A California mom who murdered her three daughters because they 'loved their grandmother more than her' has been found suitable for parole.
Megan Hogg, 53, brutally killed her daughters, Antoinette, seven, Angelique, three, and Alexandra, two, in their Daly City home in March 1998, by taping their mouths and feet and smothering them to death.
At her trial, prosecutors said Hogg senselessly murdered her daughters 'out of anger' at them, because she believed they preferred their grandmother who was taking care of them more than her.
Hogg pleaded no contest to three counts of first degree murder, and was sentenced in September 1999 to 25 years to life in prison.
She was previously found suitable for parole five years early in 2018, sparking anger from her family who pleaded with then-California Governor Jerry Brown to deny her release.
Following a review at the Central California Women's Facility last week - where Hogg was supported by seven family members and opposed by two - the board found she was suitable for release again.
The final decision over Hogg's freedom will be sent to California Governor Gavin Newsom's office for review, with opponents arguing she deserves to remain behind bars for the heinous crimes.
The San Mateo County District Attorney's office says it 'continues to strongly oppose Megan Hogg’s release on parole.'
Megan Hogg, 53, brutally killed her daughters, Antoinette, seven, Angelique, three, and Alexandra, two, in their Daly City home in March 1998, by taping their mouths and feet and smothering them to death. Hogg pleaded no contest to three counts of first degree murder
At a hearing last week, a California parole board found Hogg suitable for parole
When Hogg murdered her three girls, prosecutors floated the possibility of the death penalty due to the abhorrent nature of her crime, and her defense said they advised her to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
The girls' bodies were found in Hogg's bed, and her defense attorney George Walker said at the time that she was mentally ill and may not have understood the gravity of what had happened, per a SFGate report from 1998.
Walker said Hogg had been depressed for years and suffered a head injury in a car accident months before the murders, and claimed she also tried to take her own life when killing her daughters.
But prosecutors said Hogg wrote a two-page letter detailing how she was going to kill her daughters, including chilling notes about sealing her daughters' mouths and noses with tape before holding them down as they suffocated.
She wrote in the letters: 'I, Megan Hogg, have ended the lives of my daughters, Antoinette, Angelique and Alexandra in my bed by suffocation.'
She said she had taken 'high amounts of Vicodin, codeine, Tylenol with codeine, Motrin and Trazodone' to end her own life, and said she had 'never before considered ending the girl's lives.'
'Myself, however, it's something I have thought of frequently. This is to notify anyone necessary that this was a sole action and included help and knowledge of no other,' she wrote.
Hogg murdered her three daughters because they 'loved their grandmother more than her' while she suffered from depression, prosecutors said
The decision over whether to release Hogg back into the community will be sent to California Governor Gavin Newsom. His predecessor Jerry Brown previously refused to release her in 2018
Prosecutors said Hogg killed her daughters because they loved their grandmother Karen Hogg more than her, and court documents showed that the day before the murders the two had argued about the children.
Hogg told police she was upset because her mother had threatened to kick her out and gain custody of the children.
But at her trial, Karen supported her daughter, and sued a local hospital claiming that doctors had overmedicated Hogg and left her without support.
'Her life was shattered,' her father Greg said at the time. 'She felt she had no hope. On March 23, 1998, she did not expect to live.'
At Hogg's parole hearing last week, ten family members appeared in front of the board, including seven who supported her release, the DA's office said.
Three family members on the children's father's side also appeared, two of whom pleaded with the board to keep her locked up, reports KRON4. The one remaining family member deferred to the parole board panel's discretion.
After hearing from the family members, the board ultimately found Hogg suitable for parole - offering her second chance at release eight years after she last saw the possibility reversed by then-Gov Brown.
When she was last up for parole in 2018, the aunt of the girls Hogg murdered, Damali Ross, told Brown that her release would be 'like ripping the band-aid of a wound that never healed.'
Hogg, seen in a recent mugshot, was accused of dealing drugs in prison and prosecutors say she has shown no remorse for the murders of her daughters
Ross said she had been sure Hogg would spend the rest of her life in prison and was stunned to see the parole board find her suitable for release, saying the family 'can’t understand how that happened, and we’re upset.'
Her family claimed at the time they believed Hogg was still committing crimes behind bars, including dealing drugs.
They said they feared she could be allowed back into the Bay Area community where they could see her again, or that she remains young enough to start a new family.
'I'm fearful for her to come (and be released), and say she starts a family... I don't think she learned from it,' said family member Karla Douglas.
The San Mateo County District Attorney's Office said as it opposed her release at her 2018 hearing that Hogg showed no remorse for killing her three girls, and said it deemed her to be a 'moderate risk' of re-offending.
