Tina Hogan, a 36-year-old South Florida woman, has been arrested weeks after the bodies of her two young daughters were found floating in a canal.

The bodies of Destiny Hogan, 9, and Daysha Hogan, 7, were found June 22 floating in a canal in Lauderhill, near Fort Lauderdale.

When police arrived at the sprawling working-class neighborhood on a call about a child’s body floating in a canal last month, the usual signs of a tragic, accidental drowning just weren’t there.

Missing was a father — anyone standing over the little girl desperately trying to breathe life into the 9-year-old’s body. There was no mother racing along the canal’s edge screaming out for help — a mother they ultimately would arrest three weeks later.

Residents in the area had told investigators that Hogan had offered to baptize people in the canal a day before the girls’ bodies were found.

Destiny’s body was spotted on the afternoon of June 22. She was not immediately identified. The little girl wore her hair in braids. She had denim shorts and a gray T-shirt. For hours police tried to find someone who knew her. They looked for missing persons’ reports. They came back with nothing, so they called her Jane Doe.

According to local paper, The Sun-Sentinel, when police pulled “Jane Doe” from the water and placed her on the grassy bank, they saw multiple scratches around the child’s mouth. There was a small laceration near the left side of the child’s lip.

And then, across the canal in another Lauderhill neighborhood on that day in June, police saw a woman shrouded in a white blanket. She belted out Bible scriptures. One minute she was claiming to be the Devil and the next to be God, neighbors told the Sun-Sentinel.

It would take many hours before police learned the woman was “Jane’s” mother, who they now knew to be Destiny Hogan.

Hours later, authorities found her sister’s body nearby. However, it would take another 21 days before the girls’ mother was arrested and charged with their murders. Tina Hogan was arrested at Florida Medical Center in Lauderdale Lakes on the evening of July 13, after police served her with a warrant on two charges of premeditated murder in the deaths of her two children. Hogan had been under psychiatric care since being discovered near the canal covered by a white blanket on June 22.

After her arrest, she was transferred to jail and ordered held without bond. The Broward Public Defender’s Office will represent Hogan.

Authorities say that very little is known about Hogan and her two children.  Hogan really has no footprint in social media or public records to provide any insight into who she is. Her home, across the canal from where her oldest child was found, offered only a few clues that children even lived there, said Lauderhill Lt. Michael Santiago.

“The case itself has offered real challenges,” Santiago said. Challenges such as why she would have killed her children. Answers may be in the arrest warrant, Hogan’s arrest paperwork, and the probable cause affidavit, all of which have been sealed for up to 90 days while police continue their investigation. Sealing such documents after an arrest is rare.

In court, someone from the State Attorney’s Office told the Sentinel that the documents needed to be sealed to not compromise the investigation.

What is believed to be credible is that police, as well as the Sentinel, have been told that the night before the bodies of Destiny and Daysha surfaced in the canal, someone claims to have seen Hogan swimming in the canal while holding a Bible. That woman said Hogan swam over to her and offered to baptize her children. The offer was declined.

The idea that Hogan is a religious zealot seemed palpable as more people shared observations. People said Hogan was the type to seemingly pop up out of nowhere to discuss the Bible. Perhaps the most ominous was the report that a woman believed to be Hogan but possibly disguised in black shiny wig with long curls was spotted a week before her girls died holding a sign saying, “Death is the only answer.”

Please “Not Guilty”

On July 27, who now faces two counts of premeditated murder in the deaths of Destiny and Daysha, has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Hogan, 36, didn’t appear in court. Her attorney, Erin Veit, entered the plea on her behalf. Veit had no comment after the brief hearing.