The Boyfriend | "Blood is Thicker" | "48 Hours" Podcast (Episode 2) | Forensic Files

this episode contains graphic audio and references to Family Violence please listen with care Fairfax County Police
on fire how may I assist you yes have an emergency more than a thousand miles from where he believes a crime is
unfolding Carlos Gutierrez is desperately trying to save his girlfriend's life this was back in the
summer of 2017 hello are you there yes I'm here these calls are from emergency services in
Northern Virginia that's where the love of his life Helen haran lives I'm thinking my girlfriend's life is in
danger his girlfriend's life is in danger but Carlos feels like the 911 operator isn't taking him
seriously why aren't they responding with concern okay sir what I need you to do then is contact your local
jurisdiction file a report with them and tell them that Fairfax County requires a teletype
in order to do a welfare check okay I think this is like life or death like I think someone might be dead
Carlos is trying to make sure the operator understands the seriousness of the situation but instead of quickly
dispatching police the 911 operator tells him to call someone else contact your local jurisdiction file the report
have them send a is the teletype and then we will go and check on her okay how do I get a hold of my jurisdiction
how do I do that I well sir you if you don't have their non-emergency number if you dial 911 you'll get your emergency
center okay thank you uhhuh bye-bye I would play this 911 call for detective Brian byerson of the Fairfax
County Police he told me this first operator no longer works at the call center yeah this one is uh incontrovertibly
horrible we do not require a teletype number to report a possible homicide yeah it's that's completely ridiculous
Carlos would call speak to an operator and then be told he needed to call someone else again and again listen
closely because this 911 tape is not exactly easy to understand is your girlfriend at home right
now well that's the thing she won't answer her phone according to Carlos hours earlier Helen had called him to
say her mom might be dead and then she stopped answering her phone she hadn't called 911 Carlos didn't hear from her
and now he was worried Helen was in danger in a Race Against Time Carlos keeps calling the police we're going to
need you to call your local police department and oh my God I still not good I'm sorry you're still not there how are
we supposed to get there well you didn't give us an address y'all can't look up the name Pam haran and mlan
and we looked at the name Pam haran and mlan we don't list individuals by name we don't record information that way
okay I'm sorry I'm just I'm having a hard time I'm sorry finally more than an hour after his first 911 call police
tell Carlos that they're sending officers to 's home detective Brian byerson didn't find
out about Carlos's calls to 911 until after he walked through the haran house and saw the two bodies for himself
ultimately what Carlos had to say would blow a hole in the theory that this was a murder suicide and that meant a killer
could still be on the loose if true you have a brutal vicious killer in this community who could kill a
that is correct I'm Peter Van Sant from 48 hours this is blood is thicker the haran
family killings episode 2 the [Music] boyfriend Carlos Gutierrez is on the phone with a 911 supervisor out of
Fairfax County Virginia Virginia Mr guz yes yes ma'am okay so she asks him more about his relationship with Helen haran
how long have you known your girlfriend for about a year Carlos and Helen had been dating for a year they first met in
Dallas they were working at a local restaurant together and there were Sparks they hit it off this is Michelle
sigona she's a producer for 48 hours and has spent years years following the case
there are cases we will spend months years on and then they will Air this is one of those that we spent an incredible
amount of time prior to it aing Carlos was in his early 30s when he met Helen she was 23 he said that you know
although maybe he wasn't technically formally living with her per se in Texas he was at her house 247 so they were
living together essentially Helen was attending Southern Methodist University and said on her resume that her goal was
to work for a defense contractor just as her mom Pamela had once done according to Carlos they fell in love and were
inseparable it seemed like Carlos was planning to include Helen in his long-term future the couple were
planning to leave Dallas and build a new life together in Northern Virginia he was so dedicated to Helen that Carlos
was ready to to leave his life in Texas and move to Virginia as Carlos calls 911 the day of
the tragedy he tells the story of the life they had planned we we got a house that's getting built he even mentions
the house in Aldi Virginia that Helen's mother was buying he said they were serious
committed according to Carlos he had big plans for their future he was planning to propose to her at some point
after Helen made the move back East the couple video chatted texted and called every day he said the night before the
shootings they missed each other so much that they spent nearly 4 hours talking on the phone it's a long time to talk to
anyone 10 days before Pamela and Helen's deaths Carlos went to see Helen in Virginia so according to court testimony
Carlos said he came to the area he did not stay at Pam's house that he and Helen stayed at a hotel nearby Carlos
said he had no idea that Helen's family had any animosity toward him until after
the shootings but there were signs none of Helen's family came out to meet him when he and Helen stopped by the house
for blankets for a Fourth of July outing the blankets were put outside but Carlos
