Formerly Convicted Murder Mom Records Stepchild Getting Beaten and Starved Daily
Melinda Jee Hoagland was born on July 4th, 2012, in Chester County, Pennsylvania. She had three sisters—Emily, Abby, and Jamie—who are all significantly older and are all adults as of the date of this recording in November of 2024. Melinda had blue eyes, light brown hair, and a sweet smile in most of her photos. Her hair is shoulder-length or longer, but by her 12th birthday, it was cut into an asymmetrical shag, shoulder-length on one side and almost shaved on the other.
According to her sister Emily, because Melinda was born on the 4th of July, she grew up thinking that the fireworks were for her. She said Melinda was a bubbly child who loved the world for what it was and loved being in it. Her sister Jamie said that Melinda was a miracle baby. She said she had a hard time coming into this world but soon grew into a healthy, energetic child. She described her as a beautiful, cheerful, and outgoing girl who really loved life. Jamie said she was always a go-getter and wanted to be part of the fun. Melinda loved older movies. Jamie said she was very advanced for her time and loved movies that were made way before she was even a thought. She also loved school, got good grades, and was an honor student.
In pictures from happier times, she cuddled with her sisters’ dogs, giving them a big hug even though they were bigger than she was. Another photo captured her smiling and eating a cupcake with blue sprinkles; blue was her favorite color. In another, she drank a milkshake while sporting a silly grin. In her elementary school graduation photo, she stood tall and looked proud, wearing a red academic robe with sleeves so long that her little hands didn’t show. Her family shared a video clip taken from when she was younger that shows the love for life that she had. In the video, she played the children’s game “Pie Face.” The game centers around a hand-cranked gadget that bonks the losing player in the face with a dollop of whipped cream. On her turn, Melinda moved the crank cautiously. She was startled for a second when the whipped cream hit her in the nose but quickly broke out in a smile and a laugh. She scooped a bit of the whipped cream off of her nose and gave it a taste, turning her loss into a happy and sweet moment.
The name of Melinda’s mother has been kept out of the press in order to protect her privacy. Her father was Rendell Hoagland, and he was also the father of her older sisters, so they shared a different mother. The older girls were raised by Rendell and their mother up until Jamie, the second youngest, was about 5 years old. Then the couple divorced. They said their father could be strict at times, and he believed in spanking and corporal punishment, but they claimed he wasn’t violent when he was raising them. They said he did have a history of misusing prescription medicine in the past, but it seemed those struggles were behind him. About 8 years after the divorce, Melinda was born. Though the older girls primarily lived with their mother, Rendell had visitation, and they regularly spent time with their father. By all accounts, Melinda’s early life was a happy one. As the youngest daughter, she was considered Rendell’s favorite. Jamie said she had charmed her father, and the dad she knew would have done anything for Melinda.
Eventually, Rendell and Melinda’s mother split up, and at first, she stayed with her mother, who had primary custody. However, a few things happened over the next few years that changed Melinda’s life significantly. First, according to family members, Melinda’s mother was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack the protective coating of the nerves in the brain and spinal cord. While some cases of MS can be mild, Melinda’s mother was not one of the lucky ones. Her medical condition got progressively worse to the point where she was profoundly disabled. She wasn’t able to take care of herself, let alone take care of a child, and she had to be moved into an assisted living facility. Still, though, Melinda had her father to take care of her, and other loving family members as well. From 2018 to the middle of 2020, sister Jamie lived with Melinda and her father, and Melinda continued to excel in school, trying to make the best of difficult circumstances.
Around that time, Rendell met Cindy Warren, and his new relationship would cause heartache and pain for all of his children. When Rendell met her, Cindy had custody of her own child, a little boy we will call “G,” who was born around 2016. At first glance, she seemed like a decent mom. The boy seemed healthy, happy, and cared for. But he wasn’t her first child, and Cindy had several secrets that would make anyone question her suitability to take care of, or even be around, children.
Now, back in the 1990s, Cindy began a relationship with a man named McKinley Warren. In 1996, she and McKinley had their first child together, who was a son. The next year, she had another son with McKinley, but that wouldn’t be the only baby he fathered that year. After what he called a one-night stand with a different woman, she became pregnant with his child and gave birth to a daughter named Jessica in 1997. Now, Jessica’s mother struggled with an addiction to crack, so the toddler was sent to live with McKinley and Cindy in 1999. Within two months, she stopped speaking and trying to walk, lost weight, and cried all of the time. Monroe County Child Protective Services removed her from their home and placed her into foster care. But the agency returned her to the couple in September of 1999 after she was diagnosed with a “failure to thrive.”
