Chester County couple tortured and killed a 12-year-old girl, shackling her to furniture and denying her food, police say

A West Caln couple who police say tortured and starved the man’s 12-year-old daughter during months of abuse that ultimately led to her death were charged with attempted murder Tuesday.

Rendell Hoagland, 52, and his girlfriend, Cindy Warren, 45, chained Malinda Hoagland to an air hockey table and other furniture and forced her to perform hours of calisthenics as a form of punishment, according to the affidavit of probable cause for their arrests. The couple also withheld food from the girl, keeping their pantry padlocked, police said.

The couple were also charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault and related crimes. They remained in custody Tuesday on $1 million bail. There was no indication that either had hired an attorney.

Malinda “was broken and just barely alive,” when medics called by her father arrived at the couple’s home on Saturday, according to Chester County District Attorney Chris de Barrena-Sarobe.

“They subjected her to evil and torment that no child should ever have to endure, and they did it for months,” he said.

The prosecutor said that the investigation was continuing and that additional charges, including murder, may be filed.

Malinda weighed just 50 pounds when she was pronounced dead hours later by doctors at Paoli Hospital. She had cuts and bruises on her head and chest, as well as at least six broken bones and significant damage to her liver, the affidavit said.

Doctors believe those injuries were the result of sustained child abuse and neglect, saying her injuries “should not occur in this country,” according to the affidavit.

Hoagland and Warren told detectives she sustained all of her injuries after falling off her mountain bike and getting accidentally struck by another child on a water slide at a camping resort in Quarryville, the affidavit said. When asked about the girl’s severe emaciation, Hoagland said she had been losing weight steadily over the last two months, and that they had planned to see a doctor in the Pocono Mountains in the coming weeks.

But detectives discovered more than 100 videos recorded by the couple’s security system that depicted them verbally and physically abusing the girl between January and May, the affidavit said.

They also found that Warren had deleted all of her texts with Hoagland sent before he made the initial 911 call about his daughter. Some of those were later recovered by detectives, and included conversations between the two discussing Malinda’s worsening condition.

In one conversation, shortly before Hoagland called 911, Warren tells him to “run” the girl to the hospital himself instead, the affidavit said.

Later, in a statement to detectives, Hoagland said he had pulled Malinda out of North Brandywine Middle School in January after learning she had been selling snacks to her classmates, the affidavit said. Since then, the girl had been attending a cyber charter school, taking classes online.

However, de Barrena-Sarobe said Tuesday that Malinda “had incredibly limited access to the outside world the moment she was pulled out of school.” And, he said, they believe her abuse at the couple’s hands began not long after.

Some of the video footage pulled from the home’s surveillance cameras showed Malinda being taunted by her father and Miller, forced to do squats, march in place, hold her hands above her head and perform other exercises for hours while chained by her ankle to furniture, the affidavit said.

In other clips, the girl is seen being forced to sleep on the floor, still chained, without a blanket or pillow. They tell the girl not to expect to be fed breakfast, lunch or dinner, according to the affidavit.

“This is not an easy case, and there is assuredly a lot more work to do,” de Barrena-Sarobe said. “But together we will get justice for Malinda.”

Court records show Warren pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child in Monroe County in 2009. In that case, Warren’s ex-husband, McKinley Warren Jr., beat their son, who was then 3 years old, according to a report in the Pocono Record.

Warren was sentenced to three to seven years in prison, and was released after three years. Her ex-husband also pleaded guilty to killing his 2-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, and is currently serving a 25- to 50-year sentence in state prison.