 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:36.000 fit enough to stand trial for the murder of two 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:36.960 of her children. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:43.600 Do you know what evidence is? Yes, sir, mat don't 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.400 want you to tell me anything about circumstances in this case, 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.000 but generally, what is evidence? 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:58.520 Something that makes things, something that's used for a case, 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:00.720 good or bad. 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:07.080 Today Catherine calls the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup, Maryland, 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.800 a psychiatric hospital home. She's been there, locked up for 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.319 nearly a decade, charged with the first degree murders of 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.520 two year old Jacob and three year old Sarah, but 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:22.640 yet to stand trial because for the past eight years, 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:25.600 Catherine has been deemed incompetent. 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.039 Do you know what attorneys do? Yes, Anna, tell me 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:31.920 what attorneys do? 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:35.920 A pass q or defend. 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:38.080 What should an attorney know. 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.560 What happened at the alleged crime. 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.040 Being incompetent to stand trial is not the same as 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.640 being found insane or not criminally responsible. Competency deals with 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.120 Catherine's state of mind since her arrest. In order for 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.280 Catherine to receive a fair trial, she has to understand 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.600 the proceedings, the role of the judge and jury, and 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.840 her lawyer and the prosecutor, the whole process. 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:06.120 Is there anything else that they should know? 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:13.120 I can't think of anything right now. I'm not very 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:14.200 good at pope speaking. 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.320 As Catherine sits in that Marilyn courtroom, she does know 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:22.160 where she is, she understands what's happening to her and why. 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.600 But for the last eight years, psychiatrists have regularly determined 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.200 that she's not well enough to assist her lawyer in 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:33.040 her own defense, and that this is what makes her incompetent. 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:37.560 Have you ever heard of the phrase attorney client privilege? Yes, sir, 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:40.240 what do you think that means? 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:47.600 It's a private conversation with you and your attorney. 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:49.399 Thank you very much, Matt. 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.440 She left with Jacob to go get pizza right up 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.360 the street and came back three and a half hours 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:05.200 without him. 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.240 September seventh, twenty fourteen, would be the last Dey Troy 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:13.080 Turner would ever see his kids again, because not only 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:15.639 did Catherine fail to bring two year old Jacob back 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.480 home after a supposed pizza run, she also took her 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.480 three year old daughter, Sarah sometime that night or early morning. 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:28.200 She never came home with her either. To this day, 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.959 their bodies have not been found. It's not clear where 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.600 Catherine took the kids or why, and she continues to 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.480 insist that her children have not come to any harm. 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.280 They were great kids. They both had very sweet souls. 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.760 I used to call Sarah my tomboy princess. She loved 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.200 to play fight with me and the boys. She would 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:51.240 come to defend her brothers because I would be, you know, 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:53.400 slamming them around stuff, and she would punch me in 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.200 spell m and I'd be like, okay, play time's over. 0:03:58.720 --> 0:03:58.840 Oh. 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.040 She was just a sweetheart, and. 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:07.360 You know, she didn't take any stuff from her brothers. 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:12.720 And then Jacob was just super sweet. He always smiled, 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:14.200 he was just always happy. 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:14.880 And. 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:18.880 He would hate for any of his older siblings to 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:19.480 be in trouble. 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:23.279 I found out about this story when I received a 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:27.000 Facebook message on January twenty third, twenty twenty two. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:28.400 It was from a family. 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.440 Member close to Sarah and Jacob's father, Troy, pleading with 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:35.200 me to help them. My name is Sarah Treleven. I'm 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:37.880 a journalist and I had recently appeared on an episode 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:41.279 of the news program twenty twenty about another podcast I made, 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.280 this one about a woman recently convicted of murdering her 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:49.680 two children, Lori Valo Davel. When the show aired, I 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.200 heard from a number of people who are desperate in 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:57.840 some way. They wanted help solving cases of their missing children, parents, partners. 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:00.560 They all wanted the media to pay it attention to 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.080 something that had gone terribly wrong in their lives. 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:05.679 This one was different. 