On December 1st, 2000, McKinley took Jessica to the ER with a head injury. He told them she’d accidentally fallen out of his car, smacking her head against the edge of the sidewalk. The next day, she died from her injuries. Later that month, Cindy and McKinley got married. Although her death was ruled a homicide, no arrests were made because, according to the Monroe County DA, “We couldn’t say definitively whether or not Warren or his wife Cindy killed the child.” As usual in cases like this, CPS didn’t release many details because of privacy issues, but newspaper reporters were able to track down where the children were living based on public records. It is unclear whether the couple briefly lost custody of the other two boys while police investigated Jessica’s death, but if so, they soon got the boys back.
Cindy had another child with McKinley in January of 2003. All three of their children were placed in foster care until April of that year, when they were placed in kinship care with an undisclosed family member. Late in 2005 or early 2006, Cindy had another son, who was taken shortly after birth and placed into foster care. She claimed McKinley was the father, but he didn’t believe her until a paternity test proved the child was his. In February of 2006, the infant, along with his siblings, was returned to the couple’s care. During her interactions with the agency, Cindy learned that their primary goal was reunifying families, and she learned to say what the social workers wanted to hear so they would return her children to her. But the reality inside the Warren home was far different than what she said.
In 2007, an anonymous call was made to CPS reporting the terrible child abuse Cindy’s three-year-old son was suffering. While the older kids were in school, the youngest was trapped at home and seemed to bear the brunt of his parents’ anger. Sometimes the toddler was kicked out of the house and locked outside all day while his siblings were in school. Other times he was locked inside a bedroom for days and not allowed out. His older siblings were allowed to hit him. The caller said the boy was covered in bruises and didn’t talk because he was so afraid. A police officer and CPS caseworker investigated, first talking to the older siblings who said they were afraid of their father and claimed they had seen him hit their youngest brother. When the officials asked to see the boy, his siblings brought him to the door. The toddler was wearing nothing but underwear, so the officials could see all the injuries on his body. They noted multiple bruises, ligature marks, a burn, and injuries to his head similar to the head injuries little Jessica suffered many years prior.
As a result of the investigation, police finally had enough evidence to arrest both Cindy and McKinley for Jessica’s death seven years earlier. Cindy took a plea deal and agreed to testify against McKinley. He was found guilty of beating his daughter to death and sentenced to 50 years in prison. He is currently still serving that sentence at SCI Phoenix in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The murder charges against Cindy were dropped, but she pled guilty to child endangerment for the abuse of her three-year-old son and was sentenced to 3 to 7 years in prison. She got out sometime between 2010 and 2014. By 2016, she was pregnant again and gave birth to her son, G, who she was caring for when she met Rendell sometime around 2018.
Once she saw that her father’s relationship with Cindy seemed to be getting serious, Melinda’s sister Emily wanted to know more about her, so she googled Cindy’s name. She was shocked to find out that she had been imprisoned for child abuse. Concerned, she told her father about what she had found. She said, “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?'” Emily was surprised when she realized he had known all along. She said he told her, “We don’t talk about that.” Now, even though she was a grown adult and had a friendly relationship with him, he didn’t want to hear about her concerns. When she continued to express them, he told her, “You’re my child, not my friend. You can’t correct me,” and Cindy backed him up. The two of them then cut Emily out of their life, and out of Melinda’s life too.
Jamie tried another tactic to remain in Melinda’s life. She realized that criticizing Cindy wouldn’t be well-received, so she kept her opinions to herself and tried to look for signs that Cindy was a changed person. Jamie noted that Cindy’s son seemed happy and joyful, and her father would do anything for Melinda. She didn’t like Cindy but trusted her father to step in and protect Melinda if anything bad happened. By holding her tongue, Jamie was allowed to have some small contact with Melinda, sending her birthday and Christmas presents. She said that they talked about getting together in person, but the family always seemed to have plans. Whenever Jamie was free, though she found it frustrating that their schedules never aligned, she didn’t find it overly suspicious. Her father went camping a lot and was often away from home. Also, Cindy didn’t like any of the adult daughters very much, and that seemed reason enough for her to want to avoid them.
