Pregnant Mom Accused of Poisoning Husband Makes BOLD Move

We are following a shocking twist in the case of a Connecticut mom who is accused of poisoning her estranged husband's wine with antifreeze. Kristen Hogan is now pregnant and she's facing the possibility of decades in prison as she is accused of attempted murder. Yet she seemed confident enough in court this week to flash a smile to the. This holiday all plans even unlimited are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song like All I Want. Right. Okay, we can't afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're going to stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. As she rejected a plea offer from prosecutors. We'll break down what that offer was and the evidence prosecutors say they have, including internet search history. They say proves that this woman allegedly tried to kill the father of her child by poisoning him to death. We're on the case presented by Law and Crime. I'm Chris Stewart. Prosecutors not only believe that Kristen Hogan put antifreeze in a wine bottle and then waited for her estranged husband to drink it. They say the plan to pull that off went back months and she is facing very serious charges, including attempted murder. And we had a major development in this case this week. Here's video of Kristen Hogan's case. of Kristen Hogan in court with her attorney in Connecticut. And you can see she is pregnant and she's pretty far along. Now it's unclear what her due date is, but we do know she was arrested in October of 2025. So more than a year ago. And it's unclear at this point who the father of this unborn baby is. The big development that happened in court this week is that prosecutors offered Kristen Hogan a plea deal. And she said, no, this deal would have put the 33 year old mom in prison for years. But now the question is, since she rejected it, would the sentence have been more forgiving under this plea deal compared to what she might face if she is found guilty at trial? We'll talk a little bit more about that here in just a moment, but I want to remind you how we got to this point and all the different layers at play in this story. Kristen Hogan, lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut, which is a pretty wealthy town right along the New York border. The house that's listed as her address, where she used to live with her estranged husband is listed at more than a million dollars. So it appears that she has money, but money does not mean that you're not capable of the unthinkable. And when you look at the allegations, the unthinkable is what prosecutors say she did. Here's Kristen Hogan's mugshot. She was arrested a couple of months after an investigation began in October of 2025. And she was arrested a couple months after an investigation began in August of 2025. And at the center of this investigation appears to be a bitter custody dispute between Kristen Hogan and her estranged husband. His identity has not been released. The two of them share a child together. Hogan told police when they eventually confronted her that she had separated from her estranged husband in May of 2025. And then August is when this investigation began. Now this custody dispute apparently was so bad that her estranged husband had her car towed from her possession, she says, because it was in his name. And she ended up moving in with her parents and he was living at the house in Ridgefield. So let's talk about August 5th, 2025. That date is very important in this story. The estranged husband had family over to his house and he says someone brought a bottle of wine and they didn't finish the wine that night. So they put it away. Two days later, the estranged husband was doing, in court because of the custody dispute that he was having with Kristen Hogan. And he was due in court because Hogan brought a motion. So the estranged husband on August 7th goes to this hearing, but Kristen Hogan doesn't show up. And according to police, the estranged husband is at the courthouse. And at that moment, he looks at his phone and he gets an alert from his internet service provider that his wifi had just picked up. Another cell phone in the house. And it was allegedly Kristen Hogan's cell phone, meaning she was in the home or at least around it. So that is August 7th. And the estranged husband said he went home because Hogan didn't show up to the court hearing. And when he got there, Hogan was gone. So then a couple of days later, August 10th, the estranged husband said he opened up the bottle of wine and he had a little bit. The next morning, August 11th, he wakes up and he is vomiting. He was so sick. He goes to the hospital and doctors actually thought, according to police, that the estranged husband was having a stroke because he was slurring his words and he could barely stand. So more than a month goes by and authorities are trying to figure out what is wrong with the estranged husband. September 29th comes and that man calls police again. And he says that the child that he shares with Kristen Hogan was in the hospital. And the child was allegedly showing similar symptoms to what the husband had dealt with the month prior. Now, Kristen Hogan shows up at the hospital as well. And she allegedly points the finger at her estranged husband. She told authorities and social workers that her estranged husband may be poisoning their child. And that allegation appears strong enough that the estranged husband was removed from the hospital by security. Now, authorities test that bottle of wine and it comes back positive for having an ingredient that is an antifreeze, police say. Police then start talking to Kristen Hogan and this is where it seems. The best holiday finds aren't always the ones you went looking for. At Ross, discover unexpected gifts, fashion, decor, and plenty of reasons to keep looking. Ross, expect the unexpected. This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just $15 a month. Right. You know what? Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for a 12-month plan required. See terms. That they get suspicious of her. She allegedly said that she was living with her estranged husband full-time and that just wasn't true because she had separated in May, but she also still had full access to the house. Hogan also told police allegedly that she did not go to the court hearing related to the complaint that she filed because she was with her family in Rhode Island and that was the day you might remember that Hogan's phone allegedly connected to the Wi-Fi at the house in Ridgefield. Police then searched Hogan's devices and they laid out what they found in her search history. Hogan allegedly searched potassium cyanide, potassium ferricide, citrate cyanide, and potassium thiocyanate and monothylene glycol. And on top of that, she allegedly searched how much of those substances quote would kill you and where you could buy those substances. She also reportedly searched several measurements like kilograms. To pounds and quote penalty for not appearing for court hearing on your own motion. And this was all a day before Hogan did not appear at that hearing that her estranged husband was at. Now when confronted about that search history, Hogan allegedly said that she didn't know what police were talking about. And the only word that she recognized in those chemicals that she searched for was cyanide because that was talked about on the TV show psych, which you might remember, I think was on the USA network. Hogan's story also seemed to change according to police. They say she suddenly remembered that she bought monothylene glycol in July on Amazon because she needed it to clean a carpet at her mom's house. Then police laid out their cards according to court documents. And they said based on the wifi information, they knew she was inside her estranged husband's home. And they also told her how he was hospitalized with the same chemical she said she ordered to clean her mom's carpet. Then it appears Hogan came clean, at least to an extent. She allegedly told police that she never intended to try and kill her estranged husband, but quote, wanted to make him sick as payback for him being mentally abusive. Hogan then allegedly said she didn't measure how much she put into the wine bottle. And when she was asked if she put the alleged poison anywhere else in the house, she said that she did in an iced tea bottle. She claims there's no way that her child could have consumed that. She also claimed her search for how much of the chemical would kill you was after she learned that her estranged husband was in the hospital. Not before Hogan was arrested in October of 2025 on charges of attempted murder and interfering with an officer. Then more than two months later in December, she was arrested for attempted murder and interfering with an officer. She was then Hogan was hit with more charges. She turned herself into police in Connecticut on December 11th, 2025 on three counts of perjury and one count of tampering with evidence. State police say when they arrested Hogan on the attempted murder charges, they discovered that she was allegedly involved in what they called a deceitful act related to a custody battle involving two children that she has with another man. And we found Connecticut court records that show that there had been some major questions of who the father of those children is. Police say that Hogan gave birth to her first child in September, 2020 and court records show that Hogan was married to a different man from March, 2020 to October, 2021. Police say a paternity test showed that man was not the father of her child. Her estranged husband, who she allegedly tried to kill with the antifree disease, is the father. Then Hogan gives birth to a boy the same month that she was divorced in October, 2021. Police say that Hogan claimed she knew who the father was but wouldn't say his name and this led to a dispute and DNA testing was requested. Police cite a public investigator that followed Hogan to the DNA appointment in April, 2024. The public investigator saw Hogan bring a boy into the appointment. And they then followed her for hours after. The testing came back and showed that not only was her estranged husband not the father of that child, but she was not the child's mom. Police say that is because she brought, allegedly, her nephew to that appointment, not her son. And on top of that, police say surveillance showed that Hogan's mom was with her in the car when she went to the DNA appointment, but her attorney denied that she was aware of her daughter's alleged plan to bring her sister's son to get a DNA