- Today's video is brought
to you by Casetify. Go to casetify.com/kendall to get 15% off your new favorite phone. (upbeat music) Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Happy to have you here for
another video and today's case, wow, this one is absolutely insane. I decide what cases I'm gonna cover weeks before I actually
sit down to film them. So I put this case, the Betsy Faria case on my
list for July back in June. And I had no idea that
there would be so many huge updates in the case this month, just in the past few days actually. If you guys see a little fly around this room, I'm sorry, I have tried to get him. He's just not having it,
he's moving too quick. And my dog really does not like flies. By the way, there is normally another dog down here. Oftentimes you guys don't see her because she doesn't like sitting up on this thing for some reason on
the back of the chair. So she's normally just on
my lap or on the floor, but Sadie is here. Say hello. Bernie of course has taken
his rightful position. He loves the back of the chair. So let's start by talking
about Betsy Faria. So Betsy was born Elizabeth Kay Meyer. She was born on March 24th, 1969 in Richmond Heights, Missouri. Her parents are Kenneth and Janet Meyer. She went by Betsy like
a lot of Elizabeths do. And she was known as a very full of life, vivacious, fun, genuine, caring person. People in her life describe her as someone who was always there for them. She was known to have a
positive energy about her. She had a big heart. It seems like Betsy really left a lasting impression on many people, friends, even just people she
was casually acquainted with. She had big, bright blue
eyes and a big smile that could light up the room. She grew up with three
sisters, Mary, Julie and Pamela and they had a lot of friends. Their family was well-known
where they grew up in their community. When she was in high school, she met a lot of friends
through playing softball and she was known for hosting
slumber parties for them and always wanted to make
sure everyone had a good time. She was the kind of person
that made you feel special. She really made people feel
like they had an ally in her. And when Betsy graduated from high school, she took a lot of those
friendships with her. One of her close friends
was named Rita Wilson. She was like an aunt to Rita his kids and she also had another lifelong friend from high school named Susan. She introduced Susan to her husband and then she DJ'ed at their wedding. So she was just known
as that type of friend that would always be there for you, willing to do whatever for you and she had a lot of
friends because of that. And Betsy did run a part-time DJ business. She mostly played for friends,
friends of friends weddings and she also did holiday parties, birthday parties, stuff like that. And Betsy was known for being able to get anyone out on the dance floor. She would really live in up any party. Betsy had two daughters, Mariah and Leah who she absolutely adored. She had always wanted to be a mother and she was just so happy
when they were born. Anyway, finally, Betsy
met the love of her life. His name was Russell Faria. Russell or Russ was born
on February 12th, 1970. He was known as an honest man who enjoyed simple pleasures of life. He loved to be outside. He loved to fish. He loved to ride his motorcycle. He was known for rocking
his trademark Fedora and he could look like a
real tough guy sometimes, but underneath he was known
to be a big Teddy bear and that's why Betsy really loved him. One thing that Betsy said
she really loved about him was that he would have dinner with his mom at least once a week. And that showed a lot to
her about his character. So after dating a while, the two of them decided to get married and they tied the knot January 21st, 2000. And after they got married,
Betsy convinced Russ that it might be a good idea
if he goes back to school. So he did. After Russ got his degree,
he ended up getting a job, working for an enterprise
as their IT person and he was super excited about that. And Betsy worked in the insurance industry and had a job at her
local State Farm office. So in early 2010, they were very happy with their new jobs and they wanted to buy a new house and kind of plan out the rest
of their future together. And everything seemed to be going really great in their lives
until that following January when Betsy got a devastating diagnosis. Betsy found out that she was
diagnosed with breast cancer. And of course she was really freaked out. I mean, she didn't know if this would be the end of her life. She didn't know if she could beat this, but she had so many friends
and family in her life too that she really was
lifted up with support. Someone went to all of her
chemotherapy appointments, whether that was Russ
or friends and family and that made her feel strong and really want to fight the
cancer as hard as she could. So that March, her and Russ finally got to move into their new house and they were really happy about this. They kind of felt like it
was a fresh start for them. And their new house was in
a small town called Troy, which is in Missouri. She continued on doing her
chemotherapy treatments and was doing pretty well. And eventually the cancer
did go into remission later that year. So Betsy decided that it
would be a really fun idea to do a celebration of life cruise with all of her closest
friends and family. She was so excited about it. She really wanted to
swim with the dolphins. That was something that was
on her bucket list to do. And she thought it would be a great way to kind of start the rest of her life. So they booked the cruise and a bunch of her friends and family were going to join her. She was so, so excited about it, but then she got some