Though she wasn’t very active on social media, Cindy occasionally made public posts, mostly selfies. On June 17th of 2020, she celebrated her birthday online by posting a fundraiser for the organization “No Kid Hungry,” perhaps trying to show the public that she cared about children. That same year, Rendell was awarded full-time custody of Melinda. The custody agreement contained the following stipulation: “The minor child shall not be left in the care of Cindy Warren, father’s fiancée, for any period of time exceeding 1 hour unless expressly agreed upon by mother and father through written communication.” Though Cindy was listed on the paperwork as Rendell’s fiancée, she remained married to her first husband. Given Cindy’s history, this seemed like a reasonable stipulation, and it could have protected Melinda if Rendell had actually followed it. But he seemed to be following his heart instead.
His relationship with Cindy got more and more serious. In September of 2021, he posted an image online that read, “Find someone who is proud to have you, scared to lose you, fights for you, appreciates you, respects you, cares for you, and loves you unconditionally.” Above the image, he wrote, “Done,” followed by heart and kissing emojis. The next month, November 2021, Melinda went to her last doctor’s visit at 10 years old. A healthy weight for her would fall between 54 and 106 lbs, so at 77 lbs, she was perfectly healthy and normal for her age. That same month, texts between Cindy and Rendell first mentioned an assault resulting in an injury to Melinda.
The next year, in 2022, Cindy and Rendell moved to a home on Reed Road in a rural part of Chester County, 2 hours away from Melinda’s sisters and other family. Despite the custody order which prohibited Cindy from living with and caring for Melinda, she and her son moved in with Rendell and Melinda. Around this time, Rendell took Melinda to see her mother for the last time. In the spring of 2022, Melinda started attending North Brandywine Middle School. During summer break, from June to September, evidence suggests that Rendell and Cindy started to punish her by making her hold painful stress positions for long periods of time. They also started restricting her food and water as a form of punishment.
Meanwhile, Rendell was trying to keep up the appearance of a happy family online. Around the holidays, he posted a picture of the family Christmas ornament: four reindeer, each labeled with one of their names—Rendell, Cindy, Melinda, and G. At the base of the ornament, it read, “2022 Fourth Christmas Together.” No reindeers were included for Rendell’s older daughters, and no mention was made of the four children Cindy had lost custody of years before. On December 24th, Rendell posted a picture of Melinda and G cutting out sugar cookies to bake for Santa. That same month, they also recorded a 30-minute video in which they forced Melinda to hold books over her head while they yelled at her and hit her. Over the next months, they would increase their physical and psychological torture, threatening to punish her even more severely for the smallest infractions and isolating her from anyone who could help.
In January of 2023, Melinda was still going to in-person school. When she had bruises or other marks, the couple would cover them with makeup. However, in the months of February and March, she missed almost one month of school after getting a bad rug burn on her face that couldn’t be concealed with makeup. School was her safe place, her chance to get away from her father and Cindy, a place where she was treated like a human being, and she must have been devastated to have to be taken away from it that long. They let her go back to school after her face healed, but she had to take another long absence after she was beaten and left with more bruises too big to cover up.
In sharp contrast to the misery Melinda was enduring, a social media post Rendell made on May 6th featured a photo of a vase full of a dozen roses on their kitchen counter with the caption, “Just because flowers.” Later that month, Melinda and the rest of the family accompanied Rendell to a chili cookoff competition a few hours away. When Jamie heard he was competing, she arranged to attend as well. She was disappointed when she didn’t see Melinda at the competition that day and asked to stop by the hotel they were staying at later that night. Describing the meeting, she said, “When I went in, it was a rainy day, it was cold outside. When I went into their room, it was at least 60 degrees. There’s no doubt it was super cold in there. She was under a big fluffy blanket. She never really got up, but to me, it was never a red flag. She’s a child, she’s cold, she’s going to stay in that bed. She doesn’t need to get up for me. Looking back on it now, hindsight is 20/20, and they probably planned that we were alone. I asked her about how things were going. How was it living with Cindy? She never gave me any kind of red flag. She never gave me anything. She continued to talk about how she loved school, how she was moving up a grade, and she loved her favorite movies.” When Rendell and Cindy came back to the room, they said it was time for bed and asked Jamie to leave.