said he didn't think anything about it Helen's oldest sister Megan would bring this up to police they were in the
driveway when she came to get blankets for 4th of July and she said Megan wait they're in the driveway she's saying her
mom told her not to go out and meet him Pamela had bought hel in a house but was now having second thoughts because
Carlos might move in with her daughter here's Megan in a police recording taken hours after the shooting 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 after that she said Helen was Furious her mother had changed her mind but also
said her kid's sister was even mad at her why Megan said she and her husband closed on a house of their own in West
Virginia so while Helen's dream was taken away Megan was still getting hers she got mad at me and thought the house
was my fault and then you know Mom was like has nothing to do with her you know why Helen I can't trust you and I'm not
letting that caros move into that house Megan said that she was leaving to drive
to West Virginia that morning before she left she said the door to her mom's home
office was closed when I was leaving like I said I saw her office door closed and that usually means she's on the
phone so I just left it PE she remembered how Helen was out on the front porch very upset I think it was
this afternoon when I was leaving the house and she was crying and I I went out to the porch and I said who you on
the phone with and she was like caros and I like oh are you okay and she's like and I said and I said
um are you is everything okay she was crying police had been given two vers of that deadly morning one where Helen was
scared for her life and another where she was the likely killer but which one did the evidence
[Music] support this particular case there were things about the scene itself that were
concerning to us on day one detectives Brian byerson and Julia Elliot a forensics expert looked over the two
rooms where Helen and Pamela were shot Helen was found upstairs in her bathroom Pamela in the mudroom found on the floor
under a quilt oddly her phone was sitting on top of the quilt in a pool of blood we know what that means we know
that it means that that phone was placed there sometime after she died but this wasn't the only strange
clue Helen's cell phone was set on the bathroom counter near the sink and yet didn't have a spot of blood on it and I
want to find out who put that cell phone there in that particular place so you want to check for fingerprints and DNA
yes what do you find on this phone nothing nothing nothing on Helen's phone she'd find the mother's phone was also
clean on the front we will typically see fingerprints or at least smudges of fingerprints on this one we were able to
these smears as if someone had wiped it from side to side the bathroom was in disarray with toiletry scattered on the
floor but Detective Elliot noticed that the rifle was neatly placed why hadn't it tumbled away when she shot herself
the rifle was still laying perfectly within her legs that to me tells me that if she's moving enough to move things
off of the back of the toilet I would expect that gun to have fallen down to the floor I also have seen suicides done
with long guns where they are not able to retain control of the gun but for detectives the rifle's perfect placement
wouldn't be the only red flag you have a scene that's relatively small detective
byerson told me that if Helen had killed herself in such a small bathroom there'd
likely be Blood on the rifle there is blood everywhere it's all over the place however there doesn't seem to be any
blood on the rifle itself which is sitting in the middle of all of this even though there's blood underneath so
that is a huge problem to the detective this just didn't make sense we had a generally clean weapon and then
underneath the weapon there was blood where there shouldn't have been if the weapon was there so that suggests
perhaps someone else shot Helen it's suggest that the weapon wasn't there until later
on which doesn't sound like a murder suicide to me then right it does not and in the basement another strange
sight Detective Elliot found couch cushions that looked like they'd been slashed with a knife I wasn't sure if
someone was taking out some anger or what they were doing was it a tear kind of cut or was a puncture kind of
cut it was a stabbing puncture type cut like someone had what practiced on it yes and is it true that there was a long
knife found in the house yes the knife was in plain sight she took a photo of it still down there in the basement this
is the knife and it's sitting on a bookshelf that was just to the left of the couch cushions in the same room
Detective Elliot believed the killer may have considered using the knife as a murder weapon instead of the rifle and
then when Detective Elliot turned to look at Pamela haran's bookshelves she spotted something else so that Center uh
set of books that are kind of gray with the Red Band those are photo albums and I got a little uh nosy and I wanted to
see what my victims may have looked like in Life or as they grew up so I pulled out one of the center photo albums to
look at it and open it up and behind it was a piece of evidence that ended up being quite important what was found it
was a photoc copy of Pamela's spreadsheet that she used for all her accounts account numbers and passcodes
it was also a photocopy of Pamela's bank statement this was still the night of the shootings and while Detective Elliot
wanted to dig in and learn more about this bank statement financial documents were not on our search warrant and so
therefore I could not take it we photographed it as we found it that night and eventually a couple days later