really devastating news. Just a month before Betsy's cruise, she found out that the
cancer had come back and had spread to her liver and she, as you can imagine, was
absolutely devastated and so was Russ. And this time it was really bad. She was told that she did
not have much time left. But Betsy decided that she wanted to go on the cruise regardless. She wanted to swim with
dolphins before her life ended. That was really important to her. And she thought it would
be really good for her to be around all her friends and family while she was going through
such a difficult time. I mean, how do you even begin
to process news like that? But they went on this cruise
and they had a great time. Everyone said it was a great trip and she was able to
fulfill her lifelong dream of swimming with the dolphins. And she loved every minute of it. When they returned from the cruise, they had the holidays coming up, so they wanted to just
try to forget about it as much as they could and
live every day to the fullest with Betsy while she was here. And during all this time, she is going through her treatments, trying to be as positive as she could, which just shows what
type of person she was, because chemotherapy is just
so horrible on the body. Not only the body, but the mind. It can be so draining. It makes you so very sick and weak. But like I said, Betsy was trying to live
every day to the fullest, celebrate the holidays
with her friends and family and be with Russ as much as she could. So they had a really nice holiday. They tried to put the
cancer out of their minds as much as they could and just
enjoy their time together. And then on December
27th, which was a Tuesday, two days after Christmas, Russ had plans to have dinner
with his mom that evening, which was very normal for him. He had dinner with his mom every week. And then he also had a
routine on every Tuesday to go over to one of his
friend's house to play games. I'm not sure exactly what game
he and his friends would play but he was some type of role playing game and they did it every week. So this was a very much
a part of his routine. The night before Betsy actually had stayed at her mom's apartment because she had a chemo
appointment the next day and her mom took her to it. And Russ had planned to
pick her up later that day, that evening actually after
his game night with the boys, but Betsy ended up texting
him and letting him know that she was gonna get a
ride home with a friend so he didn't need to pick her up. The only problem was, Betsy didn't have her keys
with her to get into the house. So Russ said since he's gonna be at his game night that night, that he will just leave
the door unlocked for her. So Russ actually worked from home. So he worked till about 5:00 that day and then he left the
house to run a few errands before he went over to
his friend Mike's house for the game night. So first he got gas at a Conoco station and then he realized that he
needed to get a few more things before he went over to Mike's house. So he figured he wouldn't have time to go have dinner with his mom. So at 5:22, he called her and let her know that he
was gonna have to cancel. At 5:56, he stopped at a convenience store in Lake, St. Louis and bought
cigarettes and two Snapples. Then he went to Greene's County
store to get some dog food. And he ended up getting over
to Mike's house around 6:00 PM. One of their other
friends couldn't make it. So they ended up deciding not
to play their game that night. Instead they had a chill evening. They decided to smoke a little marijuana and watch some movies. Russ left with two other
friends who were there. They all left at the same
time around nine o'clock and Russ drove home by
himself and on the way back, he stopped at an Arby's and got himself two junior melts or something and ate both of them on his
way home as a late night snack. He pulled into his driveway
a little after 9:30 PM, parks the car and goes
inside to see Betsy. As he went inside, he dropped the bag of dog
food off at the front door. He took off his jacket and hung it up. Then he walked into his living room and everything in his life
would change at that moment. At 9:40 Russ made this
frantic call to 911. - [Operator] What is the address
where you need us to come? - [Faria] One... one... one... 130 Sumac. My wife killed herself. She's... she's... She's on the floor. Oh my God... God. - [Operator] Okay, just take
a couple deep breaths for me. (Faria crying) Russell, how long were you gone today? - [Faria] I left around 5:00 and I just got back. She was at her Mom's and her
friend was bringing her home so I don't know what time she got home. (Faria crying) - [Operator] Has she
been depressed lately? - [Faria] She's got... she's got... She's got cancer. - [Operator] I need you
to get those medications for the paramedics, okay? - [Faria] I think they're
here on the table. What I'm I gonna do? - So as you can tell from the
phone call, Betsy was gone. She was in horrible condition actually. And it's surprising that Russ said that he thought she
had committed suicide because this scene is
so clearly a homicide. Betsy's wrists were slashed and that's why Russ thought
that she had taken her own life, but they were actually slashed
all the way to the bone. It's a hard to judge Russ' initial call and the fact that he thought
it was a suicide because Betsy did at one point
try to take her own life and she did do that by
slashing her wrists. So he thought that this