Melinda never told Jamie anything about what was happening to her. By this time, officials believed that Melinda had been reprogrammed to accept the treatment that she was suffering as an unavoidable part of her life. She was too afraid to tell anyone because she believed if she did, it would only get worse. On July 3rd, 2023, Rendell posted two pictures of Melinda online. In one, she was just a toddler sitting on a small bed, smiling up at the camera. The other picture appeared to be current or close to it; she was wearing a school t-shirt from G’s elementary school and had a closed-mouth smile. Her eyes were dark, and it looked like she was wearing makeup. Her hair looked thinner than usual and was cut very short on one side. Above her pictures, Rendell wrote, “Happy 12th birthday Melinda. Hope you have many, many more. We love you.” Though he might have hoped she might have many more birthdays, he wasn’t doing anything to help her survive until the next one. That same month, the couple installed Blink security cameras in multiple rooms inside their home. With multiple cameras recording throughout the day, they could track her movements and actions even more closely and find even more reasons to punish her.
On August 4th, Rendell posted on social media that he and Cindy had taken a vacation to New Jersey. He posted several pictures of Cindy and a picture of himself posing with her, but no pictures of Melinda or G. His comment above the photo read, “Enjoying our time together with the kids at Seaside Heights,” but he didn’t enjoy their company enough to include any images of them. On October 8th, he and Cindy were back on the beach in New Jersey. This time, he didn’t even mention the children. His caption read, “Last minute outing, living our best life,” above several photos in which he and Cindy pose and purse their lips as if kissing.
By this time, Melinda had missed 35 days of school. 10 of them were excused, and 25 of them unexcused, far exceeding the permitted amount allowed. The school district had made two reports to CPS using the ChildLine, though it is unclear exactly what was contained in those reports because the agency did not release any details about it. A social worker called the house and spoke to Rendell, and possibly spoke to Cindy and Melinda as well, though the reporting on that still is not entirely clear. What is clear is that the agency closed the case without completing a home visit after the reports. In November of 2023, Rendell removed Melinda from in-person school and enrolled her in online classes. A representative of the school district summed up the event, saying, “Our staff diligently reported concerns about her welfare to the state agency that receives and manages concerns. Shortly thereafter, she was withdrawn from our schools.” Cindy’s son, G, remained enrolled in his school; only Melinda was kept home.
When she was no longer leaving the house, Melinda’s punishments got stranger and even more severe. Video evidence from December showed her shackled for the first time. On many occasions, she was chained to furniture and forced to exercise. They made her do hours of push-ups and squats, and walking or marching in place. They forced her to stand for hours and hold a book over her head. They punished her for not smiling in her Zoom classes, sneaking food to eat, moving her hair out of her face, forgetting a chore, dropping a book, or failing to perform an exercise to their standards. Video clips recorded both Cindy and Rendell yelling and berating Melinda for these and other perceived slights. They didn’t just force her to do things to hurt her body; they also attacked her mind. They told her they were going to kill her. They belittled her and called her worthless and an idiot. They exchanged multiple text messages discussing her punishments. They also left a trail of texts discussing how they would hide her condition from family members, teachers, and anyone else that might report their actions.
In a video Cindy recorded showing Melinda crying while trying to hold a stack of books above her head, she asked to be forgiven for dropping the books. Instead, Cindy beat her with a spatula and told her that her father would beat her even worse when he got home. In addition to the forced exercise and stress positions, officials also found evidence that they were starving Melinda. In one video clip, Cindy told her to keep moving and, “Don’t look for breakfast or lunch tomorrow ’cause you’re not getting it, and you won’t get dinner either ’cause I’m not getting up.” They had absolute power over Melinda and they used it in some of the most vile ways possible to the fullest extent.
Rendell helped torture his daughter behind closed doors, but online he and Cindy still tried to look like a happy family. At Christmas, Rendell revealed a new family ornament. In this one, three chubby penguins sat on a red sled, each one labeled with a name. Rendell, Cindy, and G’s penguins all had seats in the front, but Melinda’s penguin was standing alone behind the rest of them. Though it seems unlikely they picked the ornament to reinforce her isolation, in hindsight, it seems like another warning. Rendell took pictures on Christmas Day but didn’t post them until January 6th. G received a number of expensive-looking gifts, including an air-powered BB gun, a new cell phone, a remote-controlled stunt vehicle, Xbox gift cards, and a new Galaxy tablet. Melinda mostly got clothes. After unwrapping each item, she smiled and posed while holding it up against her. At first glance, it wasn’t obvious that she had gotten quite thin because she was wearing a baggy black sweatshirt layered over other clothes. The final presents for both children were two new bicycles with big red bows. Both children stood with their bikes and smiled for the camera. By this time, they were regularly shackling Melinda to various pieces of furniture, so it’s hard to imagine she could even pretend she’d get to ride and play on her bike like any other child. But we hope she got to dream a little about pedaling away so fast that she could feel the wind in her hair.
