On July 14, 2017, Fairfax County, Virginia, patrol officers busted by the entrance door of a million-dollar house. They shortly found the our bodies of Pam Hargan, 63, and her daughter, Helen, 24, who had a rifle on the scene. Virtually as shortly, police instructed reporters it was a murder-suicide and instructed Helen's father her wound gave the impression to be "self-inflicted."
However when lead murder Detective Brian Byerson seemed on the proof, he wasn't so positive.
So, he decided: "Wait. Wait and do the job," Byerson tells "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant in "Loss of life Hits Residence: The Hargan Killings" airing Saturday, October 1 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. "You'll make errors in these instances in case you make assumptions earlier than you truly do the work."
Although investigators discovered no suicide observe, Helen's oldest sister, Megan, 34, instructed them Helen was "depressed" and had been "so indignant, like, simply so indignant on a regular basis."
Megan had been residing at house with Pam and Helen. She instructed investigators her mother and sister had been preventing, however that Pam was alive when Megan left the home that afternoon.
Based on Megan, Pam introduced that very morning that she was canceling the contract on the home she was shopping for for Helen. Why? As a result of Pam didn't approve of Helen's boyfriend who was planning to maneuver in.
Quickly thereafter, Pam was useless.
May this have been the motive for Helen to kill her mother after which take her personal life?
As investigators combed the home for clues, the medical expert – aptly named Dr. Posthumus – delivered Helen's post-mortem findings: She had been shot within the prime of her head. The rifle bullet had traveled downward into her neck.
Byerson says it is inconceivable for Helen to have shot herself in that method with that gun.
"She must maintain it straight up and be capable to attain the set off to perform this," he says. "She would [have] needed to have accomplished magic. It simply is not attainable."
So far as Byerson was involved, this was no murder-suicide. This was a double homicide.
However who was the assassin?
"Our job is to attempt to put that puzzle collectively and work out what occurred," says Byerson.
As he and his squad continued to analyze the killings, Byerson says that the proof did, in actual fact, level towards certainly one of Pam Hargan's daughters. However it wasn't Helen.
"It turns into very apparent to us," he says. "It is Megan Hargan."
Byerson quickly realized that Megan had a six-figure motive for desirous to kill her mom. Pam Hargan was a rich girl with an $8 million property, and Megan Hargan needed a home of her personal.
5 days after Pam and Helen's deaths, Byerson introduced Megan in for an interview. It will final for greater than 4 hours. He says she did confess to making an attempt to steal her mom's cash, however she was adamant that she hadn't killed her household.
Regardless of Byerson's lingering suspicions — and a rising pile of proof towards Megan Hargan — police didn't arrest her that day.
That will take virtually a year-and-a-half — till November 9, 2018.
"Why on the planet did this take 16 months to file homicide costs?" asks Peter Van Sant.
"So, homicide investigations will be extraordinarily complicated," says Det. Byerson. "You not solely have to make sure, it's a must to be proper. And that call … doesn't simply relaxation on me. … I've to be on the identical web page because the Commonwealth Legal professional's Workplace. So, in session with them, we determined to attend."
The surviving Hargan household must wait three-and-a-half extra years for Megan Hargan to face trial.
Commonwealth of Virginia prosecutors Tyler Bezilla and Whitney Gregory opened by telling the jury that on the day earlier than and the morning of her mom's homicide, Megan had tried to secretly steal greater than $400,000 for a brand new home from Pam's checking account. Pretending to be Pam, Megan referred to as her mother's financial institution and tried to wire switch the cash.
The prosecution says Megan acquired so determined for the money that she killed her mom. Then, the idea goes, Megan killed her sister to maintain her quiet, staging the scene as a murder-suicide.
"That is a person who murdered two of her closest relations for cash," says Bezilla.
However the protection insists Helen – not Megan – was the killer. Megan's attorneys describe Helen as mentally unstable and depressed. They inform the jury that Helen was livid at her mom for saying that if Helen did not break up with the person she hoped at some point to marry, she would not get the brand new home.
The prosecution contends there isn't any proof that Helen was depressed.
However the protection argues police acquired it proper the primary time. This was a murder-suicide.
Forensic specialist Iris Dalley Graff reconstructed Helen Hargan's demise scene. She testified on behalf of the prosecution and instructed Peter Van Sant that Helen's arm was not lengthy sufficient to drag the set off.
The protection has a shocking principle, one that does not depend on the size of Helen's arm.
They inform the jury Helen Hargan shot herself within the head with the rifle by pulling the set off together with her toe.
Unusual? Unbelievable? Maybe.
However as Graff conceded to Van Sant, although extremely unlikely, it's attainable. "Her legs are lengthy sufficient that her toe may attain the set off," she says.
Of their closing argument, prosecutor Bezilla challenged the protection's assertion that Pam Hargan was going to cancel the contract on Helen's new home. However the protection insists there is a mountain of affordable doubt on this case. They argue the prosecution's forensics are inconclusive and the "toe on the set off" principle can't be dominated out.
Will the jury imagine it?