POLICE SAY JEALOUSY DROVE A WOMAN TO BRUTALLY SLAY HER MOTHER AND SISTER
On 13 July 2017, Pam Hargan was in a state of panic. Someone had just tried to transfer $400,000 from her bank account into their own. She froze the account, and to be certain the culprit would not try again, she sent her eldest daughter Megan to the bank to confirm her account could no longer be accessed. CCTV footage of that day shows Megan inside the bank doing just as her mother had requested.
Megan, 34, was living in Pam’s million-dollar home in McLean, Virginia, with her daughter, eight, and her younger sister, Helen. Pam was a successful executive, and a loving and generous mum who wanted the best for her daughters. At the time, both her girls were looking for new homes and, as Helen had recently graduated from college, Pamela, 63, was generously purchasing her a house. But she had reportedly denied financial support to Megan, which was causing tension between the siblings.
However, Helen, 24, was in a relationship with a man named Carlos Gutierrez. According to Megan, Pam did not approve of this relationship and had told Helen that, under no circumstances, was Helen to move Carlos into the home she was buying for her.
The purchase of the property had fuelled bitterness and resentment in the Hargan household, with Megan feeling that her mother favoured her younger sister over her. Prosecutors would later argue that the jealousy and anger Megan felt over this apparent favouritism eventually led her to commit a heinous act.
The day following the attempted fraudulent transfer, Carlos said he received aphone call from Helen in which she sounded terrified. It was approximately 11.30am and she allegedly told him to “shut up and remain calm” before claiming that her sister Megan had just killed their mother. W hen Carlos attempted to call Helen back at around 1.15pm, he was unable to get hold of her and became frantic that she was in danger.
Carlos, who was hundreds of miles away in Dallas, placed a 911 call, during which he told them what Helen had said about Megan killing Pam.
In a recording of the call, Carlos tells the operator that Helen “won’t answer her phone and I’m thinking maybe something bad happened to her, too”. After Carlos had raised the alarm, the authorities made a wellness check on the Hargan family home at 3pm on 14 July. To their horror, Carlos’ fears were founded.
They discovered Pam dead in the downstairs utility room, face down in a pool of blood. She had been covered w