Melinda was allowed to attend her online classes, but she was shackled to the desk during her lessons and monitored via the Blink cameras. She didn’t have to be on video for class. The other punishments continued. On February 6th, a video clip showed Melinda chained to the dresser in her bedroom. She was marching in place at around 3:00 p.m., but an hour later, video showed she had been moved to the basement and shackled to an air hockey table. Her arms were above her head, and Cindy yelled at her through the Blink camera. 10 additional clips taken from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. that night, a 5-hour period, all showed her holding her arms above her head in a sheer force of will. It must have been incredibly painful for anybody, not to mention a girl her age. Video from early morning that next day, February 7th, which fell on a Wednesday, showed her sleeping on the bare basement floor while chained to the table. She was chained to the table and forced to sleep on the basement floor on multiple occasions. On one occasion, she woke up and had to go to the bathroom, but she had no way to summon help, so she was forced to go where she was, and she was punished for it.
The next day on this night, though, she slept through. Video at 7:30 showed her still asleep. Another video 5 minutes later showed her awake, sitting up, and already holding her arms above her head. Later that day, presumably after school, she was chained to the table again and walking in place. At 5:53 p.m., Cindy yelled a true gem of parental advice through the camera, saying, “Melinda looks a little tied up at the moment, and because of like her, she has pains in her custer hole and won’t move.” Melinda responded to her crazy statement with an apology, saying, “Please, I’m sorry, I know I can’t move and I’m sorry.”
On February 8th, a Thursday, Melinda was shackled to the dresser doing squats at 11:40 a.m. No explanation was given as to why she wasn’t attending class via Zoom. Another video clip at 3:46 p.m. showed her still doing squats. This time she was chained to the air hockey table. Cindy told her she could take a 10-minute break, and Melinda said, “Okay, thank you.” On Sunday, February 11th, a video clip showed Melinda again cuffed to the air hockey table. She was resting on her hands and knees. Through the camera, Cindy told her to jump up. She said that if she did it again, that Cindy would come in and kick her in the teeth. Given the context, presumably it was resting on her knees instead of exercising according to Cindy’s instructions. In the early morning hours of the next day, Melinda was again chained to the air hockey table and sleeping on the floor with no pillow and no blankets, no comfort whatsoever. Later that day, she was chained to the bedroom dresser and holding books above her head. Cindy critiqued the way Melinda held the books, saying she needed to sit up straight, not tilt her head, and hold the books higher. Meanwhile, Rendell was posting pictures online of the chili recipe he was trying to perfect for the next cook-off, and posting other images of food he had cooked in the smoker and on the grill. While inside his house on Reed Road, Melinda was literally wasting away.
Despite all the stress and struggle she was dealing with, in March, Melinda was named student of the month at her online school and placed in honors classes. That month, Rendell went with G to a Pine Box Derby event and took him to see the new Ghostbusters movie, but he left Melinda at home. Video from April showed Rendell and Cindy punishing Melinda by rubbing soap in her eyes. This caused her pain and made it hard for her to see, but they didn’t take her to the doctor or provide any medical attention. On May 1st, the school captured the last video of Melinda conscious and able to participate in class. Over the next several days, her body began to shut down.
According to the timeline created by the District Attorney’s Office, Melinda lost consciousness at around 12:52 on the morning of May 4th. Rendell and Cindy argued about what they should do, whether Melinda was faking it or not, and how to wake her up. Rendell decided to put her in his Ford F-150, and he drove her back and forth between the campground he frequented and the family home on Reed Road. Neither Cindy nor Rendell called the doctor or got her any medical help. Hours later, after 4:00 p.m. that day, they searched the internet for ways to wake someone up and decided to try to find smelling salts, but they were unable to find any in local stores. According to his daughters, Cindy told Rendell to drive Melinda to the emergency room, but he wanted to call 911 first. Finally, 18 hours later, at 7:27 p.m., he called 911, and first responders were sent to their home.
Paramedics soon arrived, along with Chester County Detective Ben Martin. When they arrived, Rendell told paramedics that Melinda had been riding her bike in the middle of the night and had crashed into a tree. Cindy told them that Melinda had a small lump on her forehead, a bruise on her chin, and a small cut on her nose. She was taken to the Paoli Hospital’s trauma unit. The couple’s description of the events didn’t make much sense to paramedics, officers, or hospital staff. Paramedics soon realized there wasn’t much they could do. She was covered in bruises and other injuries, she was severely underweight, and she was very, very cold. Determined to show her love and human kindness, one of the medics took off his own sweatshirt and wrapped it around her.