time she actually did it. And I don't know how much of a good look he really got at her whole body, but she had a lot of other wounds. When the paramedics got there, her body was already in rigor. It was stiff, it was cold and there was
dried blood all around her, in her hair, all around her body, mostly coming from her neck. And there were dozens of stab wounds. Most of them that were
hidden underneath her clothes all over her body. I mean, clear sign of passion. Someone just went crazy on her. Betsy had been stabbed through
the skull, into her left eye. She had been stabbed in the throat and the knife was still in
there, it was a kitchen knife. The colonel ended up
counting 55 stab wounds. So to investigators, it's immediately obvious
that this is a homicide and not a suicide. Betsy Faria had been stabbed to death and she was only 42 years old at the time and trying to beat cancer. So the fire captain and EMS, both determined that Betsy had been dead for at least an hour before
Russ had even called. And of course they were
very suspicious of Russ from the moment they saw him, the moment they walked on the scene, it's kind of the classic story, right? And this is a crime of passion. Clearly she was stabbed 55 times. Investigators also noted
down that Russ was emotional, but had limited tears actually
flowing from his eyes. So they kind of thought
he was putting on an act. Other officers also took note of him being very up and down emotionally, sometimes going extremely calm and then breaking down
and becoming hysterical. At other moments, it's really hard to
judge how you would react in this situation. How many mixed emotions
he probably was feeling? And this is incredibly strange, but one officer actually went up to Russ and asked him why he hadn't
embraced his wife's body when he first came home. Why hadn't he like gotten
on the ground and hugged her and cried with her, which is a really strange question to ask, because most people know,
even in a situation like that, that you're not supposed to touch bodies when you walk into a crime scene, that's contaminating it and he would have his
DNA all over her body and ruin any other potential evidence. Plus he was probably just freaked out by the condition of her body. She was covered in blood. There was a knife
sticking out of her neck. Why would he get down on the ground? And like lay on top of her.
It's just really strange. So the police already are
clearly going in the direction that Russ definitely did this. And of course the idea of like a random intruder coming to do it seems very unlikely with 55 stab wounds. That is gotta be someone in her life. Someone who really did not like her or wanting to see her suffer. So when investigators searched the house, they found one item that
justified their suspicion of Russ. It was a pair of bloody men's slippers that were thrown into
the back of a closet. So they brought Russ in for questioning. And while he was just sitting in the interrogation
room waiting for them, they have cameras on you and there's footage of him crying and praying and sobbing saying, "No, Betsy, no," but investigators thought
it was all an act. And they interrogated him
for 10 hours that night. And during the interrogation, he took them through his
whole day multiple times, all of his stops, where he went for dinner
after the game night and over and over again,
he just kept saying, "I wasn't there. I didn't kill her." He explained to them how that day he was supposed to pick up
Betsy from her chemotherapy, but a friend actually
took her home instead. And now this friend is named Pam. She was the last known person
to see Betsy alive actually. Pam grew up in a strict Catholic household with her three siblings. And back when the two of
them were in high school, she ran with the popular crowd and was usually up to do anything. She always wanted to have fun, but three months after her senior prom, Pam found out that she was pregnant. So she wasn't really that in love with her boyfriend at the time but they felt like they
had no other choice, but to get married for their baby. They moved into an apartment
together very young and Pam had a baby girl. Now, Pam was always very jealous of her friends who got
to go off to college or live up their lives
before they had children. She felt like she was watching everyone else live their
lives, pursue their dreams and she was stuck at home with the baby. Her first marriage only
lasted for six years. And in her mid 20s, they separated and she
ended up getting remarried. Her new husband was a very
soft-spoken patient man named Mark Hupp. Mark had actually played
minor league baseball for the Texas Rangers. He made a comfortable living and was able to provide
for Pam and her daughter. And the three of them
moved to Naples, Florida and in 1989, she had a son. But eventually in 2001, she ended up back in
Missouri with her new family and they settled in, O'Fallon making a living flipping houses. Pam had worked a few other jobs in the insurance industry before. So she ended up taking a part-time job working for State Farm. And that's how she connected with Betsy. Their boss at the State Farm office said that Pam seemed very logical. She was an insightful worker who knew a lot about human
nature and office politics. They thought she was very
level-headed, diligent in her work and never got overly emotional or angry, but there was one thing that
stuck out to their boss. And that was that Pam
had implied several times that she was somehow connected
and worked in the CIA or FBI. She made it seem like she had a high level of security clearance as well and couldn't tell people things. But it seemed like for the most part, Pam laid really low and
they thought, you know, maybe she really did have some secret job that she can't talk about, but for the most part she
