Town note
Named for John Roll McLean, former publisher and owner of the Washington Post.
about 0:04:51Spoilers are covered until your reading preferences load.
FILE 444 / 25 November 2023 / 70 MIN / express
'this is mclean virginia ... at the tip top of the upper virginia panhandle'; the 911 dispatcher answers as Fairfax County police and fire, 'which is where this town is' about 0:03:11
Named for John Roll McLean, former publisher and owner of the Washington Post.
about 0:04:51In 1902 McLean, Stephen Benton Elkins and a French aristocrat, Jean-Pierre Genard, brought the railroad charter through the town, connecting it to Washington DC.
about 0:05:03Named for John Roll McLean, former publisher and owner of the Washington Post.
about 0:04:51In 1902 McLean, Stephen Benton Elkins and a French aristocrat, Jean-Pierre Genard, brought the railroad charter through the town, connecting it to Washington DC.
about 0:05:03Crime overall
▼ less than half the national average
"49,310"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:04:05
"$242,610"
Comparison: "national average $69,000". No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:04:17
"$1,186,400"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:04:32
"less than half the national average"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:07:28
"$1.5 million"
Comparison: "value in 2017". No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:27:30
"about eight million dollars"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:56
3.0 / 5 · average of 4
“An exchange student says the school was the first they attended in the US, and that students and teachers were welcoming, so they adapted and made friends easily.”about 0:05:57
“Pros and cons: great public schools, close to DC and Tyson's, mostly clean and very green, a good library and community centre, close to parks, safe for families but deteriorating; against that, cookie-cutter houses, no walkable or bikeable downtown, no Whole Foods in town and Balducci's overpriced with out-of-date meat.”about 0:06:44
“Very congested with tons of traffic, it takes forever to go anywhere, and there are few sidewalks, which makes walking dangerous; public transport is encouraged and widely available through city buses and the metro.”about 0:08:04
“People in the area are snobs with million-dollar homes, the schools are too hard, the area is insanely expensive, the writer could not get into any Virginia schools because their GPA at Langley was not good enough, and the kids are spoiled, some getting $500 a month in allowance.”about 0:08:22
In 2017 Pam Hargan, born in 1954, was a vice president of Lockheed Martin who had built an estate worth about eight million dollars. Helen, born in 1993, was the youngest. She had been at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, double-majoring in mathematics and management science, and worked there as a waitress, where she met Carlos Gutierrez, a man in his thirties who also worked at the restaurant. They planned to marry and to move into a house Pam was having built for Helen in Loudoun County, Virginia.
On the morning of 14 July 2017 Pam told Helen she was cancelling the contract on that house, because she believed Helen meant to move Gutierrez in with her. Gutierrez telephoned Fairfax County police, was told to file a report with his own jurisdiction first, and called back fifteen minutes later to say his girlfriend had told him her sister had killed her mother. Police went to the house at about 3 p.m. and found Pam shot dead in the laundry room, lying in a pool of blood with shell casings around her, and Helen shot dead in an upstairs bathroom with a .22 Ruger rifle placed between her feet.
The first reading was murder-suicide, and by 8 p.m. police were telling the media so. The scene told a different story. Pam's mobile phone lay on top of the blood and a blanket, as though placed there. Detectives also found bank statements and a spreadsheet of Pam's passwords folded inside a photo album. When they returned with a search warrant the documents were gone. The autopsy showed Helen had been shot from above, the bullet travelling straight down through her head into her neck, a wound the medical examiner said could not be self-inflicted.
On 17 July Capital One gave detectives a recording. On 19 July she came in for what she thought was an update, stayed more than four hours, and was played the recording. She said the voice was hers, that she had not mentioned it because of how it would look, and at one point said, 'just blame me'. She took a polygraph three times and failed all three, then was allowed to leave. A gunshot residue test later showed residue on both hands.
Carlos Gutierrez testified for the prosecution. Forensic witnesses said Helen's arms were about five inches too short to reach the trigger, while the defence argued she could have used her toe and the experts conceded that was theoretically possible. Ashley, the middle sister, said repeatedly that she did not remember earlier statements about Helen's threats of self-harm.
July 14, 2017 / the Hargan family home, McLean, Virginia
As told in the episode, on 25 November 2023.
Accused
Public places are marked on the map.
crime scene
about 0:27:30school
about 0:16:33business
about 0:18:17home
about 0:56:14business
about 0:43:53business
about 0:43:24police
about 0:25:04police
about 0:26:28school
about 0:08:59