Rebecca Hogue: Mother jailed for 16 months under controversial ‘fail to protect’ law after boyfriend killed son

Case has attracted attention from women’s rights groups

Rebecca Hogue, an Oklahoma woman found guilty in November of first degree murder in the death of her two-year-old son, has been sentenced to 16 months in prison, avoiding the life sentence recommended by a jury.

Hogue, 29, was charged in the death of her son Ryder under the state’s controversial “failure to protect” law, even though prosecutors say it was her boyfriend Christopher Trent who killed the child while she was not present.

“You do not deserve to die in prison. You are not a monster. You have value and you have worth,” judge Michael Tupper said as he handed down the sentence.

Due to time served, Hogue will spend 13 months in prison.

Ryder was found dead on New Year’s Day 2020.

Prosecutors say Hogue had returned from working a shift at a bar in Norman, Oklahoma, in the early hours of the morning, When she woke up, her boyfriend was gone and Ryder was cold and unresponsive.

Officials initially seemed skeptical about prosecuting Hogue.

Norman Police detective Sean Judy at first declined to file charges, and was heard on a leaked audio tape calling any potential decision to do so “bullsh**.”

Still, the district attorney in the area pressed forward with the first-degree murder charge against Hogue, under the state’s controversial “failture to protect” law, in which guardians can be charged for the child abuse committed by their partners if they did or should have known about it.

Hogue has maintained that she didn’t know abuse was taking place, and that Trent brushed off questions and gaslit her about bruises and cuts she had seen on her son as ordinary for a young and active boy.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, say that Hogue searched online for what the potential signs of child abuse might be, suggesting she felt her son might be in harm’s way.

Trent was found dead by suicide in early 2020 after fleeing into the Wichita Mountains. Nearby, someone had carved “Rebecca is innocent” into a tree.

Neither the detective’s comments, nor the statement carved into the tree, were allowed into evidence at the trial, where it took a jury just two hours to find Hogue guilty and recommend a life sentence.

The case has attracted significant attention from civil rights and women’s groups. A Change.org petition to free Hogue has more than 25,000 signatures.

“It’s hard for people to believe that a mother might not know their child is being abused … but what standard are we holding their mothers to?” Cindene Pezzell, legal director for the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, told the BBC.

“I’ve seen cases where paediatricians don’t see any signs of abuse, and then the child dies, and the mother is charged with failure to protect.”