SUBURBAN MUM... OR TWISTED KILLER?
THE BRUTAL MURDER OF BETSY FARIA HAS HOLLYWOOD CALLING
There was nothing out of the ordinary on the evening of December 27, 2011 when Missouri man Russ Faria came home from his weekly games night.
Russ, 41, went every Tuesday with friends while his wife, Betsy, 42, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, stayed at home in the small town of Troy.
When Russ turned the key in the front door late that night, he made a grisly discovery. Betsy was dead on the floor in what looked like a scene out of a horror film. The mother of two had been stabbed over 50 times; a kitchen knife was protruding from the side of her neck.
A horrified Russ called 9-1-1 and immediately warned dispatchers that Betsy may have taken her own life. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer earlier in 2011 and previously discussed suicide.
This turned out to be the biggest mistake of Russ’ life. Investigators knew it wasn’t suicide from the moment they arrived.
Betsy’s death was far too “brutal” and authorities believed her husband’s demeanour during the 9-1-1 call was “staged”, according to reports.
In 2012, after his wife’s funeral, Russ was arrested and charged with Betsy’s murder. Despite producing a rock-solid alibi, prosecutors claimed blood from Betsy found on his slippers placed him at the centre of the gruesome murder. They also pointed to the 9-1-1 recording to support their theory of Russ’ “fake” hysteria.
Nearly two years after Betsy’s death, in 2013, Russ was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.
Russ vehemently denied any involvement throughout the trial and while in prison. And he may have spent the remainder of his life in jail if it wasn’t for the suspicious behaviour of a woman named Pamela Hupp.
Hupp, 52, was Betsy’s friend and co-worker, and by her own admission was the last person to see Betsy before she was brutally killed.
According to US news
‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS WOMAN HAS IN FOR ME’
show Dateline, Hupp had been tracking Betsy’s movements on the day of December 27 and had offered her a ride home from her chemotherapy appointment.
During Russ’ trial in 2013, Hupp took the stand as a key witness for the prosecution. She told the court Russ was an alcoholic, who verbally abused his wife. The testimony was instrumental in a ‘guilty’ verdict for Russ.
However, in a telling twist of fate and with Russ now convicted of the murder, Hupp became the sole beneficiary of her friend’s $150,000 life insurance policy, which she claimed would be put in a trust for Betsy’s daughters.
After a successful appeal on his conviction, Russ was granted a retrial in 2015. He was eventually exonerated
after the defence introduced new evidence. Some of this evidence implicated Betsy’s friend and confidante, Hupp.
“It was painfully obvious that she was involved in this,” Russ’ lawyer Joel Schwartz wrote in his book, Bone Deep: Untangling the Betsy Faria Murder Case.
But it wasn’t until 2019 that the ugly truth behind Betsy’s murder came to light. The year Russ was released from jail, Hupp was involved in another crime. She shot and killed a man named Louis Gumpenberger during an alleged attempted burglary.
A note was found on him with instructions to kill Hupp and rob her of Betsy’s life insurance money. Hupp claimed Louis tried to kill her to obtain the cash meant for Russ, People reported.
Investigators weren’t convinced Hupp was telling the truth. Her story didn’t add up – Louis was physically and mentally impaired, and couldn’t have committed the crime she had reported.
They claimed Hupp orchestrated Louis’ death as part of an elaborate plot to frame Russ and send him back to prison.
“I don’t know what this woman has in for me,” Russ told People in 2019. “She wants to keep throwing me under the bus for something I didn’t do.”
In 2019, Hupp was convicted of killing Louis and was sentenced to life without parole. This triggered investigators to look deeper into Hupp’s possible involvement in Betsy’s murder eight years earlier.
The still-unsolved case made headlines in the true crime world after Dateline released a podcast about Betsy.
Then in July 2021, Hupp was charged with the firstdegree murder of Betsy Faria. Court documents allege Hupp killed her friend for financial gain. As Hupp awaits trial for Betsy’s murder, a TV series documenting her crimes,
The Thing About Pam, has been released. Hupp is played by Renée Zellweger, who transforms into a murderous small-town mum in the chilling new crime show.
Meanwhile, today a free man after languishing behind bars for three years, Russ is waiting with bated breath for true justice to prevail.