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this episode contains graphic audio and references to Family Violence please listen with care Fairfax County Police
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on fire how may I assist you yes have an emergency more than a thousand miles from where he believes a crime is
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unfolding Carlos Gutierrez is desperately trying to save his girlfriend's life this was back in the
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summer of 2017 hello are you there yes I'm here these calls are from emergency services in
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Northern Virginia that's where the love of his life Helen haran lives I'm thinking my girlfriend's life is in
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danger his girlfriend's life is in danger but Carlos feels like the 911 operator isn't taking him
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seriously why aren't they responding with concern okay sir what I need you to do then is contact your local
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jurisdiction file a report with them and tell them that Fairfax County requires a teletype
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in order to do a welfare check okay I think this is like life or death like I think someone might be dead
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Carlos is trying to make sure the operator understands the seriousness of the situation but instead of quickly
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dispatching police the 911 operator tells him to call someone else contact your local jurisdiction file the report
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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
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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
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center okay thank you uhhuh bye-bye I would play this 911 call for detective Brian byerson of the Fairfax
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County Police he told me this first operator no longer works at the call center yeah this one is uh incontrovertibly
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horrible we do not require a teletype number to report a possible homicide yeah it's that's completely ridiculous
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Carlos would call speak to an operator and then be told he needed to call someone else again and again listen
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closely because this 911 tape is not exactly easy to understand is your girlfriend at home right
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now well that's the thing she won't answer her phone according to Carlos hours earlier Helen had called him to
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say her mom might be dead and then she stopped answering her phone she hadn't called 911 Carlos didn't hear from her
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and now he was worried Helen was in danger in a Race Against Time Carlos keeps calling the police we're going to
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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
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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
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and we looked at the name Pam haran and mlan we don't list individuals by name we don't record information that way
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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
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tell Carlos that they're sending officers to 's home detective Brian byerson didn't find
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out about Carlos's calls to 911 until after he walked through the haran house and saw the two bodies for himself
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ultimately what Carlos had to say would blow a hole in the theory that this was a murder suicide and that meant a killer
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could still be on the loose if true you have a brutal vicious killer in this community who could kill a
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that is correct I'm Peter Van Sant from 48 hours this is blood is thicker the haran
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family killings episode 2 the [Music] boyfriend Carlos Gutierrez is on the phone with a 911 supervisor out of
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Fairfax County Virginia Virginia Mr guz yes yes ma'am okay so she asks him more about his relationship with Helen haran
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how long have you known your girlfriend for about a year Carlos and Helen had been dating for a year they first met in
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Dallas they were working at a local restaurant together and there were Sparks they hit it off this is Michelle
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sigona she's a producer for 48 hours and has spent years years following the case
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there are cases we will spend months years on and then they will Air this is one of those that we spent an incredible
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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
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although maybe he wasn't technically formally living with her per se in Texas he was at her house 247 so they were
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living together essentially Helen was attending Southern Methodist University and said on her resume that her goal was
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to work for a defense contractor just as her mom Pamela had once done according to Carlos they fell in love and were
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inseparable it seemed like Carlos was planning to include Helen in his long-term future the couple were
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planning to leave Dallas and build a new life together in Northern Virginia he was so dedicated to Helen that Carlos
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was ready to to leave his life in Texas and move to Virginia as Carlos calls 911 the day of
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the tragedy he tells the story of the life they had planned we we got a house that's getting built he even mentions
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the house in Aldi Virginia that Helen's mother was buying he said they were serious
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committed according to Carlos he had big plans for their future he was planning to propose to her at some point
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after Helen made the move back East the couple video chatted texted and called every day he said the night before the
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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
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anyone 10 days before Pamela and Helen's deaths Carlos went to see Helen in Virginia so according to court testimony
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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
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said he had no idea that Helen's family had any animosity toward him until after
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the shootings but there were signs none of Helen's family came out to meet him when he and Helen stopped by the house
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for blankets for a Fourth of July outing the blankets were put outside but Carlos
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said he didn't think anything about it Helen's oldest sister Megan would bring this up to police they were in the
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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
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mom told her not to go out and meet him Pamela had bought hel in a house but was now having second thoughts because
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Carlos might move in with her daughter here's Megan in a police recording taken hours after the shooting this
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morning my mom let Helen know that she was canceling the contract on the house she's building her because
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she truly believed that Helen was going to try to move Carlos into the house and
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my mom didn't want him being there after that she said Helen was Furious her mother had changed her mind but also
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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
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Virginia so while Helen's dream was taken away Megan was still getting hers she got mad at me and thought the house
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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
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letting that caros move into that house Megan said that she was leaving to drive
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to West Virginia that morning before she left she said the door to her mom's home
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office was closed when I was leaving like I said I saw her office door closed and that usually means she's on the