just stuck to herself. However, they did start
noticing that several cars in their parking lot at
the office had been keyed. And this was also happening in the neighborhood where Pam lived. She and Mark lived in a pretty safe area. So this was kind of unusual. And not only that a few neighbors got some really nasty letters sent to their houses. These were anonymous letters, but they would say really mean
spiteful and hurtful things. They would threaten them and they never figured out who wrote them. And honestly, people never really took the letters too seriously. They thought he was maybe a
prank or something like that. So they never even
reported it to the police. In their neighborhood, Mark and Pam pretty much kept to
themselves for the most part. Other than Pam was a little mouthy to some of the neighbors
a couple of times. Sometimes she would get involved
in other people's drama, disputes between other neighbors. She would just kind of insert herself, but Pam wasn't super social. She didn't have a ton of friends. She mainly stuck to her family. So one day Pam was working
at her job at State Farm and she ended up getting
injured while on the job. I'll tell you a little
bit more about that later, but she left the job and ended up just receiving disability
checks from them. So by the time that Betsy had
been diagnosed with cancer, her and Pam had lost touch. Pam was no longer working at State Farm, but eventually Pam heard the news and she reached out
and wanted to help her. And soon Pam became a big
part of Betsy support system. She would take her to a lot
of her chemo appointments and just spend time with her, talk to her. And even when another family
member was taking her to chemo, Pam would wanna go anyway
and she would just join in. She seemed to really love Betsy and really wanted to be there for her. Now, Pam did not go on the
celebration of life cruise. I'm not exactly sure why, but I did read that she was
pretty cheap about things and didn't like to
spend money on vacation. So that could have been why or maybe she didn't feel like
she knew Betsy well enough or her friends and
family well enough to go. But anyway, she wasn't there. But when Betsy got back from the cruise, her and Pam spent a ton of time together almost every day together. And around this time, Betsy had expressed concern to Pam about her life insurance policy, which was worth $150,000 at the time. According to Betsy's dad, she was mainly concerned that Russ wouldn't do well with the money, that he wouldn't know
how to save it properly. And she didn't want her
younger kids to just blow it. And she was very worried about
how that money would be used. So going back here, on December 22nd, the week before Betsy was murdered, Pam and Betsy met at her tennis club so that Pam could watch Betsy play. And then the next day they
went to the library together and they asked the librarian to be the witness to a signature. And it turns out they
were actually signing a change of beneficiary form for Betsy's life insurance policy. She was removing Russ as her beneficiary and instead making Pam
the sole beneficiary, then they left the library right away and went right to the post
office together to mail it. And then four days later, Betsy is dead. And the policy didn't
actually get to State Farm until the morning after Betsy had died. And this could have
totally gone the other way. But the insurance agent who got the change decided to accept it, even though it was after she had died. This is completely up
to the individual agent, whether to honor it or
not and they chose to. So as I'm sure a lot of you know, I'm sure a lot of you watch
quite a bit of true crime and you're well aware that
a life insurance policy is a huge motive for murder, but when investigators questioned
Pam about this, she said, "Wouldn't I have made sure that the insurance policy change had actually gone through
before I murdered her if that was my plan all along? Why would I have done that?" And then get this, she actually tells investigators that, "There's no way I
would've done that because if I really wanted money, there's several other family
members that I could murder." She said, "My mom has a lot of money. My husband has a lot of money and they all have larger policies. So I could have made a lot
more from any of them." And for some reason,
investigators were like, yeah, that makes sense. Now Betsy's parents, friends, family, Russ had no idea about this
change in beneficiary. The only two people that knew
about it were Betsy and Pam. So when police talked
to Pam on December 28th, the day after Betsy died, they asked her about what her day was like the day that Betsy died. She explained that she went
to chemotherapy with her, brought her home, dropped her
off at her house at 7:00 PM. Then went home, hung out
with Mark and watched TV, took a shower and went to bed. So Pam showed up to pick up Betsy from her mom's apartment
for her chemo appointment. And when she got there,
her mom, Janet told her that she had already left
with her friend Bobby. Now Bobby was Betsy's
babysitter when she was younger and she was very close with her. So Betsy had texted Pam and told her that Bobby is
gonna take me to the appointment so you don't need to. I just wanted to spend some
one-on-one time with her. And Pam later tried to say
that she didn't even know that Bobby was taking her,
she never got that text, but she actually did reply to
the text and said, "Bummer." So that's very odd. She gets this text, she responds to it, but she goes to Pam's mom's house anyway. And when she realizes that Pam
