The Family Death Curse - Vaughan, Mississippi

this part of the story is covered for now It was founded in 1830 and named after Henry Vaughn, who owned a plantation nearby, and by 2004 the town proper was a strip of collapsing buildings, though about 1,300 people lived in the surrounding zip code. The figures the show reads out describe a poor, mostly black community: 80.9 per cent of residents were black and 19.1 per cent white, median household income was $36,484, and property and violent crime both ran at roughly double the national average.

The Hargan family had farmed and ranched around Vaughn for generations. Dan Haywood Hargan, known as Haywood, ran the Fowler Road Grocery with his wife Diana, and they raised two surviving children, Michael, born in 1977, and Jennifer, born in 1980. Their first son, Dan Haywood Jr, lived one day in 1974. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now Michael was seventeen.

Charles Hargan, Haywood's uncle, had a fifty-acre farm near Canton off Mississippi 16. He had married Eva Hefflin in 1965 and adopted her son Ernest Lee, born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on 16 September 1960. Eva divorced him in 1971 over drunken violence, but in 1973 a court gave the boy to Charles anyway. Ernest Lee graduated from Canton Academy in 1978, married Geneva Lynn Mouty in 1985, had a son, James Philip, in 1988, and divorced in 1993. details of the account remain covered until revealed By 2004 he was a cattle truck driver and, by every account in the episode, addicted to methamphetamine.

Charles Hargan was dying in the winter of 2003. He telephoned Ernest Lee before Christmas and told him he had until Christmas to come and make his peace; Ernest Lee did not come, did not call, and later did not attend the funeral. On 3 January 2004 Charles changed his will, cutting Ernest Lee out entirely and leaving the farm, its land valued at $175,000 and the house at $45,000, to his great-nephew Michael and Michael's wife Rebecca. Charles died later that month. Michael and Rebecca had met at a football game at Benton Academy in August 1992, married in December 1995, and converted the old grocery store into their home. Michael worked for Warren Excavation, Rebecca was a physical therapy assistant at Tyler Holmes Hospital in Winona, and their son James Patrick was born in 2000 and had severe asthma.

On Saturday 14 February 2004, before daylight, Ernest Lee drove his 1974 Corvette to the house. Michael had eaten breakfast early with a friend of the family. The two men argued; Michael, in his boots, went for the gun he kept in his truck, and his front teeth were knocked out at the open door. Ernest Lee pistol-whipped him and shot him in the head with a .22. He then went inside, shot Rebecca in the arm, beat her about the head until her skull fractured, and choked her, then choked James Patrick unconscious and fractured his skull too. He loaded the three of them into the Corvette, drove about a hundred miles to Taylorsville with Michael's body folded behind him, threw the pistol into the Big Black River, and at a burial site strangled Rebecca and James Patrick with a leather bootlace. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

That evening Ernestine Banks and her family drove past, saw the front door and a truck door standing open, found nobody home and called the police. Officers found shell casings in the yard and in Michael's truck and blood drops leading into the house. Diana Hargan said she had spoken to her son at about 8.30 the night before and to Rebecca at 11.30. The family offered $25,000, then more, and went on national television. On 15 February, at a Mexican restaurant, Ernest Lee told Lisa that he had gone to see Mike, that things had got out of hand, and that he had got all three; neither of them ate.

A task force of more than a hundred officers from seven agencies, with FBI agents and bloodhounds, searched the area, and on 1 March 2004 police acting on information searched Moran's land and found the bodies. Michael had been shot in the left side of the head, his jaw broken and teeth knocked out. Rebecca had been strangled and beaten, her skull fractured, with a non-fatal gunshot wound to the arm, and James Patrick had been strangled with a belt and beaten. this part of the story is covered for now

On the drive to the district attorney's office he asked the officers to pull over in a Kmart car park and gave a voluntary statement, on condition that his wife not be prosecuted. He claimed Michael was alive when he left and that he had helped Rebecca and the boy into the car, which the physical evidence contradicted. He drew a map to the bodies.

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The Hargan house stayed empty behind barbed wire.