48 Hours - Home From Texas | Blood is Thicker: The Hargan Family Killings | Part 1

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Pamela Hagan lived in a quiet, wealthy Virginia suburb, surrounded by family: her daughters Megan, Helen, and her granddaughter lived with her in her million-dollar home. From the outside, the Hargan women had it all. But even though there was love, there were also grievances. When Pamela and Helen were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide, detectives had to ask: what was going on inside the Hargan household?Get early, ad-free access to episodes of Blood is Thicker: The Hargan Family Killings by subscribing to 48 Hours Plus on Apple Podcasts or Wondery+ on the Wondery app. The series is widely available everywhere else you get your podcasts.Subscribe to 48 Hours+: https://apple.co/4aEgENoSubscribe to Wondery+: https://wondery.com/plus/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it.

There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial, and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. It was 1989 in Titusville, Florida. Kim Halleck said she and her ex-boyfriend Chip Flynn were kidnapped and attacked at gunpoint. Kim fled the scene, but Chip didn't make it out alive. Did you kill Chip Flynn? No, ma'am. Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most, involving an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense. A sister testifying against a brother.

They always say lies. You can't remember lies. A lack of physical evidence and questions about whether Crosley Green was accused, arrested and convicted because he's black. Just because a white female says a black man has committed a crime, we take that as gospel. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, The Trouble Case Against Crosley Green, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm 48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Sant. On July 14th, 2017,

Helen Hargan called her boyfriend, Carlos Gutierrez, with shocking news. Her sister Megan had told her she killed their mother, Pam. Pam Hargan was found face down in her home, and they also found Helen dead in the bathroom next to a rifle. What could have led to their strange deaths? In the first episode of our new podcast series, Blood is Thicker, The Hargan Family Killings, you'll learn about the deaths of this mother and daughter in an upscale neighborhood outside of Washington, D.C.,

a story that shocked people across the country. This episode contains graphic audio and references to family violence. Please listen with care. Dad, I can't believe this is happening, Dad. Well, honey, we don't know what's happening, okay? In the early evening hours of July 14, 2017, Steve Hargan is trying to comfort his oldest daughter, Megan. This is not real. I am just praying to God this is a sick joke. Like, the sickest joke ever.

They've received terrifying news. Gunshots have been fired at the house Megan shares with her mother, Pamela Hargan, in McLean, Virginia. No one yet knows what has happened inside. I just need to see them, Dad. Please, first of all. And now, to make matters worse, no one can reach her mom or Megan's youngest sister, Helen.

I just want to hear their voices. Like, I just, like, I just. I know. Steve and Pamela Hargan divorced years ago. Everyone is meeting up at his house while they wait for news. Ashley, the middle sister, is racing there from her home in Pennsylvania. Ashley and I have been calling my mom and the house and Helen. No one's answering.

The tape you're hearing was recorded by Detective John Vickery, who arrived at Steve Hargan's house. I'm going to record this because there's a lot going on. The detective is staying with the family and updating them. I'm going to get information from you, and as things start coming in, I'll be able to tell you a little bit more. Megan explains that she had moved in with her mother a few years back with her 8-year-old daughter Molly. Pamela was helping raise her granddaughter. They go to the nail salon together. She does all the gardening with my mom. They're best friends. Megan's youngest sister, Helen, who is 24, had just moved back in

too. She recently graduated from Southern Methodist University with degrees in math and management science. Here's Megan again. She was actually in the regular master's program in Dallas before she moved. And then she quit it. Detective Vickery asked to speak to Steve alone. I wanted to get a little bit more information from your dad, if I could do that in private. Detective Vickery whispers to Steve, hoping that his daughters don't hear him. He says,

I don't have good news, the detective says, and keeps speaking under his breath, trying to convince Steve that he's probably the strongest one to tell the rest of the family what happened. What about my daughter? They were both found shot to death. I'm really sorry. Steve absorbs the information. Thank you for letting me be the one to tell my daughters.

He waits until both his daughters are together before he shares the devastating news. Twenty minutes later, Ashley arrives, and she's distraught. This has been the longest ride of my life. I understand. I just want to hear my mom and my sister's voice. I want to see them. I want to make sure they're okay. Steve decides this is the moment to tell them what he knows. I'm sorry to tell you girls. Oh my god. This is insane.

Then, Detective Vickery finds his voice and shares some of the gruesome details. Someone match the description of your mother was found deceased on the main level. She did have a gunshot. When the officers located your sister in the bathroom, the rifle was still in the bathroom. He's saying the rifle was in the bathroom with Helen. What could that mean? Oh, God, what are we going to do?

Jesus, what are we going to do? I don't know. I need to see him. No, stop. Relax. I really need to see him. They took him to the medical examiner. There's an investigation going on, honey.