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.080 This message said that if Catherine was not brought to competence, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.960 then the charges against her would be dropped. In Maryland, 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.400 if someone charged with murder is unable to stand trial 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.520 because they are deemed incompetent, the state only has five 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:22.800 years to try and get them healthy enough to go 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:23.960 before a judge. 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:24.760 And face the charges. 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.640 And if that doesn't happen, if they go five years 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.600 without being declared competent, then those murder charges are dismissed, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.520 they all but disappear. Catherine could be released from Perkins, 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.440 Troy might never find out what happened to his kids, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.800 And when I got that Facebook message, the clock was 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:58.039 running out. This is the story of two kids whose 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.200 definitive fates are unknown, other who has been found not 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:02.920 competent to stand trial. 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.320 For their murders. But it's also the story. 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.880 Of unintended consequences, about a legal system that was set 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:13.479 up to protect people but actually raises questions about public 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.480 safety and how we balance the rights of the mentally 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:23.600 ill with our ideas about justice and accountability. This is Unrestorable, 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.120 a podcast from Anonymous content and iHeartRadio. 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.920 I spent some time working bars, nightclubs, cleaning them up, 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.359 things like that, and that'd be in between, you know, 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.359 times when I was in college, or during different parts 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.640 of my career, you know, day jobs or whatever. 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:50.040 Sometimes that was my career. 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.120 Troy and I talked for months over zoom, and I 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.440 soon got a sense of his warmth, his sly sense 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:01.240 of humor, his determination and tenacity. He's a classic tough 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:04.800 on the outside, teddy bear on the inside kind of guy. 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.839 But the camera concealed one thing. The true depth of 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.760 troy sorrow, the impossible sense of grief he wakes up 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.440 with every morning and carries with him until he falls 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:19.280 asleep every night. That I saw clearly the moment we 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:21.880 met in person, the second I looked in his eyes. 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:25.280 Troy and I finally did get to meet in person 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:26.840 in December twenty twenty two. 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.200 Nice to meet you in person today. 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.080 Troy sells insurance, but at more than six feet tall, 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.880 he certainly looks like the former high school football player 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.840 and bouncer that he used to be. We start by 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.400 talking about how he and Catherine first met. 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:46.160 She was wasting going to junior college, and let me see, 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:49.320 I mean, we didn't probably talk the first three or 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:50.520 four months that I was there. 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.560 In pictures, Catherine is pretty and wholesome looking. She has 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:58.240 shoulder length, medium brown hair, a sun kiss complexion, and 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.040 a shy smile. It looks like someone it would be 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.080 easy to have a crush on. When she and Troy met, 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.480 she was twenty two, he was thirty six. 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:09.680 We wound up talking more, and then we wound up 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:14.680 basically connecting. She got pregnant, and at that point it's like, 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:16.640 well we should probably, you know, see if this will 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:17.520 work or whatever. 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:19.960 What was she like back then? 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:21.960 She was a pretty fun person. 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:26.800 She appeared to kind of have you know, some animosity 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.920 with her family at times, things like that. But it 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:31.760 was like, you know, it's kind of normal stuff when 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.079 you're talking to and when you're here, you know, I mean, 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:36.640 just overall fairly normal. 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.240 This pregnancy was not Sarah or Jacob. This child was 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.400 their first kid. Sarah was their second, and Jacob was 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:51.400 her third. This child, the eldest, is still alive, and 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.560 we won't be naming him. Everyone agrees his privacy is 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:58.280 more important. Did you feel like, because she got pregnant 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.800 so soon after you started dating obviously, were you like, oh, 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:02.959 this is a person I have a genuine connection with, 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:04.599 or were you like, well, we've got to make the 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:05.559 best of this situation. 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:08.480 I felt like that I liked her. 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.240 I enjoyed being around her, So there was, you know, 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.559 maybe some kind of connection, but a lot of it 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:15.600 was we should probably. 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:16.960 See if this should work. I mean, she's pregnant with 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:17.880 my child. 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.240 The first baby was hard in the way that all 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.480 babies are hard, but there was so much excitement and 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:24.280 a lot of support. 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:25.679 Catherine was the. 