test. Now, not only that, state police say that they spoke to Hogan's sister, the mother of the boy allegedly brought by Hogan for a DNA test. And she said she had no idea that her sister would allegedly do this. And she also said that she does not believe that her mom would be involved in this alleged plot. So, you can see there's a lot of layers there, a lot of different twists and turns and some major accusations that Kristen Hogan is facing. I mean, she's facing multiple charges and it appears that prosecutors tried to bring everything to an end with this plea offer. The state made an offer on two counts, one of attempted murder, the other one of perjury offer was 20 years suspended after 14 years and five years of probation. My understanding is that the defendant is going to reject that offer today. In Connecticut, attempted murder comes with a prison term of 10 to 60 years. Perjury can have a charge of up to five years. So, the offer that prosecutors put forward was 20 year sentence and it would be suspended after 14 and then five years of probation after. You compare that to the charges that she's facing. So, for attempted murder in Connecticut. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like All I Want. Right. You know what? New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. The penalty for that could range between 10 and 60 years in prison. And then you have up to five years in prison on perjury charges. And this deal, it appears, would have put the attempted murder case as well as those perjury charges to rest had she accepted it. But she said no. And in court, the judge then confirmed with Hogan that she was not going to take this deal. Ma'am, good morning. Good morning. You heard what's been reported here this morning? Yes. You understand it? Yes. And has it been reported accurately that you do know that an offer has been made once he's suspended after 14, probably about five years probation for both of those two proposed guilty pleas? And that you wish to reject that? Yes. All right. You wish to go on the trial list? Yes. Judge or jury? We're going to be making a jury election now. So the next court date for Kristen Hogan is December 14th. We did notice she flashed a smile at the judge as he wished her well, seemingly in her pregnancy at the end of that hearing. Please make sure that your lawyer always has a phone number when you can be called. And obviously, good luck with everything else that's going on. Your Honor, at this time, the state is going to ask that the offer be withdrawn. So noted. Noted. Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you. All right. Hogan is currently on house arrest and she is being tracked with GPS. She posted a $1 million bond. Joining us now to talk more about this, criminal defense attorney Skyla Zaro. Always great to have you on Law & Crime. The allegations, it's almost hard to follow because there's a lot of layers to it ever since Kristen Hogan was arrested last year in October. She turns down this plea deal, though. What do you make of that? You know, first of all, thanks for having me, Chris. I always love being on the show. This is a, there's a lot going on in this case. There's two separate cases, first of all. And she's, she's got some significance. She's got some significant problems as it relates to some of these perjury and evidence tampering charges. Those never appeal well to a jury. Turning down this offer, you know, she's got very experienced criminal defense attorneys. Sometimes this is just part of working through the process. You know, this could, this may not be a final plea offer. A lot of times in cases they'll make an, they'll make offers. Or, you know, set a preliminary hearing or, or waive a preliminary hearing. And then you work towards trial. That doesn't mean that another offer won't come in the future. Isn't possible as they continue to work through this case. Uh, so in some ways is, is the offer reasonable, just objectively not knowing anything about the case or what the attorneys actually know? Probably when I look at the charges, I would say that's probably a pretty standard offer that you. Would see in cases. Uh, but I don't know that it's so great that you don't keep trying. Uh, and a lot of times setting cases for trial forces everybody to do a whole bunch of work. Uh, and sometimes, you know, good things come from that in terms of getting better plea offers. Well, and, and, and I just wonder too, so they, they go in court and they say, they're not going to take this deal. Um, and we've only heard, and it's important that we've really only heard what state police are saying and prosecutors, you know, what is Kristen Hogan's side to the story? Uh, a lot of that remains to be seen. Um, but I also wonder, like, what leverage do you have from the defense's perspective on this? Because you have this search history that police talk about. Um, you have an admission to an extent that she made where she said, you know, because of this custody dispute, that's apparently been very bitter between her and her estranged husband, um, that she wanted to get back at him. That she didn't want to kill him, but she wanted him to get sick is what state police say that she said. Uh, and I just wonder like for. These attorneys for as good as it appears that they are, you know, you turn