Who would want to kill their mother and their little sister? Before this tragedy, the Hargan women seemed to have it all. From the outside looking in, we were blessed. My mom was amazing. They were close and had everything to look forward to. But as detectives would soon learn, there was a lot going on inside the Hargan household. In my 25 years reporting stories like this,

the Hargan case is one of the few that sounds like something made up by a Hollywood screenwriter, a story of betrayal you would struggle to believe if it wasn't true. A story of betrayal you would struggle to believe if it wasn't true. I'm Peter Van Sant. From 48 Hours, this is Blood is Thicker. The Hargan Family Killings. My sister was not my sister for many months. Episode 1, Home from Texas.

There were several aspects of this case that were extremely unique that I have not seen before. Earlier in the afternoon, Detective Brian Byerson gets a call to head to Pamela Hargan's house. There were two bodies in a house in McLean, and I was to respond to Dean Drive. Now, on your way there, what have you been told about what's inside that house? Very little. We know that when we get up there, that patrol has been in the house, that they had to force entry through the front door, so the house was locked, and that inside the house there were the bodies of two women. He drives to Pamela Hargan's neighborhood, unsure of what he's about to encounter. Where this took place was an affluent section of McLean, Virginia. It's the kind of place where political

power players have large homes and a yard without too long of a commute to D.C. Presidents, senators, CIA agents have all called McLean home. The Hargens live on a tree-lined street. Their home is a nearly 5,000-square-foot colonial with a covered porch and six bedrooms. It's a million-dollar home. Detective Byerson and Julia Elliott, a crime scene detective and forensics expert, arrive at the house. It certainly didn't look like some place where two homicides potentially had occurred. They enter through the front door into a foyer. There's a wooden staircase with carpeted steps

up to the second floor and a hallway with panel molding and black photo frames lining the cream-colored wall. It seems idyllic. It was immaculate. I've never seen a more organized home in my life. As detectives, they're trained to notice the details. Every chair is perfectly spaced along their long dining room table. Each throw pillow has its own place on the couch. Nothing looks amiss until they get to the back half of the house. Here's Detective Byerson again. As you walk through the kitchen, you encounter a mudroom that connects the kitchen to the garage.

So in that mudroom, we discover Pamela Hansen Hargan. She is laying on the floor of the mudroom. Pamela Hargan has been shot twice in the head. The top half of her body is wrapped in a quilt with her legs sticking out, and her head is covered. And she has a dog bed laying on her head, covering her. A dog bed on her head? What do you mean? Like a small dog bed that you would see in your house that maybe your dog would lay in was actually covering a portion of her head. Detectives then make their way upstairs. If you come up that staircase into the long hallway and make your second left that would be into Helen's bedroom and once you get into Helen's

bedroom is her bathroom and that's where her body was bedroom. And once you get into Helen's bedroom is her bathroom, and that's where her body was found. She's leaning back, and her head is laid back into the bathtub. So she's sort of laying on both the toilet seat and the bathtub. And then her legs are pointed straight out towards the door as you walk in. This is Helen, her 24-year-old daughter. Yes. There was a rifle that was sort of laying between her legs. Patrol, when they arrived, finding two deceased persons, one with a gun on their body,

assumed or thought that there might have been a murder-suicide. Detectives, though, aren't so sure. A lot of these cases are like huge jigsaw puzzles that you can never fully put together. What did you learn about the dynamic within this family? Were they a close group? I know that Megan and Helen, for instance, were about 10 years apart in age. It seemed like they were all relatively close. Pamela had worked hard to establish herself in a community of overachievers. She'd been divorced for several years. She was very successful on her own.

She got her start at 17 and worked her way up to the executive suite, holding big jobs at companies like Lockheed Martin and, more recently, a tech firm. Pamela saw herself as a provider. She loved her daughters. She had a granddaughter that she absolutely adored. People thought Helen, the youngest, took after her mom. She was smart, talented, and ambitious. What's your gut telling you as you take a look at these two bodies?

Wait. Wait and do the job. The clues investigators found they'd mull over for years. We have two bodies, two different rooms, but it's one house. Some puzzles are hard to solve. Others are hard to prove. Detective Elliott has worked in the crime scene department for about a decade. Detective Elliott has worked in the crime scene department for about a decade. I'm looking for anything that may have been left behind by the person that did the crime.

Such as? Blood, fingerprints, trace DNA like hairs or fibers. Detective Elliott notices how Pamela's body was positioned. I believe where she was shot physically on her body and how she was laying in the mudroom, I believe someone came up either to her side or from the back and shot her. Then there's the odd fact that her face is partially covered. Generally that's done in cases that I've worked because someone known to the victim may be the suspect in these cases, and they're

either ashamed or they can't look at what they've done, so they choose to cover the bodies. So sometimes it's someone very close to the deceased that's done this. That can be a clue to maybe where we should be going or what we should be looking at. And then there was Pamela's cell phone. That phone was sitting on top of the quilt that was covering her, and it was also sitting on top of a pool of blood. That seems very strange, doesn't it? It is strange. We know that it means that that phone was placed there sometime after she died. Well, I want to know what fingerprints are on that cell phone, if anything

at all, and I want to find out who put that cell phone there in that particular place. So you want to check for fingerprints and DNA? Yes. What do you find on this phone? Nothing. Nothing. Detective Elliott isn't sure if that meant the phone had been wiped clean.

