Woman Stages Mom and Sister’s Murder-Suicide to Steal $400K for House Down Payment: "Unfeeling"

When police entered the upscale home of Pamela Hargan in McLean, Virginia on the afternoon of July 14, 2017, they found a horrifying scene: a mother and daughter dead in what looked like a murder-suicide by 24-year-old Helen Hargan. Police had been tipped off by Helen’s boyfriend, Carlos Gutierrez, who called dispatchers concerned about his girlfriend.

The 63-year-old matriarch had been shot twice in the head. Her body was in a first-floor laundry room, covered with a blanket and dog bed. Her daughter was found dead against a bathtub upstairs, a rifle propped up against her body. But there were no signs of a struggle in the house, and police were immediately suspicious.  

“For somebody to shoot themselves on the top of their head with a rifle pointed straight up in the air, even if it was physically possible, which in this case it’s not, it’s just not something that is seen or done,” said Michael Hengemuhle, Fairfax County police detective, on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen.

One of the most damning pieces of evidence: Both Pam and Helen’s phones had been wiped down and cleaned. All guilty signs pointed to a third person living in the home — Pam’s daughter, 34-year-old Megan Hargan.

“I believe that she decided to murder her mother for that cell phone,” said Brian Byerson, Fairfax County police detective, on Snapped. “And then set her sister up and made that crime scene appear as if Helen Hargan was in fact the murderer and she took her own life.”

Megan Hargan was the oldest of three girls when she was born to Steve and Pam Hargan in 1983. She was followed by Ashley and Helen. Steve and Pam divorced in 1999, and Megan went on to marry Frank, a member of the U.S. military. The two had a daughter in 2009. While Frank was deployed, Megan and her daughter lived with Pam, who was a human relations executive with Lockheed Martin.

“Megan never quite found her way,” said Tamara North, Pamela’s sister, on Snapped. “I think Megan was constantly striving to please her mother, and she never could. I don’t think that she was able to overcome it.”

Pam, Megan, and Megan’s daughter also were living with Helen in the summer of 2017, before Helen headed off to graduate school in the fall.

When police questioned Megan on July 14, 2017 about the murders, she said she’d been home that morning, before leaving her mom and sister around 1:30 p.m. as they were having a fight. Megan alleged the fight was over a house Pam was purchasing for Helen.

“This morning, my mom let Helen know that she was canceling the contract on the house she’s building her, 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,” Megan told police during an interview.

Megan insisted she was concerned about her sister, and said Helen was depressed and suicidal.

Megan Hargan Photo: Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office

“She was essentially claiming that she did drugs, she drank a lot,” said Melissa Wallace, Fairfax County police detective, on Snapped. “She was trying to paint this picture of Helen that she was troubled.”

Megan agreed to let police swab her hands and test her clothes as forensic evidence.

When police interviewed Carlos Gutierrez, he refuted Megan’s claim that he had conflict with Pam Hargan, and said he’d been planning to marry Helen. He described to police why he called 911 from his home in Dallas, Texas.

He said the morning of the shootings, Helen had called him several times beginning at 9:30 a.m., but he was asleep. He finally picked up at 11:30 a.m.

“She’s like sobbing, and she couldn’t get it out,” Gutierrez said during a police interview. “She’s like, Megan came in here and said, ‘I did something bad. I did something bad. I killed Mom.’"

He told police Helen abruptly hung up on him, then when he called her back, Helen told him she could hear Megan downstairs on the phone with her mother’s bank attempting to transfer money, before Helen hung up on him again. Around 1 p.m. he began receiving texts from Helen.

“He starts to receive text messages that don’t make any sense to him,” Byerson said. “Text messages that would say she hates her mother.”

Although Helen’s boyfriend pointed the finger at Megan Hargan for the murders, police still looked for a motive for Megan to slay her family. They got it when Capital One Bank contacted police about fraud on Pamela Hargan’s accounts.

“These fraud attempts that occur on Pamela Hargan’s account the day before the murder as well as the day of the murder,” Hengemuhle said.

On the day before her murder, the bank recorded a phone call with Pam to confirm a wire transfer over $400,000.

“Those accounts are not to be touched,” Pam said in the phone call with the teller. “Period. Can you freeze all of my accounts? Lock everything.”

Although the transfer didn’t go through, it was set to go to a real estate title company in West Virginia.

“Megan was trying to purchase a house in West Virginia for about $400,000,” Wallace said. “And so, it began to unfold that the person doing the fraud was potentially Megan Hargan.”

On the day of the murders, a second attempt at a transfer was made, and the bank called Pam at 11:45 a.m. But this time, Megan’s voice answered and was recorded.

“I believe that Megan realized that she needed to have her mom’s cell phone to complete that transaction,” Byerson said.

Police and prosecutors alleged Megan killed her mother to get her cell phone, made the transfer and answered the bank's call, then wiped it down and put the phone back on her mother.

“Once she kills her mom and begins to attempt a second transfer, she realizes she still has another problem because Helen is in the house. And that necessitates Helen’s murder,” Hengemuhle said.

Police labs showed that Megan’s hands were positive for gunshot residue. Megan’s DNA, not Helen’s, was also found on the handle of the rifle used in the shootings.

In March 2022, Megan Hargan went on trial for the murders of Pamela and Helen Hargan. A jury found her guilty, but the judge ended up throwing out the verdict for jury misconduct, after a juror was found to have done outside research, according to Oxygen. 

In September 2023, Megan was tried and convicted a second time for murdering her mother and sister, according to the Washington Post. She was sentenced to life in prison in January 2024.

Watch all-new episodes of Snapped airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen and the next day on Peacock.