has already left with Bobby, she doesn't just go home, she goes to the chemo appointment. Bobby later says that when Pam just showed up to the appointment, Betsy seemed very confused
because she made it clear that she wanted to spend one-on-one time with her old friend. And then Pam insisted on driving Betsy home that night, even though Russ was
only five minutes away at his game night and could
easily come pick her up. But for some reason she
wanted to be the one to pick her up and bring her back home. So around noon that day,
Russ texts Betsy and says, "I'm gonna come pick you up later today." And she says, "Great, thanks, honey." And that's gonna be the plan. But after her treatment was over, she texted Russ again and said, "Pam Hupp wants to bring me home to bed." So Russ confirmed saying,
"She is bringing you?" And Betsy said, "Yes, she
offered and I accepted. Didn't get much sleep, mom snored." But later when she was being interrogated, Pam said that Betsy
actually asked for the ride. But when the treatment
was done, Betsy actually went back to her mom's
apartment with Bobby. And Pam, I know this is
getting really confusing. Pam went back home and had
dinner with her husband, Mark. Meanwhile, Betsy, her mom, Janet and Bobby are all at her mom's
apartment, playing a game. And Pam, for some reason still wants to come back
to Janet's apartment and pick up Betsy to bring her back home. So Pam picks up Betsy
from her mom's apartment and brings her back home around 7:00 PM. When Pam pulled into the driveway, she called her husband Mark
to let him know where she was, but he didn't answer,
it just went to message. And she actually put Betsy on the phone and had her wish Mark
a amen Merry Christmas. So she did and she sounded
like her normal bubbly self, according to mark. So Pam told investigators that
when she dropped off Betsy, she felt a little uneasy
because the doors were unlocked since she didn't have her keys and all of the lights
were off in the house. But at first she thought
that Russ was already home. She thought she saw his
car in the driveway, which was a Nissan Maxima. But later she said that she
saw a Ford Explorer SUV. She said she wasn't sure if
she should leave Betsy alone in the house with Russ. According to Pam, Betsy actually wanted to
move back to Lake, St. Louis and had a plan for her and Russ to move into her mom's old house. And according to Pam, she was gonna tell Russ all this tonight. And she said that she just knew he would be really angry about it. Pam explained that Russ was controlling. He had an anger problem
and a violent temper. Pam said, she thought he was strange that Betsy didn't have her keys because she always had her purse and her keys were always in her purse. And she thought maybe Russ had told her not to bring them on purpose. She thought it was weird. She said she felt guilty
leaving Betsy alone, that she thought Russ could be violent. At first she told investigators that she didn't go
inside the house at all. She just simply dropped Betsy off. But later she changed her story
and said that she did go in for a couple minutes and
turned on the hallway light. And eventually her story
changed once again. She said that Betsy had
actually invited her to come inside and look
at a jewelry cabinet that Russ had got her for Christmas that she was very proud of. And this cabinet was all
the way in the bedroom. So now she's saying she went all the way inside
and into the bedroom. She claims before she left, she got Betsy of settled on the couch, tucked her in with a nice blanket so that she could get some rest. But this story changed again later on, Pam said that Betsy
actually may have walked her to the front door. Maybe she didn't leave her on the couch. She couldn't quite remember. But she told investigators that she made it back to her house
after dropping off Betsy and that she called Betsy when she got home to let her
know she made it back safely. But then she corrected herself and said that this was when she was almost home, that they talked on the phone. And eventually she changed
her story one more time. She said that actually she called Betsy when she was trying to
figure out how to get home, which is very odd because she had been to Betsy's house many times. She knew exactly how to get home, but she said she called
Betsy to get directions back to her house. But her cell phone records
told a different story. She had actually called Betsy at 7:27 when she was still in Troy, which is not too far from Betsy's house. So she changed her story yet again and said that she had pulled
over at a fork in the road to make the call but Betsy didn't pick up. And when Pam got home, she called her son who lived
nearby and then texted Betsy. And she said that after Betsy
didn't reply to her text, she thought maybe she's mad at me because I left her home alone and it was kind of a sketchy situation, which doesn't really
make any sense at all. So Pam, at this point
calls Janet, Betsy's mom and tells her that she's worried about her because she's not answering her texts. So Janet tries calling her. She got no answer, but they thought maybe she went to bed. So Pam went to bed and so did Janet. So on December 29th,
after Betsy was killed, investigators went and
interviewed Pam's husband, Mark. Of course, that makes sense. They want to corroborate her story. But the problem was, is
Pam was in there with them while they were interviewing
him the whole time. So she could easily manipulate the story. Mark said that he was home
all day on December 27th. He said that he had missed
Pam's call from Betsy's driveway because his phone was in his truck. But after that, Pam pretty much took over