Not everything holds fingerprints very well. But Pamela couldn't have put her own cell phone on top of her body. It seemed to suggest the killer had placed the phone on her. But could it have been Helen? Megan would later tell police their little sister had been in crisis. I love Helen, but something has really changed in her over the last few months, and my mom was concerned. her over the last few months. And my mom was concerned. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California.

Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military, and when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman?

Now we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America.

If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. As the family would later tell detectives, Pamela seemed willing to spend on whatever her daughters needed. Cars, houses, and even office furniture. Ashley just called her last week and said she needed file cabinets.

And my mom ordered file cabinets. Here, Megan was on the phone with Detective Byerson. They're supposed to be delivered this week. I mean, anything we needed, she gave it to us. The girls were little when their parents divorced, and Pamela had raised her daughters on her own. We always made the joke that that's why they got divorced, because my dad couldn't handle, you know, four women at the same time.

And even when Pamela's children became adults, they still relied on her. Megan, for one, was 34 and had been living with her mother for years, even though she was married. Her husband served in the military. My husband deploys often, so I've always stayed with my mom.

At the time of the shootings, Megan wasn't working. Where are you working now? Oh, I'm not right now. You're not working? I'm in a bed planner. Okay. But I have to finish my clients up here, and I'm moving everything out to Morgantown.

Okay. Megan told the police that she and her husband were buying a new house in West Virginia and were about to finally move in together. While there was love in the Hargan household, the daughters also said there was arguing. They'd air their grievances and move on. It's family. That's how it is. Ashley agreed. She told Detective Byerson as much. My mom and dad had a horrible divorce.

Coming from a family of females, we fought a lot. Argued a lot. It's just how it was. What may seem really bad to other people was normal to us. We would have our screaming matches, five minutes later we were fine. But according to Megan, her little sister Helen had been furious lately. Then Megan revealed that the morning of the shootings, Helen and their mom had been arguing yet again. Helen has been so angry, like just so angry all the time over everything. It's unclear when Ashley and Megan put two and two together,

but at some point, they started contemplating the macabre possibility that Helen might have killed their mother and then herself. Detective Vickery told their dad her wound appeared self-inflicted, but all Megan and Ashley had been told was that the rifle was found in the bathroom with Helen. They tried putting pieces of this part of the puzzle together, why Helen might have done something like this. You can hear Megan's daughter playing in the other room. According to Megan, their mother had been planning to buy Helen a house in Aldi, a small town in Virginia. But then, the morning of the shootings, Pamela told Helen she decided against it. Megan suggested that it might have had something to do with

Helen's new boyfriend, an older man she'd been dating in Texas, someone her mother did not approve of. His name was Carlos Gutierrez. Helen had unexpectedly dropped out of graduate school, and Pamela thought her boyfriend was a bad influence. Megan said her mother didn't want Helen's boyfriend to move into any house she was going to buy. house she was going to buy. Pamela seemed willing to go above and beyond for her girls. But that morning, she had apparently gone back on her promise to one of them.

Because she truly believed that Helen was going to try to move Carlos into the house, and my mom didn't want him being there. And now both sisters seem to be suggesting that maybe Helen, frustrated by her mother, somehow broke, turning to violence to settle a score and end her own life. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly. Introducing the best idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories

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And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. She was so excited about this house that my mom was getting for her. So your mom was buying her a house? Mm-hmm. In the days after the shootings, Ashley spoke with Detective Brian Byerson. He'd been assigned the lead on this case, and you'll recall he'd searched her mother's house.

Why was your mom buying her a house? That's what my mom did. Had she done it for everybody? Not for me. My mom offered to buy my house. And my husband and I said no. Ashley said her mom did buy her a Jeep, but that she didn't want to live in a house that was owned by her mother.

My husband and I talked about it, and I said, I don't want to do that. I want to try to, even though we live paycheck to paycheck, I want to try to do this on our own. But Helen had accepted her mother's offer of help. Ashley thought the offer for Helen's house in Virginia came with strings attached. But you need to get a job, you need to continue to get your master's degree, yada yada yada. You need to get a job. You need to continue to get your master's degree, yada, yada, yada. Ashley also said the family was worried about Helen's well-being,

that maybe she was using drugs. She says she's concerned about Helen maybe using some other type of narcotic or whatever. And what did you, how did that conversation end? With my mom and I? She said that she wanted to take all of us to the Outer Banks for two weeks and she wanted all of us to be together. She told him that Helen had a history of depression and thoughts of self-harm. When was probably last year, I want to say. Ashley described a call she got from her sister while Helen was still attending university in Dallas, about a year before the shooting. Helen gave me a call, and she was clearly drunk.

