Sisters of 12-year-old tortured to death in Chester County file lawsuit alleging county, school officials failed her

The sisters of 12-year-old Malinda Hoagland, who prosecutors say was starved and tortured for the final months of her life by her father and stepmother, wasting away to 50 pounds, have filed a federal wrongful-death lawsuit, alleging that child welfare officials in Chester County and the Poconos missed clear signs of the abuse that killed their sister.

Attorneys for Emily Lee, Jamie Hoagland, and Abbey Hoagland said in the lawsuit, filed Wednesday, that representatives from Chester County and Monroe County, and staff at schools that Malinda attended “affirmatively used their authority to place [her] into a home in which they knew that [she] was the ongoing victim of serial abuse, starvation, and torment.”

“Had these defendants not misused their authority in this manner, Malinda Hoagland would have been removed from her residence, spared months of torture, abuse, and starvation, and would be alive today,” attorney Thomas Bosworth wrote.

Bosworth said the lawsuit will “ensure that full and complete legal accountability will be achieved for the heinous actions of the educators, case workers, and institutions who all miserably failed Malinda.”

“The imposition of punitive damages is necessary here to not only punish these defendants’ reckless conduct, but also to deter them so that nothing like this ever happens again,” he said.

A spokesperson for Chester County declined to comment, citing the active litigation. Representatives from Monroe County did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Coatesville Area School District, where Malinda attended classes before her death, called her killing “a horrific tragedy.” The spokesperson said the district followed state-mandated policies for identifying and reporting suspected child abuse, but declined to comment further.

Rendell Hoagland, Malinda’s father, and Cindy Warren, the girl’s stepmother, have been in custody since their arrests in late May on accusations of withholding food from Malinda, beating her repeatedly with their hands and a belt, and forcing her to perform calisthenics for hours while chained to furniture, according to the affidavit of probable cause for their arrests.

Warren previously pleaded guilty in Monroe County to abusing her then-3-year-old son in ways that prosecutors say are nearly identical to what Malinda was subjected to.

Hoagland, 53, and Warren, 46, have been charged with first-degree murder and related crimes in connection with Malinda’s death. Chester County District Attorney Chris de Barrena-Sarobe recently said he intends to seek the death penalty if they are convicted at trial.

Malinda was pronounced dead at Paoli Hospital on May 4, after her father called 911 to report that she was unresponsive, the affidavit said. Medics saw that she was “broken and barely alive,” with multiple bone fractures and organs that had begun to atrophy from starvation. Prosecutors later learned that she weighed more at eight years old than she did on her deathbed, according to medical records.

Footage taken from surveillance cameras set up by Warren and Hoagland around their West Caln Township home to watch Malinda showed that she was shackled to an air hockey table on the day she died, according to the civil suit. In that footage, Malinda is seen lying unconscious on the floor as Warren berates her and tells her she didn’t believe she was sleeping.

Other footage, recorded not long before Malinda’s death, shows the girl begging Warren to unshackle her, according to the lawsuit.

“I’m not going to act stupid. I’m not going to make you mad,” Malinda said, according to the suit. “I know I ruined everything. Please allow me to change.”

When Malinda wouldn’t wake up May 4, Warren and Hoagland agreed over text messages later recovered by prosecutors to come up with a story that she had injured her head at a campground pool, and again when she fell off her bike, according to the affidavit. They also discussed whether to take her to the hospital or to try to rouse her with smelling salts, fearing that child-service workers would be suspicious of her injuries.

“Communications between Hoagland and Warren on the day of Malinda’s death indicate that both understood the severity of her condition but chose to let her die rather than risk detection,” the affidavit said.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday said Hoagland violated a custody order in Monroe County that explicitly barred Warren from being left alone with Malinda by moving with her to Montgomery County and, eventually Chester County.

While in their care, Malinda missed weeks of school at North Brandywine Middle School late last year. Evidence gathered by prosecutors showed that these absences lined up with footage of Hoagland and Warren abusing Malinda, and sometimes discussing not being able to hide her bruises and other injuries, even with makeup.

Bosworth and Alexandria Crouthamel, the attorneys for the sisters, said in the lawsuit that officials at Chester County Department of Children and Families failure to train case workers allowed Malinda’s abuse to continue.

Staff at North Brandywine filed a complaint with the state Department of Health’s ChildLine service over the girl’s absences, as well as their worries that she was being abused at home, given her physical condition and behavior.

However, workers from Children and Families only called Hoagland’s home to discuss those concerns, and no in-person visit was done, the suit said. And in those two phone calls, Hoagland and Warren promised to address concerns about Malinda at her next doctor’s appointment.

Records show there was no indication that Malinda had seen a doctor for several years before her death, according to the lawsuit.

After Hoagland and Warren pulled Malinda from North Brandywine in January, they enrolled her in Commonwealth Charter Academy, a cyber school. While attending classes there remotely, Malinda had trouble focusing and reading, saying her eyes were blurry, the lawsuit said.

Her family’s attorneys said staff at the cyber school missed clear, visible signs that something was wrong, and failed to act.

“We are distraught over Malinda’s death and the many red flags that were so obviously missed. We aim to seek change, accountability and justice for her and all children in the state of Pennsylvania,” Crouthamel said. “The very systems we have in place to prevent this situation from happening clearly failed and we’re still waiting for answers.”

— Staff Writer Maddie Hanna contributed to this article.