A Killer in Plain Sight: 3

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We had to take everything, every scenario into play. That's our responsibility.

After spending the whole evening combing for clues at the Hargan House, homicide, detective Brian Byerson of the Fairfax County Police knew something was off. The rifle leaning against Helen's dead body wasn't covered in blood. Both Helen and Pamela's cell phones had been wiped clean. And then, later into the day, the detective learned what Helen's boyfriend, Carlos Gutierrez, had told 911 dispatchers. My girlfriend told me that her sister killed her mom.

And now my girlfriend won't answer her phone.

Carlos had said that Helen's sister, Megan, had killed Pamela.

We knew that Megan Hargan was at her father's home. I had a conversation with that detective. And I asked him to get a good statement from her as far as where she was. And GSR her hands.

Gunshot residue.

Gunshot residue, yes.

The police took photos of Megan and gather evidence that evening. And Fairfax County Police used one of their gunshot residue kits to test Megan's hands. And the result revealed something both suspicious and disturbing.

Megan Hargan had gunshot residue on her hands. There is no reason that she should have that.

By nightfall, the day of the shootings, detectives knew Megan had recently fired a weapon. Remember, both victims had been shot to death. The next day, another crucial piece of evidence came to light.

In these kind of cases, we don't really know anything until other things happen, meaning the autopsy is extremely important in these cases.

Authorities examined Pamela and Helen's bodies.

And at the autopsy, we realized that the gunshot wound on Helen Hargan was in the top of her head.

The entrance and exit wounds didn't make sense to Byerson.

We don't see a way that she could have made that or she could have shot herself with the trajectory that we were seeing in the x-rays.

We were face to face when Detective Byerson told me this. He then demonstrated what happened to Helen, according to the autopsy. He lifted up his arm and pointed straight down at the top of his head. That's the angle, he said. the bullet entered Helen's skull, from the top of her head down into her neck.

It's straight down, left to right.

In crime scene photos, the .

She would have to hold it straight up and be able to reach the trigger to accomplish this. I've never seen that before. And I've worked a lot of death cases. I've worked a lot of murders. I've never seen that.

In his mind, they were now investigating a double homicide.

So now, this big puzzle, we're starting to fit pieces together. And we're starting to see a general outline of maybe what happened here.

Detective Byerson wanted to talk with the only other adult who said they were in the house the day of the shooting. Detective, this is Megan Hargan. I'm sorry, I didn't have your phone number.

I offered everything the first night.

I said, please, like, just whatever you need. But Byerson wanted to speak in person.

She had offered to come in one time and give us anything that we asked for. So we took advantage of that.

At this point, they've got evidence. And they want to confront Megan with some of it and see how she reacts. Would she have a good explanation for having touched the rifle? And if she did have something to do with the deaths of her loved ones, would she confess?

I gave you everything because of that.

Why would I give that if I knew I was guilty?

Episode 3, A Killer in Plain Sight.

Megan and I met through a lot of the animal rescue work that we did together. We fostered some of the same dogs.

Rebecca said they met a couple of years before the shootings.

2015, 2016,. we met and just hit it off right away.

They originally bonded over their love of animals. Megan volunteered for dog rescues and even helped veterans bring home dogs they had adopted overseas.

So it evolved, obviously, from just that topic to talking about all the things. Talking about her daughter, talking about her family, talking about my family.

Rebecca said Megan often talked about her life and plans, including how she hoped to move into a new house in West Virginia. She described Megan as kind-hearted.

She will give you the shirt off her back. She raised a great daughter. Her daughter is one of the smartest kids I know.

We wanted to know if Megan had told Rebecca about any turmoil in the Hargan family, any worrisome signs.

You could call it the all-American family now, because now the all-American family's messed up, right? So the Hargan family, as told to me, was your typical American family, where mom and dad got divorced. All the drama that comes with that, with new relationships, new spouses, step-parents.

But Rebecca didn't remember Megan being all that resentful or upset about her childhood.

As told by Megan, a very beautiful family experience with the perfunctory weirdness of families.

Megan did tell Rebecca that at times she was frustrated with kid sister Helen.

Helen was the baby sister. And if you have siblings, you know, the baby. whatever is a pain always. But that doesn't mean you don't love them. That doesn't mean you don't go out of your way to help them.

The gist Rebecca got from her friend was that Megan was the responsible one.

Megan was kind of the mom of the crew. My understanding of Helen is that she was actually more of an introvert, that she was not the party animal. Ashley was more the party animal.

But Rebecca said that, from what she knew, Megan, the oldest, always got along more with her middle sister Ashley than with Helen.

I never got the impression that the relationship with Ashley was as maybe contentious as it was with Helen. And the reason I use that word contentious is because, again, baby sisters can be a pain in the butt.

However, Megan said Helen was particularly dependent on the family.

That was sort of her attitude on life. Mom will take care of it. If mom doesn't take care of it, Megan will come down here and take care of it for me, type thing. So again, she kind of got the benefit of a mom and a secondary mom.

