Three months of “evil” abuse from her father and his girlfriend killed a 12-year-old girl. At around 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 4, cops found Malinda Hoagland unconscious at a home on Reid Road in Chester County.
Doctors and nurses saw that Malinda was very thin when they took her to the hospital. She was 50 pounds heavy, had a lot of bruises, at least six broken bones, and her organs were failing.
Malinda died just before 10 p.m. that same night while she was being treated. Her 52-year-old father, Rendell Hoagland, and his 45-year-old girlfriend, Cindy Warren, have been charged with trying to kill Malinda.
Superintendent Curt Martinez of the West Caln police department said, “This is a horrible case of child abuse.” Malinda’s father called 911 first, before Malinda got to the hospital. Police officers knew right away that Malinda was “gravely wrong.”
Malinda was taken out of public school in late November or early December and sent to a home computer school, according to an investigation that followed. Police looked at Rendell and Cindy’s smart phones.
Cindy had erased her text messages with Rendell, they saw. They also found a lot of videos from the couple’s home camera system saved on both phones.
On those films, Malinda’s ankles were tied to furniture, and the two were yelling at her through a speaker system built into the camera. Videos showed that Cindy and Rendell would punish Malinda by making her do hard exercises like squats and running while she was still chained up.
They made it clear that Malinda would not be able to eat if she complained about being treated unfairly. The abuse began a long time ago. They are being held at Chester County Prison, where bail is set at $1 million.
There will be a preliminary hearing on May 13. When all the medical evidence is in, a choice will be made about whether to charge the two with more crimes, including murder.