And she said, I just don't want to do it anymore. And I said, what do you mean, knowing full well immediately what she meant by that? And she's like, Ashley, I'm just sick of it all. And I said, Helen, I'm right here. There's no reason for you to say that. I'm like, I will fly out to Dallas right now if you need me to. The detective asked if Helen gave her any reasons. She was just sad. She's like, I have no friends.

She was just sick of everything and nothing going right. Again, when you have depression, no matter what you have in life, especially, you know, cars and how it doesn't mean shit to you. You're just sad. I said, you have all your dogs to look after. They love you. I said, I love you. Ashley said she kept calling to check in on Helen every 10 minutes until her sister sobered up.

I was the only one who was able to calm her down. And that's why it's killing me she did not call me on Friday. I would have been able to calm her down. Ashley was racing through all the what-ifs, all the things that might have happened differently that day if she'd been able to speak to Helen, to calm her down, to stop her before she did anything rash. Detective Byerson asked if Helen had ever attempted suicide. I think when she was a teenager, she tried to take pills.

Was it reported? I don't think so, no. How do you know about that? She had mentioned something like that because I had been talking about it because I tried to commit suicide by taking a bottle of pills when I was about 15. have been talking about it because I tried to commit suicide by taking a bottle of pills when I was about 15. Both Helen and Ashley had thoughts of ending their lives when they were teenagers, but Ashley was now 32 and beside herself. Every single emotion right now, hearing about this, finding out about this from Helen's piece of shit boyfriend.

It turns out Carlos had been the one to call Ashley and tell her shots had been fired at her mother's house. Again and again, the sisters blamed Helen's spiral on the boyfriend they'd never met. The family seemed to accept that Helen's depression could have pushed her over the edge. The day of the shooting, local reporters set up to go live not far from the caution tape. News in Fairfax County. Police broke down the door of a home there and found two women dead. This happened on Dean Drive. That is not too far from McLean High School. Reporters asked the police if they thought a killer could still be on the loose. We asked police a short time ago, is there a danger to this community?

Is there a suspect that is still at large out there? The answer to that question, a resounding no. The working theory here is a murder followed by a suicide in Fairfax tonight. The Fairfax County Police told the family and the community that initially this looked like a murder-suicide. We're learning more tonight about the mom and daughter found dead inside a McLean, Virginia home on Friday. Police say Helen Hargan shot her mom, Pamela Hargan, before turning the gun on herself. But those were first responding officers at the scene, on herself. But those were first responding officers at the scene, not Detective Byerson.

It's unfortunate. It certainly didn't come from the investigators who were actually doing the work on the ground. Right from the start, they had a major clue that something very different had happened to Pamela and Helen Hargan. That's because Helen's boyfriend, Carlos, who was more than a thousand miles away, had been talking to her on the phone right before she died. It turned out not everything the police had been told about Carlos was true. He had been trying to get his girlfriend help for hours, trying to save her, in fact. Fairfax County Police and Fire, how may I assist you? Yes, I have an emergency. My girlfriend lives in the corner.

Her sister is acting really weird. Coming up on Blood is Thicker. This particular case, there were things about the scene itself that were concerning to us on day one. If you are in crisis and need to talk to someone, call the Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255, or you can simply dial three digits, 988, to talk to a trained counselor. From 48 Hours, this is Blood is Thicker, the Hargan family killings. Judy Tigard is the executive producer of 48 Hours. Original reporting by 48 Hours producers Josh Yeager, Original reporting by 48 Hours producers Josh Yeager, Sarah Ely Hulse, Michelle Sigona, and Lauren White.

Jamie Benson is the senior producer for Paramount Audio, and Mara Walls is the senior story editor. Recording assistance from Alan Pang and Marlon Polycarp. Special thanks to Paramount Podcast Vice President Megan Marcus and 48 Hours Senior Producer Peter Schweitzer. Blood is Thicker is produced by Sony Music Entertainment. It was written and produced by Alex Schumann.

Our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. Our associate producer is Zoe Culkin. Theme and original music composed by Hansdale Shi. He also sound designed and mixed the episodes. We also use music by Blue Dot Sessions. Catherine Newhan is our fact checker.

Our production managers are Tamika Balans-Kolasny and Samantha Allison. I'm Peter Van Sant. If you're enjoying the show, be sure to rate and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting. For early and ad-free access to Blood is Thicker, subscribe to 48 Hours Plus on Apple Podcasts or Wondery Plus on the Wondery app. Start your free trial today. Thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island.

It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with.

In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.