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Blood is Thicker: The Hargan Family Killings

A Betrayal Like No Other | Blood is Thicker: The Hargan Family Killings

Blood is Thicker: The Hargan Family Killings

CBS News

Tv & Film, Society & Culture, True Crime

4.1965 Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2024

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Pamela Hargan was a successful businesswoman and a devoted mother to three adult daughters. The Hargans were a typical suburban family until one day, Pamela was gunned down in her own home and her youngest daughter, Helen, was found dead upstairs. 48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Sant unpacks the web of evidence from the complex case of the Hargan killings, revealing treacherous motives of jealousy and a family fortune. 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/4aEgENo Subscribe to Wondery+: https://wondery.com/plus/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

From the outside looking in, we were blessed. My mom was amazing. The Hargan women seemed to have it all. They lived in McLean, Virginia, an affluent town just outside of Washington, D.C.

0:16.4

It's a million dollar home. But as detectives would soon learn, there was a lot going on inside the Hargan household.

0:24.2

So in that mudroom, we discover Pamela Hansen Hargan.

0:28.2

She is laying on the floor of the mudroom.

0:31.1

63-year-old Pamela Hargan had just retired.

0:34.8

Now she had been gunned down in her own home. And upstairs, Pamela's youngest

0:41.0

daughter, Helen Hargan, lay dead with a rifle leaning against her body.

0:46.4

Patrol when they arrived assumed or thought that there might have been a murder suicide.

0:52.1

Police say Helen Hargan shot her mom Pamela Hargan before turning the gun on herself.

0:58.0

But for the detectives on the scene, certain clues weren't adding up.

1:03.0

We have manipulated crime scene in multiple places.

1:07.0

So what was really going on inside the Hargan home? A lot of these cases are like

1:13.4

huge jigsaw puzzles that you can never fully put together. A key piece of this puzzle would be a

1:23.1

series of 911 calls made by Helen's boyfriend from more than a thousand miles away.

1:29.8

I'm thinking my girlfriend's life is in danger.

1:32.4

Soon, another family member would be suspected.

1:36.0

You have got to unload this.

1:39.5

Blame me. That's fine.

1:42.2

There's nothing.

1:43.9

Just blame me.

1:46.1

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.

1:55.8

A story of betrayal you would struggle to believe if it wasn't true.

...

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