Staff at the trauma unit noted far more injuries than the few minor ones Cindy had listed. Melinda had multiple broken bones, bruises all over her body, and she was suffering from severe emaciation and organ damage. Doctors took her into surgery to repair the worst of her wounds, but during the surgery, she died from her extensive injuries. Melinda Hoagland was pronounced dead at 9:58 p.m.
Once Melinda was taken to the hospital, her Android cell phone was taken as evidence, and the next day, police took her father’s iPhone too. Cindy’s cell phone was seized the day after. Police got a warrant to search the truck Melinda was in and filed for warrants to go through the electronic devices, including the Blink cameras installed in the couple’s home. Inside Rendell’s truck, investigators found a handcuff key and a pair of Crocs that had blood on them. Once the search warrants were approved, the investigators were able to uncover 450 videos of evidentiary value, along with hundreds of still images and text messages that spanned the time period of about 2 and 1/2 years. According to Detective Martin, over 150 of those videos and images showed Melinda cuffed to furniture, and in over 200 of those videos and images, Melinda was being subjected to forced exercise and physical punishment. In the arrest affidavit, the detective said the evidence shows that Melinda was regularly subjected to hours of physical punishment, deprived of sleep, and beaten when she failed to comply with unreasonable demands.
Rendell and Cindy were arrested on May 6th and initially held at Chester County Prison on a $1 million bail, but their charges were upgraded once more evidence was collected, and they were no longer eligible for bail. At a press conference on July 25th, Chester County District Attorney Christopher de Barrena-Sarobe announced he was going to push for the death penalty. He said, “I can stand here before you and say that we intend to pursue the death penalty in this case.” He cited torture as one of the factors that justified such a serious sentence. Because they are facing the death penalty, both Rendell and Cindy were required by law to attend their arraignment on September 12th, 2024, and listen as their numerous charges were read aloud in court. All in all, they were arraigned on about 280 counts. The most serious charges included first, second, and third-degree murder, endangering the welfare of a child, kidnapping a minor, false imprisonment, involuntary servitude, aggravated assault, and conspiracy. They both pled not guilty to all charges.
As the DA stressed at the beginning of his press conference, Rendell and Cindy are presumed innocent until proven guilty. As part of his argument for pursuing the death penalty, the DA explained how the autopsy findings supported his understanding of the evidence. The forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy noted that Melinda weighed only 50 lbs, which was 27 lbs less than she had weighed at her last doctor’s appointment 2 years before, when she was only 10 years old. According to the CDC, the average weight for a healthy 12-year-old girl is between 68 to 136 lbs, and she was well below that. The pathologist found almost no body fat on her because it had all been used up in her struggle to stay alive. The doctor noted that there was no disease or a medical cause for her extreme weight loss; instead, it was caused by starvation and forced exercise. That exercise caused prolonged pain and stress fractures in several of her bones. The pathologist found over 75 bruises, contusions, ulcers, and pressure sores on her skin, along with six broken bones. According to the report, there was damage found to virtually every major organ system in her body, including her brain. The official cause of death was starvation and multiple blunt force injuries, and her manner of death was a homicide.
Summing up the autopsy findings in conjunction with other evidence gathered, the DA said, “Information from the coroner’s office and medical experts demonstrate a years-long pattern of extensive torture and abuse. Moreover, text messages and hundreds of videos show that the defendants engaged in a calculated and systemic method of terrorizing, manipulating, and dehumanizing Melinda. We will get justice for Melinda.” As of the date of this recording, their last hearing was held in September of 2024. More will be scheduled in the future, and we will be keeping an eye out for updates to the case. Victim’s advocates told Rendell’s daughters to expect it to take at least 2 years for the case to make it through the court system.
Although the DA is seeking the death penalty, no executions have been carried out in Pennsylvania since 1990. A moratorium on executions was imposed in 2015, but prosecutors are still allowed to pursue the death penalty. The last time prosecutors sought the death penalty was in 2014 against Gary Lee Fellenbaum and Jillian Tait for their part in the torture and beating death of Jillian’s three-year-old son, Scotty McMillan. To avoid the death penalty, Gary and Jillian pled guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison, and she was given 42 to 94 years. Now, Scotty’s name might sound familiar to some viewers because we covered his case a couple of months ago. His family members were sad and angry when they heard another child was tortured to death in their small rural community of West Caln Township.