Helen isn't here to tell her side of things, but that's what Rebecca said. Megan told her. And apparently, Megan never said a harsh word about her mother to Rebecca.

Megan admired Pam's wisdom, her career, all that she had done through her lifetime. She always spoke very lovingly of her.

Rebecca said her friend described Pamela as a strong matriarch.

Her loves in life were her daughters and her granddaughter. And she and Molly had an exceptional relationship.

And as someone who enjoyed being generous.

It wasn't like, oh, you want something again. It was, I want to do this for you.

Megan told her friend that her mother had insisted on helping pay for her new house.

Megan was in the process of moving to West Virginia. She didn't need the help.

Her husband, Frank's salary was enough to get them a loan. But Pamela's help would let them buy a place outright with cash.

I mean, she was going out to get a house with her husband, the two of them. And her mom said, I want to contribute to this house for you. I want to help you buy this house. So her understanding was her mom was going to do something one way or the other.

Megan had been living with her mom for nearly eight years. Her husband, Frank, was a soldier who was often deployed overseas. Finally, the couple and their daughter would soon be back under the same roof and starting a new life in West Virginia. That was supposed to happen the day before Pamela and Helen died. Rebecca expected to get a call about their new ranch style home, and not a tragedy.

Megan called me and left me a voicemail and just said, hey, it's Megan. I just wanted to let you know something horrible has happened. And I don't want you to see it on the news. And mom and Helen are gone. Call me.

Megan sounded distraught.

I almost felt bad about calling her back, because she sounded so upset.

Rebecca started Googling for information. Police say Helen Hargan shot her mom, Pamela Hargan, before turning the gun on herself.

Nothing led me to, wow, I think Helen's going to murder her mom and kill herself over a house.

A week or two after the shootings, Rebecca said Megan came to visit her in Virginia. She didn't know then. Megan was a person of interest in her sister and mother's murders.

She just seemed very lost.

Rebecca sat with her friend, not thinking even for a second that Megan could be the killer.

No, never once. And that's the thing. I mean, she and I have had many, many conversations in the years since all this has happened. And I would not have let her in my house if I thought by any stretch of the imagination that what they accused her of was possible. I just wouldn't have.

But, unlike Rebecca, detectives hadn't ruled out that Megan could be responsible for the double homicide. What we're trying to find out, which we think it's important to you too, is to find out who killed your sister and mom. That's what the main goal of this whole conversation is. I did not kill my mom.

Okay, then who did?

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Byerson.

Detective, this is Megan Harkin.

I'm sorry, I didn't have your phone number. Oh, no problem, Megan. How are you holding up?

I am really not okay.

We're at the funeral home right now.

I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Detective Byerson's investigation had just taken a turn, and he had some questions for Megan.

Hey, do you have a second? Do you have a second? Okay.

They talked on the phone a couple of times that day. In the calls, Megan went back and forth between blaming her sister, Helen. My sister was not my sister for many months. And being adamant that the murder-suicide theory was out of the question.

I just can't imagine her doing something that violent.

The same day as these calls, Detective Byerson had learned of new evidence. He asked Megan for certain details on the phone, but asked her to come into the police station later that week.

I'll probably have you guys come out here, so we'll make sure that it's, it's, uh, that your schedule will allow it.

It's just, yeah, and can everything be done at once?

Yes.

Byerson and Megan talked enough that day to fill up his recording device. Two days later, Megan arrived at the police station with her family. Their understanding was that detectives had new information.

She had offered to come in one time and give us anything that we asked for. So we took advantage of that. And myself and my partner, Detective Needles, had her come in for an update, as we termed it.

Detectives brought Megan to a small room for her to be fingerprinted. Byerson said the other family members were taken into another room.

She comes up. She meets with Detective Julia Elliott. We take a DNA sample from her. We take her fingerprints. Yes.

And then, when she's done, Stephen, I'll come in here and we'll get you updated, okay?

After they are finished with the tests, Megan sat down with Detective Byerson and Detective Needles. Well, thanks for coming. I appreciate it.

Well, I felt like I, I don't, I don't mean to harp on this, but, like, I'm here.

Like, what do you need? Sure. Megan could leave whenever she wanted. Byerson told her as much.

If you want to leave, let me know. I will walk you back downstairs. Okay. I just want to make sure that you understand that you're, I'm not holding you here. Okay.

And is this a conversation? that's on video?

It is. It's about four and a half hours long. And most of that is because at some point, we just can't get her to leave.

Detective Byerson sat across from her and leaned back a little in the chair.

We didn't have enough at that time to charge her officially. So we wanted to get a statement on the record from her.

The interview went on and on for hours. At times, it got contentious.

She had very inappropriate emotional responses at weird times. She got very angry at us for weird things. We asked her if she'd ever done any drugs.

Anything about drug use?

Oh, my God. No.

No. No.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

And you just know when someone, like, that's not somebody, that's in your neighborhood kind of thing, because we're a very quiet neighborhood.

