A Pennsylvania man will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to horrific acts of abuse, and ultimately, the murder of his 12-year-old daughter.
The investigation began in May 2024, when police responded to a 911 call about an unconscious child. When emergency services arrived at the scene, they found the little girl, Malinda, very malnourished with several broken bones and bruises. It was later determined that she weighed only 50 pounds and was suffering from organ failure. (While healthy sizes can vary, the average weight for a girl of that age is around 90 pounds, depending on height, according to Body Mass Index and CDC Growth Charts.)
Malinda was transported to a local hospital, where she tragically died.
Following the incident, authorities discovered that the 12-year-old had been taken out of in-person schooling and “shifted to a home cyber school” in late 2023. They also found a number of allegedly incriminating text messages and videos of Malinda chained to furniture while both her father, Rendell Hoagland, and his girlfriend, Cindy Warren, spoke harshly to her over a speaker system in the home, according to prosecutors.
Chester County District Attorney Christopher L. de Barrena-Sarobe further accused the couple of refusing to give her meals and making her exercise as a form of punishment. Acts that would warrant these punishments allegedly included not smiling during Zoom classes or urinating while she was secured to furniture and unable to go to the bathroom.
As a part of a plea deal, Hoagland confessed to first-degree murder, kidnapping, conspiracy and years of abuse leading up to his child’s death.
“During the 2-hour proceeding, the defendant admitted to repeatedly and systematically abusing his daughter for years,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement, per People. “This plea agreement was reached in consultation with the victim’s family, who spoke in court about how they have been impacted by Malinda’s death.”
Warren’s trial is set to begin on June 8. It is unclear if she has agreed to a similar plea deal.
An 18-month-old girl has died in Minnesota after her mother poured a “significant amount” of sleeping medication into her bottle just hours after she lost custody of the child. Officers with the Champlin Police Department responded to a home on Castle Rock Court on Friday, January 9, where they found a young child not breathing, […]
Back in 2024, Malinda’s half sister, Emily Lee, told People that she had been “kept in the dark” as to what the little girl had been experiencing while living with her father and Warren because she’d been “estranged” from him and waiting for Malinda to “get older.”
Lee also recalled finding out about Warren’s legal history — she pleaded guilty to endangering a minor in a 2007 child abuse case — and questioning her father about it.
“I had said something to my dad like, ‘Hey, Dad, do you know what this woman has been accused of? Do you know what she’s done?,’” she said. “And we were just not supposed to talk about it.”
Alexandria Crouthamel, an attorney representing Lee, told the outlet at the time that they were “pushing” to establish “Malinda’s Law,” which would function as a “registry for physical offenders.”
“There’s a registry for sex offenders, as we all know, and everyone can look it up, the general public jobs, everyone,” Crouthamel explained. “But there’s nothing for physical offenders. So the girls would like to have some kind of registry or database to establish that.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing child abuse, call or text Child Help Hotline at 1-800-422-4453.
Parents, teachers, and guardians interested in learning more about protecting children from exploitation can find useful tools and information at Know2Protect.
