Background: The Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, Calif. (Google Maps). Inset: Megan Hogg (San Mateo County Sheriff's Office).
A California woman who was convicted of murdering her three young daughters could be released from prison.
Megan Hogg, 53, was found to be suitable for release by the parole board at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, California. Hogg was sentenced to 25 years to life in 1999 after pleading no contest to three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of her daughters, 7-year-old Antoinette, 3-year-old Angelique, and 2-year-old Alexandra. In 2018, a state prison review board said Hogg was suitable for parole, but the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office opposed her release.
Twenty-five years after Hogg learned her fate, some of the girls' family members want her to remain behind bars and continue serving time for what she admitted to doing. Hogg's immediate family members want her to come home.
According to reporting by local news outlet SF Gate, Hogg was 25 years old when she duct-taped the mouths and feet of her three daughters and smothered them to death on March 23, 1998. Hogg attempted to take her own life by drinking hot chocolate laced with 40 different medications. The mother and three daughters were found by Hogg's mother.
Several motives were outlined in court documents, including Hogg's history of depression following a head injury that caused seizures. SF Gate reported on court records that stated Hogg killed her three girls to "spare them the problems that she had faced in her own life." Local CW affiliate KRON reported that prosecutors alleged Hogg killed the girls "out of anger that the children loved their grandmother, who was taking care of the children more than her."
In 2018, then-California Gov. Jerry Brown reversed the state prison board's ruling that Hogg should be released. In addition to the girls' relatives opposing the release, the DA argued at the time that Hogg was dealing drugs in prison and should be denied release. Local news outlet The Mercury News reported that Daly City police chief Patrick Hensley, who was a patrol officer at the time of the crime, said Hogg had "no remorse," adding, "She made it clear that she did not want her daughters being taken away by her mother, and for that reason, she decided it was best to kill them."
On Feb. 20, the prison review board once again determined that Hogg was suitable to walk free. The San Mateo County DA said in a statement obtained by KRON that it "continues to strongly oppose Megan Hogg's release on parole." During the hearing, Hogg's immediate family members appeared to support her release. Three of the girls' relatives from their fathers' sides also appeared. Two of them opposed Hogg's release and one deferred to the state board's decision.
The final decision comes down to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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