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phone so I just left it PE she remembered how Helen was out on the front porch very upset I think it was
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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
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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
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um are you is everything okay she was crying police had been given two vers of that deadly morning one where Helen was
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scared for her life and another where she was the likely killer but which one did the evidence
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[Music] support this particular case there were things about the scene itself that were
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concerning to us on day one detectives Brian byerson and Julia Elliot a forensics expert looked over the two
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rooms where Helen and Pamela were shot Helen was found upstairs in her bathroom Pamela in the mudroom found on the floor
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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
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that it means that that phone was placed there sometime after she died but this wasn't the only strange
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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
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want to find out who put that cell phone there in that particular place so you want to check for fingerprints and DNA
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yes what do you find on this phone nothing nothing nothing on Helen's phone she'd find the mother's phone was also
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clean on the front we will typically see fingerprints or at least smudges of fingerprints on this one we were able to
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these smears as if someone had wiped it from side to side the bathroom was in disarray with toiletry scattered on the
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floor but Detective Elliot noticed that the rifle was neatly placed why hadn't it tumbled away when she shot herself
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the rifle was still laying perfectly within her legs that to me tells me that if she's moving enough to move things
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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
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with long guns where they are not able to retain control of the gun but for detectives the rifle's perfect placement
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wouldn't be the only red flag you have a scene that's relatively small detective
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byerson told me that if Helen had killed herself in such a small bathroom there'd
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likely be Blood on the rifle there is blood everywhere it's all over the place however there doesn't seem to be any
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blood on the rifle itself which is sitting in the middle of all of this even though there's blood underneath so
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that is a huge problem to the detective this just didn't make sense we had a generally clean weapon and then
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underneath the weapon there was blood where there shouldn't have been if the weapon was there so that suggests
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perhaps someone else shot Helen it's suggest that the weapon wasn't there until later
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on which doesn't sound like a murder suicide to me then right it does not and in the basement another strange
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sight Detective Elliot found couch cushions that looked like they'd been slashed with a knife I wasn't sure if
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someone was taking out some anger or what they were doing was it a tear kind of cut or was a puncture kind of
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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
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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
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is the knife and it's sitting on a bookshelf that was just to the left of the couch cushions in the same room
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Detective Elliot believed the killer may have considered using the knife as a murder weapon instead of the rifle and
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then when Detective Elliot turned to look at Pamela haran's bookshelves she spotted something else so that Center uh
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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
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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
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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
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was a photoc copy of Pamela's spreadsheet that she used for all her accounts account numbers and passcodes
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it was also a photocopy of Pamela's bank statement this was still the night of the shootings and while Detective Elliot
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wanted to dig in and learn more about this bank statement financial documents were not on our search warrant and so
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therefore I could not take it we photographed it as we found it that night and eventually a couple days later
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came back with a search warrant to recover those papers and they were not there they were not there they were not
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you found yourself a pretty interesting piece of of evidence right yes at the time we weren't exactly sure what we
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were dealing with detectives were becoming increasingly convinced that both the haran women had been murdered but by who
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and what was the motive it would turn out that Helen's boyfriend Carlos had shared a theory
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with Ashley here's detective John vicory asking the father Steve haran about it tell me again what Carlos says to you to
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her I'll tell you exactly what Ashley tells me that Carlos said to her that Megan shot your mother
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earlier that July Morning Carlos had woken up to some messages from his girlfriend Helen one text read I wanted
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to see if by chance you were awake call me when you do wake up love you to Carlos nothing out of the ordinary
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everything appeared to be okay our producer Michelle sagona read through Carlos's Court testimony about that
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morning he was at home in Dallas and had slept in the two played phone tag until
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after 11: eastern time when Carlos finally caught her Helen was beside herself later in the morning um Carlos
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says specifically that Helen sound sounded frightened and scared he used words like Helen was trembling she was
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sobbing she was very frantic she immediately told him why and Carlos would tell 911 Cy Police Empire how may I assist
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you my girlfriend told me that her sister killed her mom and now my girlfriend won't answer
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her phone Carlos explained to the operator that Helen told him her sister Megan came upstairs to her room and said
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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
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mother I can't imagine being in Dallas Texas while talking to my girlfriend on the phone who was inside this home were
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something horrific has happened and not really knowing what to do Carlos even said Helen told him she could hear her
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mother gasping for life things sounded dire he was trying to get to the heart of what was happening in all of this
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Carlos told Helen to leave immediately he was trying to tell her to out of the house to call police to do something but
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Helen had hesitation according to Carlos Helen was very nervous and possibly scared for her niece who apparently was
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also in the home Helen wanted to protect her niece Megan's Daughter Molly and that she was worried what her sister
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might do if the police showed up she didn't want her niece to see her mother getting arrested soon after Helen
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stopped responding and he called for help but Carlos couldn't recall Pamela haran's