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.120 First of her four siblings to have a kid, so 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:30.760 everyone wanted to play with the new baby, to take 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:36.720 pictures of him, to make him laugh. Over the next 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.360 few years, the family continued to grow. Fewer than six 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.840 years into the relationship, Catherine and Troy had three children 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.640 under the age of five. The family was living in 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.120 a small apartment. Money was tight, It was a lot, 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.000 and at times Troy did feel that Catherine was a 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:54.840 little wobbly. 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:57.800 There were some things here or there where I was 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.840 kind of like, okay, that's you know, off or something, 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:02.360 but nothing major. 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:04.319 We had some fun together. 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:06.360 We you know, we went to the beach or whatever, 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:08.840 did things like that, took the kids to see the 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:13.240 dolphins down off was at Yorktown or whatever, you know, 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:14.960 stuff like that. So I mean like we had like 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.680 some decent times. We did some cool things. But it 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.400 was just with each child things seemed to progress differently. 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.079 When Troy says that things progressed differently, what he means 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:30.440 is that Catherine was different. 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:32.000 She was acting weird. 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.040 But Troy told me he put it out of his mind. 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:37.520 He figured that it was a lot to be pregnant 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:39.679 three times in five years. 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.280 I'm obviously not a doctor. I can't say what happened 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.480 or what didn't. I know that she had told me 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.960 that she was on medication for ADHD and things like 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:55.160 that when we met and when she got pregnant. Initially, 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:57.720 I know she had quit smoking and drinking, you know, 0:10:57.800 --> 0:10:59.760 right away, so she it could be that she was 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:01.920 on medication at that point and quit taking that too 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.040 right away without saying anything. I don't know, but there 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.920 was definitely kind of a change there. I think, very 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.360 black and white, you know. I thought it was like 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:13.600 hormones from the pregnancy. So I went and I looked 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:15.760 that up. I like googled stuff with that, and I'm like, oh, 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:17.600 it says it can last to a year after pregnancy. 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.080 So we get towards the end of that year part 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.480 and then she's pregnant with Sarah. So I just thought 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:27.240 it was a continuation, same time frame kind of between 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:28.199 Sarah and Jacob. 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.520 But as time went on, Catherine became more and more erratic, 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.760 doing things that Troy couldn't explain away. Sometimes she would 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.000 just disappear when she was supposed to be taking care 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:43.280 of the kids, leaving them alone. Other Times she seemed confused. 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.280 So I'm on my way home from work and I 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:49.280 get a call from her that she's in DC and 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.120 running out of gas and she needs me to come 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:55.720 into DC to get gas in my car. So I 0:11:55.800 --> 0:12:00.680 go in and she appears to be from an area 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.400 that's not, you know, a great neighborhood necessarily, and I'm 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.280 going with you even doing now here, it's ridiculous, and 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.600 you don't even have a license. So she said that 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.679 she was trying to do something Christmas shopping west or 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.199 something like that. You know, well, let's get gas. You're 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.040 gonna follow me home. I pull out, we hit a 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.800 red light, I make a left, she goes right, it 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:24.400 goes off the other way. She's supposed to be following 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:26.200 me home because she doesn't even her way out of there, 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:28.840 So like, oh, I go, what are you doing? 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:31.400 She goes, oh, well, you know I'm going to different. 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.640 With It happened again just a couple nights later. 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.560 She's calling me saying that she has no gas or 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:38.160 she needs gas, and she's asking me. 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:39.760 I said, okay, well I'll come meet you. 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:42.439 She's like, no, can you just drop twenty in cash 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:43.920 off with the cashier and I'll get. 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.160 It from him. I'm going what. 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:49.600 So she's trying to get me to drop cash off 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.680 at different gas stations with the person working to register. 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:58.080 Catherine also became increasingly paranoid. She kept insisting she was 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.440 being followed. At one she asked Troy to buy a 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.000 staple gun and shoot her with it. Troy couldn't ignore 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:06.160 things anymore. 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.160 And like clin, there's been a progression here, Like this 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.240 isn't the same as it was when she was pregnant 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:18.679 with my first child. This has gotten worse. Our relationship 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.160 was non existent pretty much. You get towards the end 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:26.319 of twenty twelve, we're sleeping in different places. 