came back with a search warrant to recover those papers and they were not there they were not there they were not
you found yourself a pretty interesting piece of of evidence right yes at the time we weren't exactly sure what we
were dealing with detectives were becoming increasingly convinced that both the haran women had been murdered but by who
and what was the motive it would turn out that Helen's boyfriend Carlos had shared a theory
with Ashley here's detective John vicory asking the father Steve haran about it tell me again what Carlos says to you to
her I'll tell you exactly what Ashley tells me that Carlos said to her that Megan shot your mother
earlier that July Morning Carlos had woken up to some messages from his girlfriend Helen one text read I wanted
to see if by chance you were awake call me when you do wake up love you to Carlos nothing out of the ordinary
everything appeared to be okay our producer Michelle sagona read through Carlos's Court testimony about that
morning he was at home in Dallas and had slept in the two played phone tag until
after 11: eastern time when Carlos finally caught her Helen was beside herself later in the morning um Carlos
says specifically that Helen sound sounded frightened and scared he used words like Helen was trembling she was
sobbing she was very frantic she immediately told him why and Carlos would tell 911 Cy Police Empire how may I assist
you my girlfriend told me that her sister killed her mom and now my girlfriend won't answer
her phone Carlos explained to the operator that Helen told him her sister Megan came upstairs to her room and said
that she killed her mother Pamela so if you let that sink in for a minute she told me that her sister had killed her
mother I can't imagine being in Dallas Texas while talking to my girlfriend on the phone who was inside this home were
something horrific has happened and not really knowing what to do Carlos even said Helen told him she could hear her
mother gasping for life things sounded dire he was trying to get to the heart of what was happening in all of this
Carlos told Helen to leave immediately he was trying to tell her to out of the house to call police to do something but
Helen had hesitation according to Carlos Helen was very nervous and possibly scared for her niece who apparently was
also in the home Helen wanted to protect her niece Megan's Daughter Molly and that she was worried what her sister
might do if the police showed up she didn't want her niece to see her mother getting arrested soon after Helen
stopped responding and he called for help but Carlos couldn't recall Pamela haran's
address okay where do you live I live in Dallas she lives in McLean okay and what's her
address I don't know she's at her mom's house her mom's name is Pam Harden Carlos thought his future wife's life
was at risk but this lack of details only left emergency services with more questions they asked caros to call back
when he had more information and kept having him speak to different operators rehashing what Helen had told him
finally the public safety supervisor in Fairfax County Virginia called Carlos herself her name is Lisa Wagner Smith
she wanted to know how this alleged murder had unfolded okay was this just out of the
blue did she say how she did it or why she did it she said she shot her she said she woke up and her sister told her
she shot her mom so your girlfriend is sitting in a house with a dead woman the 911
supervisor sounded skeptical why would Helen stay put if her sister had killed their mom Carlos would call back with
the right information and reach a 911 operator I I reported a a murder earlier and I didn't have the address now I have
the address so we didn't we reported a murder earlier do you think something happened
there well I know for a fact that her sister shot her mom when this morning that's what I'm trying to tell you guys
yeah this morning she called me and told me that her sister shot her mom and she
didn't know what to do and I told her to call the cops to get the kids and we call the cops the operator passed Carlos
back to Lisa the supervisor with the address and some information confirmed after multiple calls from Carlos 911 was
finally able to send help we are sending an officer out there is there anything else you can think of that we need to
know no I mean I'm just freaking out I'm thinking something bad happened to my girlfriend in case you didn't catch that
Carlos said he was freaking out and worried something had happened to Helen before they end the call though Carlos
did think of something else officers needed to know if y'all need it like I have like some incriminating text that
her sister sent me Carlos thought Megan was texting him not his girlfriend what does that
say because after the fact that Helen told me that her sister killed her mom right she I called her and she wouldn't
answer and then so she text me back Helen did and it was like hey sorry I'm just arguing with my mom she pisses me
off hate her and I this is after the fact that Helen told me that her sister killed her mom so I know that her sister
got her phone and was sending these messages here's what one of those texts said everything is fine I'm not mad at
Megan I'm mad that my mom paid for her house she and her husband should buy it themselves here is our producer Michelle
sagona again based on these text messages he was receiving they were a huge red flag for Carlos he just wanted
Helen to call him but all he got were texts and that started to feel suspicious I'm not even mad at her
really the text continued just effing hate my mom Carlos didn't think that sounded like the woman he loved he kept
calling Helen cell finally he was able to reach someone but it was not Helen it was Megan on the other side of the phone
