Gov. Brown urged to block parole of woman who killed daughters
DALY CITY >> Damali Ross never imagined the killer of her young nieces — their mother — would be freed from prison, let alone 20 years into her 25 years to life sentence.
But on April 10, after a roughly four-hour hearing at the women’s facility in Chowchilla, California Board of Parole commissioners Terry Turner and Tim O’Hara concluded Megan Hogg no longer poses a danger to society and found her suitable for release on parole.
“It’s like ripping the Band-Aid off of a wound that never quite healed,” Ross said at a recent news conference at Daly City City Hall. “We’re in a tremendous amount of pain and we’re angry. We don’t understand.”
Now, Ross and other relatives of the girls — 2-yearold Alexandra Hogg, 3-yearold Angelique Roberts and 7-year-old Antoinette Marden — are asking the public to join them in writing letters to Gov. Jerry Brown asking him to reverse the parole board’s recommendation.
“This is a big fight and we can’t do it on our own,” she said.
In 1999, Hogg pleaded no contest to three counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors said she sealed her three daughters’ mouths and noses with duct tape and clutched each one to her as they suffocated.
The deaths were devastating, said Ross, whose brother, Rafik Roberts, fathered Alexandra and Angelique. She recalled all three as “jokesters” who loved to hug and kiss, and were friendly to everyone.
“These are the little angels that didn’t get a chance to grow up and to share that love with anyone else,” Ross said.
Hogg sobbed at her sentencing, this news organization reported at the time, but Ross and others at the news conference insisted that she was never truly sorry for killing
her daughters.
“Megan Hogg showed no remorse,” said Daly City police Chief Patrick Hensley, who was working as a patrol officer on March 23, 1998, when the girls were found dead inside Hogg’s Westlake district home. “She made it clear that she did not want her daughters being taken away from her by her mother, and for that reason, she decided it was best to kill them.”
Between the heinousness of the crime and the fact that Hogg broke several rules in prison, including dealing drugs, prosecutors didn’t think she would be found suitable for release on parole.
“It’s hard to imagine that the lives of three young children — three innocents — only deserves 20 years in prison, especially when we know what a risk she continues to present,” San Mateo County Deputy District Attorney Sean Gallagher said.
“I thought the justice system put people in prison who sold drugs, who did drugs, who lived a life of crime,” Ross said. “And I can’t understand why Megan, who is doing these things in prison, is being let out.
“Is that what our justice system is now? It doesn’t seem right to me. She is breaking the law in prison and we’re going to reward her for that.”
A transcript of Hogg’s hearing that could shed light on the decision was not immediately available.
Luis Patino, a spokesman for the parole board, said the agency does not comment on cases that are under review, but he explained that commissioners consider a number of factors when making a recommendation. Chief among them, he said, is the danger the prisoner poses to society.