the rest of the interview and answered every question for him the way she wanted it answered. And investigators just
kind of let that happen. She again, brought up that
Betsy was very afraid of Russ, that he would make
degrading comments to her, that their relationship was bad. She also claimed he had a drinking problem that he could be violent. And that one time she saw
him serve Betsy a Gatorade, that was kind of a funny color and she spit it out right away. And she thought that was very strange. And she also said that he mentioned to her that he would be getting a
lot of money when Betsy died. And she thought that was very odd. Then Pam told investigators about that conversation that they
had had at the tennis club and how Betsy did not want
Russ to be the beneficiary and how they made that change together. They went to the library, sign the papers, someone watched them do it. And then they sent it off in the mail. Pam claimed that Betsy told
her that she had written an email to Pam about how Russ was abusive of her, how he had held a pillow
over her at one point and she was very scared of him, but Pam never actually got this email. No one's ever actually seen it and according to Pam, when
they were at the library, they tried to print it
out so she could read it because they weren't able to send it. I mean, none of it made sense. She didn't have any actual
evidence of this email, but she told investigators that she was gonna try
her best to find it. Eventually she corrected herself and said it wasn't an email, it was actually a document
on Betsy's laptop. And after being questioned, Pam seemed to cooperate
fully with the investigation. She provided any information they needed fingerprints, DNA, all of it. And they were definitely looking at Russ and what Pam was saying, made them even more suspicious of Russ. So the day after Russ'
his 10 hour interrogation, he was taken to the Lake,
St. Louis police station for a polygraph test. And he was told that he failed the test and he was really upset about it, but it was starting to look like they had their guy in this polygraph test, made them even more sure. And Russ was arrested on January 4th, 2012 and he was charged with
first degree murder and armed criminal action. And when this happened,
everyone was shocked. Russ' his friends and
family couldn't believe he would do something like that to Betsy after all that she had been through and their whole life they built together. But there were tons of
media reports going around about how their
treacherous marriage led to him stabbing her, even Betsy's daughters and her close friends became convinced that Russ had killed her. It seemed like the only
thing that made sense. Russ' cousin had worked
as a legal secretary for a defense attorney
named Joel Schwartz. And she hired him to defend Russ. Joel got all the information for the case and started studying everything. He went through the police
reports, the interviews, and he was shocked that investigators hadn't even considered
Pam Hupp as a suspect. I mean, not only was Pam the
last person to see Betsy alive, but she's also the beneficiary
of her life insurance policy. And that change was submitted
days before her death, extremely weird. Plus from the records of the interviews, it was clear that she had
changed her story multiple times. Also Pam had no alibi, no way to prove where she
was when Betsy was killed. However, Russ' alibi seemed airtight. He was at a friend's house and all of the friends that were there said that he was there with them, everyone who was at his
game night confirmed that he didn't leave that night
until at least 9:00 PM. Plus he had his receipt from Arby's, which was timestamped 9:09. But one thing that police
questioned about Russ' trip home was that he had stopped
at another gas station on the way home to buy cigarettes. And they thought it was strange considering he had stopped
at a gas station earlier and filled up, why didn't
he just get cigarettes then? But he explained to them
that the gas station that he went to on the way home was a whole dollar cheaper for cigarettes. So he always bought them there, but police didn't buy it. They thought he was lying. To them it seemed like
he was trying too hard to prove his alibi, that he only stopped at all those places to make an alibi. But if you think about it, none of it really matters
because all of his errands were done before six o'clock and Betsy was still alive at 7:05 when she was with Pam in the car. And an officer did a test run as well. He drove from the friend's
house back to Russ' house to see if he could even make it home with enough time to kill Betsy. It only took 23 minutes, but the officer drove on
the shoulder of the road so that's completely unfair and he didn't even make a stop at Arby's. But even if Russ somehow made
it home and only 23 minutes, that would only leave nine minutes for him to stab Betsy over 55 times and then clean himself up and call 911, nine minutes. Doesn't sound right. Also the forensics team didn't find a drop of
blood anywhere on Russ, not in his clothes, not under his nails, nowhere on his body. And he was still dressed in
the same T-shirt and jeans that he was seen wearing
earlier that evening on surveillance footage. So the only physical
evidence they really had were his bloody slippers that
were found in the closet. Now there was no blood on
the bottom of the slippers, only on the sides. Now, Pam Hupp also agreed
to take a polygraph test but she weaseled her way out
of it by having her doctor, Dr. Ronald Fisher, write a note for her saying
that she couldn't take the test because she had recently
had an injury, a head injury and she actually asked Dr.