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.280 It might have taken a few years for Troy to 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.560 figure out that Catherine had serious mental health issues, but 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.720 Catherine's mother, Lindsay Hoggle, says her daughter's problems started a 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:37.440 long time ago. 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.560 She struggled in middle school and high school just with 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:48.520 a variety of different anxieties and mental health issues. 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.199 Signs of real serious issues started to show up when 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:53.679 Catherine was a young teenager. 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.760 I had known that she was struggling, and Time magazine 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:05.000 had a front page article on bipolar and teens, and 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.920 so once I went through that, I just went I've 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.520 got to do something. I mean, these symptoms are this, 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.840 you know the same. And so that's when I decided that, 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.600 you know, I was going to take her to a psychiatrist. 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.040 Lindsay says that Catherine's issues affected the whole family, that 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.360 Catherine would often not leave her room, that her oldest 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.920 daughter was in constant conflict with her siblings and completely 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.640 disengaged from school. It seemed like Catherine was falling apart. 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:39.760 It finally became a situation where, you know, she broke 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.080 the rules. Her father and I were divorced at that time, 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.160 and I just said, well, you know, you've broken the rules. 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:47.880 You need to. 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:49.680 Find somewhere else to live, you know, And so she 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.840 went to live with her dad. Can you tell me 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:55.880 the story of how you learned that she was pregnant 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.600 with your first Have you already heard that? I haven't 0:14:58.600 --> 0:14:58.960 heard it. 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:06.840 Okay, So Catherine had been dating Troy, and you know, 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.320 and she would come over for dinner or something after. 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:11.640 You know, she really looks like she's pregnant. 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.480 But Lindsay and her daughter's relationship was already strained, so 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:16.520 Lindsay just let it go. 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:17.760 She didn't ask. 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.200 She was hoping she was wrong that her troubled daughter 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:23.040 wasn't pregnant, and so. 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.120 I got this phone call and so she goes, hi, Mom. 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:26.720 I'm like hi. 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.320 She goes, well, I have some news. I'm like okay. 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:30.720 She goes, You're a grandmother. 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.400 Catherine wasn't calling to say, oh, hey, congratulations, you're going 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:40.000 to be a grandmother in several months. Catherine was saying, surprise, 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.720 I have a baby. At first, Lindsay wasn't even sure 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.520 that she was serious, but it wasn't a joke. She 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:50.760 had to break the news to Catherine's dad, Randy. 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:52.680 I could tell he was driving, so I said, pull 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:54.280 over in the side of the road and call me back. 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.760 And so he did, and so I told him, I said, 0:15:58.240 --> 0:15:59.920 you know, I knew that this would be a little 0:15:59.920 --> 0:16:01.040 bit of a shock, so I didn't want you to 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.200 be driving a car while I was telling you. 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.560 So the whole family is reeling. Lindsay was in shock. 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.720 What are you supposed to do with a reveal like this? 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.560 But this was her first grandchild, a baby boy. 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.040 And so I got in the car, you know, with 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.240 my middle daughter, and gave her money to go buy 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.760 a baby blanket at a nearby store you know where 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:29.800 you get these ideas, and then we drove to Harrisonburg. Luckily, 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.720 for Catherine, she was close to a hospital, and so 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.040 when I went in, one of the nurses took me 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:37.880 aside and said, you know, you're really lucky to have 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.520 both of them, the baby and Catherine, because she had 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:44.600 an emergency c section. She said, it's not uncommon for 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.320 us to lose one or the other or both during 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.680 this type of an event, and so, you know, it 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:57.200 was even more stunned and you know, thrilled. But for 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.560 whatever reason that was, that was how she chose to 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:00.920 tell me. 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.280 Catherine was twenty two. She and Troy hadn't been dating 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.720 for long, and neither of them really had a career. 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.040 Lindsay knew it would be a rough start. 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.080 They had just gotten to Harrisonburg, didn't have a place 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.239 to live, they were in temporary housing, and so I 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.400 know helped find them somewhere to live and take care. 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:28.760 I can't remember how many days they kept her. 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:33.439 And he was less than five pounds when they left 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.840 the hospital, which I was very worried about him, and 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.800 I have eight pound babies, so five pound was just, 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:44.440 you know, is small, and so they had a lot 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.359 to get done before they were ready to have a 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:48.880 baby and take care of a baby. 