At the July 25th press conference, the district attorney made an impassioned speech asking the community at large to learn an important lesson from Melinda’s death. He said, “On one hand, when you read what we have chronicled in the affidavit of probable cause, you have to feel like we do. There has to be something that we could have done, we could have done better for Melinda. But I want to say that part of the reason I am here, and this is such a critical press conference to me, is we’re dealing with the unimaginable. And I think it is important for school districts, law enforcement, CYS across the state and across the country to see what happened here because although it doesn’t get a ton of press, this does happen on exceedingly rare occasions in different parts of the country, and it is time that we all go back and look at our processes to make sure we are doing everything that we can to help our children, to make sure they’re not being subjected to this. But on the other hand, I want to make something perfectly clear. We are here because there is evil in this world. We all like to, I think at times, forget about that simple fact, and sometimes no matter what everyone does, no matter how much we try, evil harms innocent people, even innocent children. We are here today because of what these defendants did and for no other real reason.”
“It needs to be a part of our culture. If you see something, you need to say something. You do not need to be a teacher, a doctor, a member of law enforcement, you don’t have to be a mandatory reporter to call ChildLine and report something strange. The law does not allow any government agency to take children out of their parents’ home without real meaningful evidence, without reports. We as government agencies across the board have very limited abilities to be able to go in court and do what we need to do. So your reports, even if you don’t feel like something happened in the aftermath, can be a data point that adds to an ongoing story. It can be that first dot in the timeline, and it can help a child.” He also asked the community to grant the family, especially Melinda’s mother, privacy in their time of grief. He said her mother had, and I quote, “no blame in all of this and was in no position to do what her father should have done.”
Melinda’s funeral was not public, but her sisters held a “Monsoon for Melinda” celebration of her life on June 23rd, 2024, at the Upper Mount Bethel Community Park. They had a clown, carnival games, a petting zoo, and a pavilion filled with photos of Melinda. At the event, they released butterflies in the afternoon and waved sparklers in the evening. Her sister Emily explained the intent behind the memorial. She said, “We wanted to create a space where anyone could come together to celebrate the wonderful little girl that she was, to kind of have fun together, share fond memories, and essentially have a place she would like to come as well.”
The paramedic who cared for Melinda the night she died surprised the sisters by attending the celebration, and he brought a token of remembrance with him. He took pieces of the sweatshirt he was wearing that night, the sweatshirt he wrapped around Melinda to warm her, embroidered them with her initials, and gave the pieces to her family. That night, he vowed to show Melinda love and kindness, and he shared that with her sisters too. After his mother’s arrest, Cindy’s son, G, was placed in protective custody and will eventually be placed with family or in foster care.
“Well, tonight the tragic death of Melinda Hoagland is making national headlines. She is the Chester County girl who died after prosecutors say she was tortured and starved by her father and his girlfriend. Today, students rallied in her memory, and CBS Philadelphia’s Siafa Lewis has the story.”
The disturbing news of Melinda Hoagland’s death and the suffering she endured before succumbing to her injuries affected virtually everyone who heard the details. “My stomach just turned. It’s disgusting. To, that’s the best word I could put it.” Heather and Christy are sisters who live in West Caln Township. Heather’s daughter, Michaela, was a classmate of Melinda’s before prosecutors say her father took her out of school in the winter. Michaela and her friends also heard the horrible news. “Yesterday we were just talking about how no child deserves to go through that and how it was honestly devastating that she had to live through that.” So Michaela and her friends thought they’d do something to remember Melinda: the t-shirts. “They only started with my friend suggesting that we’d bring in shirts and like markers or pens so people could sign shirts. And the blue idea was from a group chat that one of my other friends was in. Blue because it was Melinda’s favorite color.”
Meanwhile, Christy, who had heard what Michaela and her friends were planning, shared it on Facebook. “So I decided to post it online to try to reach more parents within our Township. We were just trying to rally the children together so that they didn’t feel alone or sad. So that’s what it started with at first.” Michaela, who wasn’t a close friend of Melinda, says the idea was a huge success. “I know like almost my whole friend group, but from what I saw, almost everybody was wearing blue.” Heather and Christy say it really speaks to the feeling of community here. “I think it’s amazing how a community can come together, especially for a child. It seems like people want to come more together for children. I just think it’s really sweet how the community is so strong, and we really spread the word, and fast. It was only a few hours, and hundreds of people were talking about it in West Caln Township.” Siafa Lewis, CBS News Philadelphia.