Fisher to do this with a note. It says, "Dear Dr. Fisher, could you please write
Detective Kaiser a letter stating that I was not
able to do a polygraph test due to medical reasons, don't need to be any
more detailed than that. And Dr. Fisher provided the letter. His letter said, Pamela Hupp is unable to undergo a polygraph test due to her medical condition. But when he was later
questioned, Dr. Fisher said he wasn't aware of
any medical condition that Pam actually had. He admitted that he wrote that simply because she asked him to. And at first she tried
to lie about this note, but Dr. Fisher ended up sending over a copy of
it to investigators. So even though this new investigator was looking at everything and it seemed very obvious
that Pam was involved, the head detective in charge of the case, Ryan McCarrick said that he believed that Pam Hupp was innocent and
actually gave this statement, "Based on the training and experience of dealing with hundreds of interviews with suspects and witnesses with victims, I did not see any signs of deception that would leave me to believe she was indicating anything
that was untrue to me." And I don't know if they had some type of thing for Pam or what, but when they talked to her, they let her off so easy
with every question, they were so kind to her, complimenting her on what
a good friend she is. It was like the most
friendly interrogation ever. When this new investigator, Joel Schwartz, started looking at everything, he looked over all the
interrogation footage and he said that Pam, for the most part, when she was talking to officers seemed calm, cool, collected, totally clear and
confident in her answers. But when they left, she would go into this like
very zen-like meditative state. And during her interrogation, she spoke very warmly of Betsy saying that she loves her to death. And at some point while
she was being interrogated, the detective asked Pam if she felt uncomfortable
about the fact that Betsy's whole family
was really weirded out that she had changed
her to the beneficiary and they were upset about it. And Pam said that she was
upset that they felt that way. She said it really hurt
her feelings and that she didn't put a gun to
Betsy's head to sign the form, so why were they mad at her? And the detective actually
told her that this was normal, that they were just angry
cause they were grieving. And during the interrogation, of course, she's really pushing the idea
that Russ was a bad husband, that he was controlling
and that he may have even purposely made her leave her past behind so she wouldn't be able
to get into the house, which doesn't even make
sense even if he did do it. So on the day that Betsy died, she talked to her very
close friend, Rita Wolfe, who I mentioned at the
beginning of the video. She was friends with
her since high school. And during the call, Betsy realized that she
didn't have her keys and mentioned that she had to call Russ to ask him to leave the door open. So if you remember from earlier, Pam said that when she dropped Betsy off at the house that night that
she saw a silver Nissan Maxima and then later on she changed it to a blue Ford Explorer SUV. But these two vehicles look nothing alike and it seemed like she was just trying to figure out which
car Russ was driving that day. It was also very weird to Joel Schwartz, the new investigator that she had changed her story so many times, first saying she didn't
even go in the house then saying she did go in the house and then she went all
the way to the bedroom. And he noticed that Pam
had been swabbed for DNA, but they never tested it against anything. So that's really helpful. Also her car and her clothes
were never tested for blood and investigators hadn't even confirmed what she was wearing that day and if she was wearing the
same clothes that night. Plus he also thought it
was very weird that Pam had basically tucked Betsy in for bed. And then a little while later called her and would have woken her up. So they started asking Ross about Pam. And he said that Pam and Betsy had been hanging out
for the last few months. According to him, she was a nice person and he
never had an issue with her. Every time we talked to her,
she seemed very friendly, but Betsy had several other friends that she was much closer with. And she also was close with
her parents and her siblings. So it didn't make any sense that she would make Pam
Hupp her beneficiary after only hanging around
her for like six months. And when State Farm was
trying to check into this, because it's obviously very weird that someone turned in a
change of beneficiary form right before they died. So they checked in with the
lead detective on the case, Ryan McCarrick and he said, "Pam is not a suspect at all. You're completely good
to give her that money." So while Russ is trying to defend himself, this new investigator, Joel Schwartz, starts looking for Russ'
polygraph test results, which should be easy to find, right? Apparently not. It took a while, but they
finally found out that at the time that Russ
took the polygraph test, he'd been awake for 32 hours straight and he'd also been smoking
marijuana that night. And they knew right away
that no reputable examiner would give someone a
test in that condition. And it turns out that this
was a fake polygraph test. Yes, that's correct. No actual results or data being recorded. It's a literal fake polygraph test. And this is actually legal
as long as it is disclosed. But of course, in Russ' case,