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address okay where do you live I live in Dallas she lives in McLean okay and what's her
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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
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was at risk but this lack of details only left emergency services with more questions they asked caros to call back
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when he had more information and kept having him speak to different operators rehashing what Helen had told him
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finally the public safety supervisor in Fairfax County Virginia called Carlos herself her name is Lisa Wagner Smith
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she wanted to know how this alleged murder had unfolded okay was this just out of the
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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
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she shot her mom so your girlfriend is sitting in a house with a dead woman the 911
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supervisor sounded skeptical why would Helen stay put if her sister had killed their mom Carlos would call back with
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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
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the address so we didn't we reported a murder earlier do you think something happened
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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
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yeah this morning she called me and told me that her sister shot her mom and she
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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
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back to Lisa the supervisor with the address and some information confirmed after multiple calls from Carlos 911 was
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finally able to send help we are sending an officer out there is there anything else you can think of that we need to
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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
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Carlos said he was freaking out and worried something had happened to Helen before they end the call though Carlos
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did think of something else officers needed to know if y'all need it like I have like some incriminating text that
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her sister sent me Carlos thought Megan was texting him not his girlfriend what does that
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say because after the fact that Helen told me that her sister killed her mom right she I called her and she wouldn't
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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
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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
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got her phone and was sending these messages here's what one of those texts said everything is fine I'm not mad at
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Megan I'm mad that my mom paid for her house she and her husband should buy it themselves here is our producer Michelle
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sagona again based on these text messages he was receiving they were a huge red flag for Carlos he just wanted
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Helen to call him but all he got were texts and that started to feel suspicious I'm not even mad at her
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really the text continued just effing hate my mom Carlos didn't think that sounded like the woman he loved he kept
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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
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here's Carlos again yes and and now I called my girlfriend and her sister answers the phone and refuses to let me
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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
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speak with Helen and he's just getting some conflicting information Carlos doesn't back down he said he stayed on
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the phone pushing Megan to give the phone to Helen for nearly 10 minutes he believes at this point that she is not
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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
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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
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call ended without him ever speaking to his girlfriend so none of this is making
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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
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call for help and would begin his agonizing journey to sound the alarm with the Emergency Services my gosh can
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you imagine I mean not knowing what's happening inside of that house and trying to call 911 and being told you
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have to go through all these steps Megan told police she left the house around 1:30 that afternoon headed for West
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Virginia and then turned around to go to her dad's after she heard about the shooting Ashley was racing to her dad's
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too Carlos had called her while she was in the car but Ashley had trouble believing his story here is detective
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vicory asking Ashley about the call after she arrived at her dad's we we heard you received the call from Carlos
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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
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sister Ashley met Megan who was sitting right there with them she would never do
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that ever never okay obviously I've known one my entire life and we've been through
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hell and bad together I know my sister Ashley told the detective she's been calling her mom and sister Megan chimed
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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
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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
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saying like Ashley made it clear she didn't believe that Megan is a murderer do you recall his exact words Megan shot
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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
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was adding up Ashley and her dad didn't seem scared of Megan police didn't arrest her
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and that day law enforcement told the public that the killer was dead Patrol officers thought Helen had
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done it but given how the crime scene didn't neatly fit a murder suicide and Carlos's 911 calls detective berson
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asked himself the question was Megan the killer did she murder both her mom and Helen that morning
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[Music] we have manipulated crime scene in multiple places the wiped phone the possibly
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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
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quilt a couple days later they would hear about a suspicious call it becomes very obvious to us that there is no
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other there is no Boogeyman here it is exactly who we think it is from 48 hours this is blood is
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thicker the haran family killings Judy Tigard is the executive producer of 48 Hours original reporting by 48 Hours
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producers Sarah elely Michelle sigona Lauren white and Josh joerger Jamie Benson is the senior
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producer for paramont audio and Mora walls is the senior story editor recording assistants from Alan
00:26:34
Pang and Marlin polycarp special thanks to Paramount podcast vice president Megan Marcus and
00:26:42
48 Hours senior producer Peter schwitzer blood is thicker is produced by Sony Music
00:26:50
Entertainment it was written and produced by Alex Schuman our executive producers are
00:26:57
Katherine sing Louis and Jonathan Hirsch our associate producer is Zoe kulin theme and original music composed
00:27:07
by hansdale shei he also soundd designed and mixed the episodes we also use music
00:27:14
by Blue Dot sessions Katherine Newan is our fact Checker our production managers
00:27:20
are Tama balance colasi and Samantha Allison I'm Peter vanand if you're enjoying the show be sure to rate and
00:27:29
review it helps more people find it and hear our reporting you can listen to blood is thicker the haran family
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killings early and AD free right now by joining wry Plus in the wry app or on Apple podcasts thanks for listening
00:27:49
[Music]