Megan told Vickery that, to be safe, her mom asked her to hide the rifle in the family room.

I don't think she would ever, you know, in a rush, try to get it out.

It was in a bag. Detective Byerson checked into Megan's story, but no one besides her had mentioned these men to police.

The only call that's made about these guys in the neighborhood is from Megan Hargan.

Another issue Detective Byerson wanted to nail down was all those houses Pamela Hargan was supposedly buying and selling. He asked about the one Megan was buying with her husband.

What is the situation with that house? You guys are, are you guys buying? How's that working? Okay, so she was going to do a wire transfer.

She said, it's too late for me to do a cashier's check, because she just thought, she was like, I can always do a wire transfer. That's what she just thought. She said, why? She had done it before, I think, with another house. That wire transfer for more than $400,000 would never go through.

I don't know.

Because you don't know much about the trust situation. No, my mom just told us, you're going to be fine. You can have that for your house. But that didn't turn out to be true. Megan wouldn't get that house.

She admitted, okay, that's what happened Thursday.

This is why Thursday is very important for me,

because I realize this is a big amount of money. And I realized because of what happened, you guys are... I think I understand that.

For doing what? Suddenly, Megan's mood shifted. You're looking at me.

Looking at you? Yeah, and I guess...

Oh, you mean looking at you because you might be responsible.

Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. By then, Megan understood she was in their sights.

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I'm sorry. That's okay.

I mean, Friday's difficult, very difficult for you.

It's understandable.

But obviously, Friday's important. They're surprised how long Megan stayed with them in that little room at the police station.

It's probably like more, like three hours of actual back and forth, and an hour and a half of just like, we're trying to figure out, like, she won't leave.

She even tried to convince them that her cooperation was a sign of innocence.

I gave you my clothing. I gave you my finger.

I gave you everything because of that. Why would I give that if I knew I was guilty? As the interview progressed, the detectives' questions became more and more direct. They brought up the 911 calls from Helen's boyfriend, Carlos Gutierrez. Because there are a lot of phone calls, and there's a lot from Carlos.

She didn't tell me until later that Carlos called her.

No, but he says you answer the phone.

And that call is on the records.

The detectives bore in, saying they didn't believe Megan. She claimed she'd never spoken to Carlos, when they knew she had.

I have never talked to him, never.

The closest thing I have ever gotten to him, 4th of July, they were coming to get the blankets.

And I was literally, I was at the bottom of the stairs.

My mom was like, no, no, no, they're still in the driveway. They're still, you know, you've never spoken to him. But as we told you last episode, Carlos said he spoke to Megan for nearly 10 minutes while he tried to get her to put Helen on the phone. Then the detectives asked her outright about what Carlos told 911. That Helen said she killed their mom.

And I think, I don't want to say what. I think. We want you to, anything that'll help you say it.

I don't want to say, I don't want to say, I don't want to say what I think.

I don't want to say what I think.

You think your sister killed your mother?

There's no way I would have, I would have heard it.

Megan's response here doesn't line up with what she originally told police. She had said she and her daughter Molly left the house before the shootings. So it's unclear what she meant by, I would have heard it. Here's, Megan again.

The only time I wasn't, I was downstairs.

I would assume I would still hear something like that. And my mom was with me.

Like how, how, how?

I don't understand.

Like, I don't under, I just don't understand how.

How, what? How that would have happened.

I don't, I don't understand.

I'm sorry.

I just, I don't, I don't know.

It seemed that Megan was struggling to keep her story straight. She wasn't sure Helen was the killer anymore. The detective started this interview not knowing what they'd get, but some recently discovered evidence had made them curious about how Megan planned to pay for her new house in West Virginia. She said her mom was going to wire the money. She initiated the wire transfer.

We were texting.

I mean, you guys got my phone, you know, like, give me my phone.

You can see the texts that were back and forth.

She was like, okay, listen, I froze the account. I'm going to deal with this when I get back down there. Up until this moment, Megan insisted that her mom called the bank, but you heard Megan say it right there to the detectives. And they had looked through her phone. The evidence was clear, but detectives had some evidence Megan didn't know existed.

You know, when the, when you call the bank to do a wire transfer,

you know, they record the calls, right?

Okay.

So one of the things that's always been bothering me a little bit. Yeah.

Is that call. Meanwhile, in the other room, where Megan's family is waiting, police were playing the calls for them too. They recognized the voice. When they arrived at the police station, Megan's family was standing by her. But now.

So they're hearing the calls. And I think what's going on is that they're realizing on that day that, oh my God, like there is a good chance that she actually did this.

On the next episode of Blood is Thicker, an incriminating call.

Good morning. Thank you for calling Capital One Bank. My name is Brooke. Could you tell me your name, please?

Pamela Hanson Hargan.

Pamela Hargan.

Thank you for using our automated system for verification. What can I do for you today? I was just transferred to you. I was told that I could do a wire transfer online. Wait.

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