March 27, 1998

Megan Hogg of Daly City was formally charged yesterday with murdering her 3 daughters, and prosecutors may seek the death penalty in the case.

But her attorney said he may advise Hogg to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

"I haven't made up my mind yet -- I'm still gathering information, but I can't believe God made her evil from the egg," said defense attorney George Walker.

Walker made his comments outside a Redwood City Municipal Court room yesterday, shortly after Hogg appeared before Judge Richard Livermore.

Clad in yellow jail garb, Hogg stood behind a glass panel that shields all defendants appearing before the judge. She made no comment, and Livermore postponed entry of a plea until April 1, allowing Hogg to confer with her lawyer.

Hogg is charged with 3 counts of murder in the slayings of her daughters, Antoinette Marden, 7, Angelique Roberts, 3, and Alexandra Hogg, 2. Their bodies were found in Hogg's bed Monday morning.

Under the law, commission of multiple murders is considered a special circumstance that, if proven at trial, could be punished by death or life imprisonment.

Walker told reporters there is a possibility that Hogg didn't know what she was doing.

Flanked by dozens of Hogg's family members and friends, Walker said the young mother had been suffering from depression for more than a year. He said she was seeing a psychiatrist and was taking antidepressants. In addition, Hogg had been prescribed painkillers for a head injury she had suffered during a car accident in January.

When Hogg apparently attempted to take her own life early Monday morning, she may have decided that she didn't want "to leave her children alone in this miserable world," Walker said.

That morning, she wrote a 2-page letter detailing how she was going to kill her daughters, according to police. She drank a mixture of hot chocolate and prescription drugs, officers said. Then using duct tape, she allegedly bound each of her daughters' hands and sealed their mouths and noses. She also held each child down until she suffocated, investigators said.

"I, Megan Hogg, have ended the lives of my daughters, Antoinette, Angelique and Alexandra in my bed by suffocation," she wrote in a 2nd letter, according to a source familiar with the case. "I have also consumed very high amounts of Vicodin, codeine, Tylenol with codeine, Motrin and Trazodone. Never before have I considered ending the girl's lives. Myself, however, it's something I have thought of frequently. This is to notify anyone necessary that this was a sole action and included help and knowledge of no other.''

Prosecutor Jack Grandsaert said it will be weeks before the district attorney decides whether to seek capital punishment for Hogg. Death penalty cases involving women are rare, say legal experts.

"This county only has one woman on death row," Grandsaert said.

According to Walker, Hogg's relatives said they support her and mourn the loss of the children.

Hogg, who lived with her parents, had worked at AT&T as an account executive since November. Employees declined to comment, except to say that they felt bad for the family.

Schoolmates of the girls also are grieving, and the deaths have prompted some to fear for their own lives. A classmate of Antoinette's at Miraloma School in San Francisco asked her parents Tuesday evening before going to bed, "Am I going to still be breathing tomorrow?" according to Principal Paul Reinhertz.

Many of the 350 students at the school have been having nightmares and asking similar questions about life, death and murder, he said.

To help the children cope with the tragedy, the school held an assembly yesterday. Several children read letters to their late classmate. Then they heaped the letters, cards and flowers on tables in a hallway, creating a rainbow-colored memorial for the slain 7-year-old.

Slain Girls' Mother Left Notes, Cops Say

Suspect under suicide watch

Stacy Finz, Jaxon Van Derbeken, Manny Fernandez - SFGate.com

March 25, 1998

Megan Hogg wrote a two-page letter detailing how she was going to kill her three young girls, sipped from a cup of hot chocolate laced with prescription drugs, then methodically suffocated each one with duct tape, Daly City police said yesterday.

The 25-year-old mother then carried their pajama-clad bodies into her bedroom and placed them side-by-side next to her in bed, said Lieutenant Steve Lowe of the Daly City Police Department. And she wrote a second note confirming that she had completed the deadly task, Lowe said.

The letters, along with an unconscious Hogg and the bodies of her three children, were discovered Monday morning in the Daly City home they shared with Hogg's parents. Hogg has since been arrested and is on suicide watch at the Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose.

"Any parent would throw their body in front of a train to protect their kids," said Lowe, who described the act as "plain evil."

"How can you possibly explain somebody killing their kids?"

Family members have said Hogg had suffered from complications of an earlier head injury and may have lost the will to live. She also suffered from depression and may have been taking a bad mixture of prescription drugs that led to a possible psychotic episode, said Hogg's attorney.

But Lowe says the killings appeared cold-blooded. He said each child's hands had been bound and their noses and mouths were covered with tape. Hogg is accused of holding each of the girls down for up to five minutes while they suffocated.

Coroner's deputies removed the small bodies from the Higate Drive home Monday morning, while relatives and friends wept outside in horror.

Hogg is expected to be arraigned this afternoon for the deaths of her three daughters, Antoinette Marden, 7, Angelique Roberts, 3, and Alexandra Hogg, 2.

Lowe said investigators recovered the duct tape used in the crime and will use the letters as evidence in court. He would not disclose the contents of the notes or offer a motive for why Hogg would want to kill her children.

But San Mateo County Coroner Bud Moorman said Hogg had received a head injury several weeks before the deaths of her girls.

"Her mother told my investigator that she had been suffering from seizures and didn't want to go on," Moorman said. "It's not uncommon for suicidal people to want to take their children with them."

Moorman said autopsies of the girls revealed that they died from asphyxiation.

Hogg's attorney, George Walker, said it was too early to discuss the case. He did, however, confirm that Hogg had suffered from a head injury and had been prescribed painkillers and Prozac for depression.

"We are exploring whether a combination of drugs produced a psychotic episode," he said.

But Lowe said, "I think she's just an evil woman who suffocated her children. I'm not convinced that she wanted to kill herself. She didn't even finish the hot chocolate drink because she didn't like the taste of it."

Police believe Valium was one of the drugs Hogg used in her drink.

Hogg's relatives declined to comment yesterday as they went to and from the Daly City home.

Meanwhile, neighbors and people who know the family struggled to try to make sense of the girls' deaths.

Megan Hogg, who worked for AT&T as an account executive handling billing out of a San Jose office, was living with her parents, Greg and Kathy Hogg. People who know the family say Greg and Kathy Hogg played a big role in the girls' lives.

Paul Reinhertz, principal of San Francisco's Miraloma School, where Antoinette was in second grade, remembered her as a quiet but friendly child who did well in class. Last month, she was chosen to be one of two class representatives at the African American honor student parade.

"She came to school beautifully groomed," Reinhertz said. "She often had her hair braided in beautifully colored beads."

Megan Hogg

Megan Hogg