down the prosecution's offer. What are you bringing to them to say, Hey, let's get an even better deal for my client, even though the prosecutors could say we have all of this and we could go to trial and we feel confident about, about how that would turn out. Yeah, it's always interesting when we look at these cases from our perspective, because in most of them, we don't have both sides of the story. Uh, we only have what the state is putting out there with the state says that they have evidence. to show whatever they put in the information or probable cause statement or what we've learned through hearings. So it's really a small snapshot of probably all of the evidence out there. And there's a lot that goes into these cases when you're defending people. You've got to take a look at any mitigating evidence as well as it pertains to the defendant. When you look at charges like this and you read through at least what's being reported about some of her behaviors in terms of like these perjury charges and taking a child in that's not hers in an effort allegedly to, you know, obscure the test. And the interference and the witness tampering, there could be more going on with Ms. Hogan than you. We know. And that's something her defense attorneys would be privy to. So when we look at mitigating circumstances that might support a lesser plea or a better plea offer or less time, we look at things like mental health issues. We look at, you know, maybe if the defendant has or Ms. Hogan has some challenges with life or has had things in her past that, you know, would make her sympathetic. In some ways and rehabilitative, you know, there's there's two sides to punishment. When we look at plea deals, we have to look at the best holiday fines aren't always the ones you went looking for at Ross. Discover unexpected gifts, fashion, decor, and plenty of reasons to keep looking. Right. You know what? See terms. We have to look at the punishment side of it and, you know, can we rehabilitate this person? Because we can't keep people on charges like this in prison forever. Even if she were convicted of everything, she would probably get out someday. And, you know, re-assimilate into society. So when you look at plea deals, you also look at what programs can she do? You know, what needs does she have that might help her, might incentivize her to take a plea, might incentivize the state to give a better offer? One or two, I mean, it's undeniable. She is pregnant and she looks like she's pretty far along. And that just based off timing would have, that's a development that happened after she was arrested. Let's just say, so how does that factor into this? Because, I mean, we've seen in certain cases, I mean, everybody's been talking about very different story, but like Elizabeth Holmes, you know, that movie that just came out, like she had a child that was like leading up to her time in prison. And then there is this argument to be made, like, you know, you have a young child who needs their mom. And, you know, does that, how does that factor into this? Because on the other hand, that doesn't change if she's guilty of what police are saying, whether she's pregnant or not does not change the fact that she allegedly put antifreeze in a wine bottle and her husband, and almost died from it, a strange husband. You know, I've had that argument go both ways. I've had people and known of cases where people get pregnant while they're pending trial. I've had courts let them have the baby out of custody and stay with the baby and then do their time later on. This might also be the reason that her defense attorneys set it for trial is to buy more time. I mean, that's a very real possibility. The possibility is, you know, we need her to have this baby. We don't want her to have it in prison. So we're going to set a trial and we're going to set it out a little bit to allow that to happen and then come back and reassess where we're at. I probably would do that in this case. I'd probably buy as much time for her as I could on the defense side because of the fact that she's pregnant. But in terms of the way the court looks at it, I don't think that's going to happen. I don't know that it gets you as much sympathy as people might think. It might buy you some time with Elizabeth Holmes. It bought her some time, but she still had to do her time. It didn't alleviate that fact. I have had judges say, you know, you'll get just fine care in prison. You can have your baby there. So I don't know that it helps her. In some ways. I could see courts actually being a little annoyed by this. And I think, too, of just the charge she's facing of attempted murder. And I know you're in Utah. Every state's a little bit different when it comes to certain laws. But when you look at what police are alleging, on one hand, you have these Internet searches where she looked for a variety of chemicals, they say. And then they also allege that there is a search that she, you know, I think it was kilograms to pounds, pounds to kilograms, some sort of search that they believe was her. They're arguing, kind of measuring out how much of a chemical should go into this wine bottle. At the same time, when she admitted, she said she didn't want to, she wasn't trying to kill her estranged husband. This has been a bad custody dispute. She