here's Carlos again yes and and now I called my girlfriend and her sister answers the phone and refuses to let me
to my girlfriend but Carlos persisted and he kept asking I need to speak with Helen I'm having a bad day I need to
speak with Helen and he's just getting some conflicting information Carlos doesn't back down he said he stayed on
the phone pushing Megan to give the phone to Helen for nearly 10 minutes he believes at this point that she is not
okay on that long call Carlos said Megan told him that her mother did didn't approve of him and that she wasn't going
to let them move into the new house in Aldi Carlos claims that you know Pam had never said that to him or to Helen the
call ended without him ever speaking to his girlfriend so none of this is making
sense to him this is why he decides to make a brave move and call 911 Carlos realized that he needed to be the one to
call for help and would begin his agonizing journey to sound the alarm with the Emergency Services my gosh can
you imagine I mean not knowing what's happening inside of that house and trying to call 911 and being told you
have to go through all these steps Megan told police she left the house around 1:30 that afternoon headed for West
Virginia and then turned around to go to her dad's after she heard about the shooting Ashley was racing to her dad's
too Carlos had called her while she was in the car but Ashley had trouble believing his story here is detective
vicory asking Ashley about the call after she arrived at her dad's we we heard you received the call from Carlos
yes and I don't even know this kid a stranger off the street he was saying that my this sister shot my mom by this
sister Ashley met Megan who was sitting right there with them she would never do
that ever never okay obviously I've known one my entire life and we've been through
hell and bad together I know my sister Ashley told the detective she's been calling her mom and sister Megan chimed
in to say she has two I left W her mom I was trying to talk Carlos was saying Megan killed her mother but in that
moment the sisters were dismissive of him I don't know this guy from Adam that's what I that's what I've been
saying like Ashley made it clear she didn't believe that Megan is a murderer do you recall his exact words Megan shot
your mom and I was like I'm sorry what we were together all morning M I know like it just nothing's adding up nothing
was adding up Ashley and her dad didn't seem scared of Megan police didn't arrest her
and that day law enforcement told the public that the killer was dead Patrol officers thought Helen had
done it but given how the crime scene didn't neatly fit a murder suicide and Carlos's 911 calls detective berson
asked himself the question was Megan the killer did she murder both her mom and Helen that morning
[Music] we have manipulated crime scene in multiple places the wiped phone the possibly
wiped rifle the placing of the rifle we have the fact that Mom was covered and that her phone was laying on top of the
quilt a couple days later they would hear about a suspicious call it becomes very obvious to us that there is no
other there is no Boogeyman here it is exactly who we think it is from 48 hours this is blood is
thicker the haran family killings Judy Tigard is the executive producer of 48 Hours original reporting by 48 Hours
producers Sarah elely Michelle sigona Lauren white and Josh joerger Jamie Benson is the senior
producer for paramont audio and Mora walls is the senior story editor recording assistants from Alan
Pang and Marlin polycarp special thanks to Paramount podcast vice president Megan Marcus and
48 Hours senior producer Peter schwitzer blood is thicker is produced by Sony Music
Entertainment it was written and produced by Alex Schuman our executive producers are
Katherine sing Louis and Jonathan Hirsch our associate producer is Zoe kulin theme and original music composed
by hansdale shei he also soundd designed and mixed the episodes we also use music
by Blue Dot sessions Katherine Newan is our fact Checker our production managers
are Tama balance colasi and Samantha Allison I'm Peter vanand if you're enjoying the show be sure to rate and
review it helps more people find it and hear our reporting you can listen to blood is thicker the haran family
killings early and AD free right now by joining wry Plus in the wry app or on Apple podcasts thanks for listening
[Music]

Pamela Hargan lived in a wealthy Virginia suburb, surrounded by family: her daughters Megan and Helen and her granddaughter all lived with her in her million-dollar home. From the outside, the Hargan women had it all. But when Pamela and Helen were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide, detectives had to ask: what was going on inside the Hargan household?

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Brief Summary

Carlos Gutierrez's 911 calls reveal a tragic family murder case involving his girlfriend Helen Haran and her mother Pamela.

Key points

Carlos's Desperate 911 Call. Carlos Gutierrez calls 911, fearing for his girlfriend's life as he struggles to communicate the urgency of the situation.
Conflicting Information. Carlos receives conflicting information from Megan, Helen's sister, raising his suspicions about the situation.
The Accusation Against Megan. Megan is accused of murdering her mother, but her family is dismissive of the claim.
Crime Scene Manipulation. Detectives uncover evidence suggesting the crime scene was tampered with, pointing to a different suspect.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I think this is like life or death.

Carlos believes his girlfriend is in danger.

1:08WatchMay 15, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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