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.359 That was the beginning of Catherine being a mom. It 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.760 was chaotic, surprising, disorganized. But people have told me that 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.480 Catherine was a good mom, that she loved her kids. 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:04.000 It's not unexpected in a way. It just makes what 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:07.320 would happen later so much more of a shock from. 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:08.040 The very beginning. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.159 Yeah, she loved it. I think it helped because my 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:17.640 youngest daughter is I guess about seven years difference between, 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.800 and so Catherine had kind of grown up, you know, 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:22.399 taking care of my youngest daughter. 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.600 Lindsay says, Catherine took to motherhood right away, like it 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:28.600 was the only thing she ever wanted to do. 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:30.000 I remember this. 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.720 I had said, you know, let me take him for 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.520 a night or two on the weekend and give you 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:42.199 guys a break. And so on the way out, she 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:46.000 has index cards that she's stuffing in the back pockets 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.160 on my jeans as I'm walking out, and of course 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:53.720 I've been going, okay, I've raised children before, I've done 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.199 this before, I should know everything. And she's laughing and 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.879 she's like, but no, these are his like little you know, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:01.399 these are the things that you got to take care 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:01.680 of them. 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:02.639 I'm like, okay, so. 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.200 I'm sure I'm going to get drilled when I get home. 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:06.600 You're going to call and ask me if I've read 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.119 a margin. She goes, yes, So yeah, she was. She 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.240 loved it, you know, she loved it. 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.359 How is she doing over those years? How is she 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.440 managing those stresses? How is she managing being a mother? 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:27.840 Just you know, what is there of the narrative as 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.960 they build their family? How does she weather those years? 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.880 Oh? Gosh, sometimes better than others. Part of it, very much, 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:42.760 was just not the right fit of everything that they 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.080 were doing. I mean, Troy worked nights, which left her 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:51.480 with the children a lot, and so, you know, her 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.840 father and I tried to help a lot and picking 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:55.720 up you know, the slack and everything. 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.920 But as Catherine became more erratic, it became clear that 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.800 something had to be done. It all came to a 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.000 head just before Christmas in twenty thirteen. 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:09.640 I grabbed Randy, her father, and Lindsay her mom, and 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:11.919 I had them meet me at Lindsay's house and we 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:13.840 had to talk in her driveway. I said, you know, 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:15.879 we were coming up on Christmas. I said, look, so 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:17.960 let's get through Christmas with the kids if we can. 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.399 But at that point, I need you guys to be 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:22.919 with me on this. We need to sit down and 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:24.880 talk to her and say, hey, look, either you're going 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.480 to get help or we're going to get you help. 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.440 The family desperately needed to get on the same page 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:35.479 for Catherine, for the kids, for everyone, but the cracks 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:36.040 were showing. 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:41.120 I remember her father, and Randy is easily her biggest enabler. 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:43.840 He was like, well, I don't know about this. 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.359 And I remember Lindsay going off on him and custom 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:48.800 out in the driveway, pokeingon as chest talking about how 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.000 you know, he's always enabled in this and this and 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.920 this is something that he needs to get on board with. 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.320 Despite her father's unease, the family decided that Catherine shouldn't 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:02.000 ever be left alone with the kids. She wasn't reliable 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.639 and she didn't seem to be making rational decisions. Lindsay's house, 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.440 a big suburban home on a nice piece of property 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.280 not far from Troy and Catherine's apartment, became central dispatch. 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:15.960 Catherine and the kids would come there while Troy was 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.920 at work. Family members rotated in and out, taking care 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:22.879 of the three young kids and making sure. Another adult 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:24.320 was always with Catherine. 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.560 I'm going, okay, she's their mom. I want her to 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:29.720 be in their life. We just have to figure out 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:31.360 a safe, healthy way to do it at this point 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:33.680 where and it wasn't a safe, healthy way in terms 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:35.639 of I thought she would be killing my kids or 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.320 physically hurrying them. It was just the decision making process, 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:38.920