says he's been mentally abusive to her. So she wanted to get back at him and get him sick. When it comes to attempted murder and to prove, like, how much is it about proving that the intent was going to be to kill somebody to be found guilty of it? That's absolutely what the state has. And, you know, really is a defense attorney. Her searches where she's actually searching measurements and then says, look, I just wanted him to make to get him sick is is pretty helpful. When we look at attempted murder, any attempt, you still have to prove the mens rea or the criminal intent of what that person was thinking when they did it. So it's purposely and knowingly. This is not a manslaughter. So we're not talking about reckless. Intent where your your behavior is is so reckless that you should know that it could cause someone to die. Right. We're talking about an actual murder. So what the state has to show is that she purposely and knowingly intended to give him this antifreeze, essentially, is what it is to kill him. And I actually think you can make a probably a fairly compelling argument, not knowing what else. They have out there that, you know, because she actually looked up, you know, these doses or how much you can give someone to, you know, that she wasn't trying to kill him, that that she didn't just pour a whole bunch in there and see what happens, that she actually did think it through in terms of just wanting to make him sick, which is what happened. Now, that's probably an aggravated assault or or something along those lines. It's not crime free. But there's. There's probably lesser included and I don't practice there. But my guess is, like every state, there's lesser included, which manslaughter is probably one of them. Aggravated assault is probably or something akin to that is probably one of them where you could argue, look, she didn't intend to kill him. She intended to make him sick, you know, and we're going to own that. But don't don't hit her with the attempted murder. I wonder, too, like looking at this custody issue that they had and like there's an anecdote police put in there where. Her estranged husband, like had her car towed from where she was at because it's in his name. And it just like it was one of those types of custody battles, which we've seen where it gets really ugly. Is that on one hand, if you're a prosecutor, you look at that and say, like, here's your motive. Like, this is why that she wanted him in their argument is to to be dead is because they've been having this terrible custody case. On the other hand, I mean, this is someone from a defense perspective. You could argue like she was going through a lot, you know, and it's like a mitigating, almost like a mitigating factor. Like, how do these types of. Custody cases play out in court. The best holiday finds aren't always the ones you went looking for at Ross. Discover unexpected gifts, fashion, decor and plenty of reasons to keep looking. Right. OK, we can afford that. You don't. Give it a try. Mint mobile dot com slash switch upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra new customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms when it could be looked at from both sides. You know, these are always interesting, you know, just just because someone's two wrongs don't make a right, right? Just because he's terrible to her, you don't get to take the law. On to your own hands, you know, and it doesn't it's not a it's not a legal defense in terms of what the law looks at. But I do think these are pretty compelling mitigating arguments. If you get the right jury, you know, it's almost it's almost this battered woman defense, you know, these these women who have been beat for years and then, you know, or anyone it's been beat for years and then, you know, they they kill their partner or their spouse in the middle of the night. It's not really. Self defense because they weren't doing anything at the time, but you kind of run this this defense to the jury really trying to just plead to people's sympathies and real life experiences that, you know, these this isn't indicative of her as a person. And this might be also a compelling argument for a better deal. This is not who she is. She lost her mind for a minute because she was going through all of this and he was tormenting her. You know, in all of these ways. And she just snapped one day. And that's fixable. You know, you know, we get her some help. We get her some counseling. Sure, she has to, you know, take some responsibility for some of these things she's done. But but give her an avenue to get better and move on. I think that's an argument you can make to the state. But I also think that's an argument you can make to a jury. And I, you know, it really comes down to, you know, almost jury nullification. They're like, look, we get it. The law says this. The jury instructions say this. But we're just not going to do it. Yeah. And we'll see what happens next in this case. I mean, each time there's a new development, it's just such a shocking story. It has a lot of layers to it. Skyla Zaro, criminal defense attorney. Always great to have you on Law and Crime. Thanks for doing this. Thanks, Chris. Always glad to be here. That will do it for On the Case presented by Law and Crime. I'm Chris Stewart. See you next time.