The district attorney believed that the state, teachers, and school districts did everything they could to help Melinda, but the attorney hired by her sisters, Tom Bosworth, did not agree. The DA said, “We’ve reviewed scores of school records, all kinds of records here in this case, and the evidence shows that teachers, school districts, whether they were cyber school or in-person school, they cared about Melinda, they checked in with her. She was reprogrammed. They did the best they could with the evidence they had. This is not a case where actions were reported and no one did anything.”
Attorney Bosworth claimed the state and school districts could have done more. He said, “They had knowledge. They knew the child was in the home with this individual who had a record in black and white. The child was displaying both physical and psychological signs of abuse.” Attorney Bosworth also believed that CPS could have helped Melinda if they would have conducted a home visit instead of checking in via phone. He said, “This was systemic, humiliating child abuse that professionals who are here to protect kids could and should detect through a home visit, and that’s why we have home visits. This should have never happened. There shouldn’t even be a discussion about how many missed opportunities there were here. If we go the way we’re going with the system in place, there’s going to be another Melinda Hoagland.” He has filed suit on their behalf against Chester and Monroe counties and the Upper Dublin and Coatesville Area school districts.
Rendell’s family has been devastated by the loss of Melinda and the role they believe he played in her death. His daughter Emily says it’s hard to know how to feel. She said, “Not only, you know, is it a loss of our baby sister, but it’s also the loss of our father and processing our father and another individual’s actions.” Rendell’s parents, the grandparents of Melinda and her sisters, are also struggling to make sense of their son’s actions. Their pain and confusion is heartbreaking.
In response to a relative’s post about Melinda, Rendell’s mother, Joyce, wrote, “We love her. Why did they take her from us? Our hearts are broken. How did our son change to a monster? He used to be so loving and kind, a very good father. I don’t know this man that he is now.” She also posted, “I can’t sleep. All I do is cry. Why? I need answers. How could anyone do this to our little girl? I feel like I am having a nightmare and I want to wake up. I want Melinda back. My heart is hurting so bad.” Rendell’s father, Ralph, was similarly heartbroken, posting, “Hurting like I never hurt before knowing my own son did this to his own daughter. I want justice for Melinda. She was such a lovable girl. I will always love her and miss her.”
In addition to the losses they have already suffered, the family has to prepare for the possibility that Rendell will be sentenced to death. When asked how they dealt with that, Jamie said, “I believe on the criminal side, he gets what he deserves. We believe in the justice system. If it comes down to the death penalty, then it comes down to the death penalty. That’s what everybody decides that he needs. That maybe he just needs that. But our justice doesn’t stop there. We are currently trying to form Justice for Melinda because what happened to Melinda is unfortunately happening to so many other children. There’s not a space for them to make it stop happening.”
As other families have done when faced with these kinds of tragedies, Jamie, Emily, Abby, and their loved ones are working to keep Melinda’s memory alive by helping other children. Her sisters have started a GoFundMe to raise money to start a non-profit organization called “Justice for Melinda.” They want to help prevent child abuse by pushing for Melinda’s Law, a law they hope to get passed requiring people convicted of child abuse to register in a database, just like Megan’s Law helped to create a registry for sexual assault. If Cindy had been required to register in that type of database, they believe CPS would have conducted a more thorough investigation once they realized she was living with Melinda against the conditions of the custody arrangement.
Now, we’ve seen so many attempts to try to create a registry in cases we’ve covered on this channel, and most of them get shot down. It would be wonderful if Melinda’s Law became a reality. We will be donating to this GoFundMe; the link will be in the pinned comment below. If there’s anything you can contribute, it goes a long way. The sisters are also supporting Pennsylvania House Bill 2175, which would establish a permanent position for a child advocate in charge of combating child abuse in the state. That passed the House in July and, as of the date of this recording, was stuck in the Senate.
On their GoFundMe page, they vowed the following: “Melinda will not be remembered as a statistic, but as the beautiful girl that set in motion a monsoon of change for all children. We, Emily Hoagland, Abby Hoagland, and Jamie Hoagland, are ready to stand up and make change. Melinda will not be a statistic, but the name behind the monsoon of change for every girl and boy who has gone through something no one should ever have to. The three of us, united sisters, are ready to stand in the face of evil for anyone and everyone. The storm has only begun.”
