Virginia Woman On Trial In Mother, Sister’s Killings, Allegedly Staged Slayings As Murder-Suicide

The trial is underway for a 39-year-old woman accused of gunning down her mother and sister at their luxury Virginia home and later staging their deaths as a murder-suicide nearly five years ago.

Megan Hargan has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in the 2017 deaths of her mother, Pamela Hargan and sister, Helen Hargan.

Pamela and Helen Hargan were found shot to death on July 14, 2017 at their upscale residence in McLean, Virginia, according to police.

Megan Hargan was arrested in West Virginia in 2018 by Fairfax County Police Department and charged following a 16-month investigation. She has maintained throughout the investigation that her sister Helen opened fire on their mother before turning the firearm on herself.

Prosecutors, however, say Megan Hargan shot and killed her 63-year-old mother on July 14, 2017 after attempting to steal half a million dollars from her banking account to buy a property. Officials suspect she killed her 23-year-old sister, Helen, who may have been a possible witness to her mother's shooting, and later staged the crime-scene to make their deaths appear as a murder-suicide.

Megan Hargan Photo: Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office

“This defendant took that .22-caliber rifle and killed Pamela Hargan and Helen Hargan,” Tyler Bezilla, a senior assistant to the Fairfax commonwealth’s attorney, said in court during the trial’s opening statements, WRC-TV reported. “And I’m going to ask you to find her guilty.”

During trial proceedings this week, Helen Hargan’s then-boyfriend Carlos Gutierrez, who was the last known person to speak with her, testified about how she’d called him from her home on the day of the deaths, according to the D.C. outlet.  

"She told me her sister had killed her mother," Gutierrez reportedly told the court,  "She sounded very frightened and scared. I could hear her mouth trembling, and she was sobbing."

Gutierrez, who said he tried phoning Helen Hargan back multiple times, was later unable to reach her. He later received a text message from his girlfriend’s phone he suspects was actually sent by Megan Hargan.

“Everything is fine,” the text allegedly stated. “I’m not mad at Megan.”

Megan Hargan’s defense team, meanwhile, countered that Gutierrez, who said he’d planned to marry Helen Hargan, had been lied to by his girlfriend as part of a scheme to frame Megan for murder.

Megan Hargan told investigators that both her mother and sister were alive when she departed Pamela Hargan’s home on the day of the deaths. She added that her mother had plans to cancel the purchase of a property for Helen. Pamela Hargan was also cross with Helen’s boyfriend Gutierrez , whom she reportedly blamed for getting her daughter hooked on drugs.

“I love Helen, but something has really changed in her over the last couple months,” Megan Hargan said during a police interview following the murders, which was played in court this month, the Washington Post reported.

Andrew Elders, Hargan’s public defender, wasn’t immediately available for comment on Friday afternoon when contacted by Oxygen.com.