it was not disclosed to him. They never found any evidence
of it being disclosed and when they asked for video or audio recordings of the test, they didn't have either of those. They actually told them that the cameras weren't working that
night conveniently enough. And when they asked for
the raw data from the test, they wouldn't send that over. All they had was a consent
form that Russ had signed and a short summary of the test saying that there were significant, consistent psychological
responses indicative of deception. So Russ felt hopeless and all he could do was offer up to take another polygraph test. And he also had four friends who were willing to confirm his alibi, that he was at this game night that night. But the prosecutor declined. So they tried to figure out
more about Pam's disability. Why could she not take the polygraph test? Her husband, Mark said he
didn't know any information about her disability or her
injury on the job at State Farm. But later on, Pam explained that back at work in 2009 in November, she tripped over a filing
cabinet and hit her head. And that's where her disability
money was coming from. She said she had a condition
called a drop foot, which is some type of foot paralysis. It can cause balance problems. So she had applied for workers' comp and the case was currently pending. And she claimed that she got a head injury when she hit the cabinet, but she couldn't provide
any evidence for the injury. But she said it caused a lot
of memory issues for her, which seems like it was only when she conveniently didn't
need to remember something. But she said that a lot of
the questions they asked her, she just simply couldn't
remember due to her injury. Pam was receiving monthly
disability checks for her back, her neck and her leg pain. But it seemed like she
had no trouble walking because at some point
she was actually filmed running away from a
reporter, like pretty fast. And she also did Zumba classes and Zumba classes are pretty hard. So at one time when they
were interviewing her about insurance policies, they asked her why she
didn't have one for herself. And she said there was no need,
she didn't believe in one. Then she said something really shocking. She said that her husband
also had life insurance and that it's amazing he's still alive because it's worth a lot. They asked her one more time if she'd be willing to
take a polygraph test and she said, no and that was it, she was off the hook because Russ had his
murder trial starting soon. So Pam was in a good spot. The trial started on November 18th, 2013. The prosecutor, Leah Askey made the case that Russ had killed Betsy
to get insurance money. She said that he had a
lot of student loan debt and that at the time he believed he was still the benefit officiary. They painted Russ as a crude bossy man with a very violent
temper and a drug problem because on the night of her
death he was smoking weed. Now this case truly has some of the worst investigative work I have ever seen. And I've covered a lot of cases. During the trial, police
officers talked about a blue star test that they had run and they are determined that there
was blood all over the house and also leaving the bedroom, it lit up everywhere. But when they went to take pictures of it, their camera malfunctioned. So they have no evidence of that. All they have is the officer's testimony. Lab tests didn't find
blood on the kitchen floor. They also looked in the drains to see if anyone had
showered after killing Betsy, but no blood was found
in the drains either. Also there were no bloody
footprints at the scene and there were no footprints
or marks from Russ' slippers. So Betsy's daughters, Leah and Mariah had been 21 and 17 when
their mother was killed. And they testified against Russ. Leah said that Betsy and
Russ fought all the time, that it wasn't the brady
bunch of their house. The medical examiner
who did Betsy's autopsy said that she was very
likely dead before 7:21. In court, they talked the
possibility of a cadaveric spasm, which is when the body sets
into rigor mortis very quickly. It's a very rare phenomenon and it can sometimes happen
when there's some type of extreme physical exertion
right before death. But it's very, very unlikely that this happened in Betsy's scenario. This is so rare and it's not even accepted as a medical phenomenon in some cases. In court, they also talked about how many officers thought
Russ' behavior was suspicious that he seemed to go up and down in mood. He would go from really calm
to being extremely upset and then the prosecution
made a very strange argument. They said that they believed
that Russ came home that night and had sex with Betsy to
have one last bit of control of her before killing her. And they said that they knew this because they found eight
sperm cells in Betsy's body. Now, most of us probably know that when you have sex, there is a lot more than
eight sperm cells involved. So honestly, this is one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard made in court. And Russ explained that they had sex two days before she died. So of course, when you first hear all the details of the case
and you don't know about Pam, you'd probably think Russ did it. And a lot of the jury were very convinced and this trial was so,
so incredibly unfair because the judge made the decision that no mention of Pam being the beneficiary on Betsy's
life insurance policy could be made, which is a pretty
fucking important detail. They also couldn't talk
about Pam's phone records or anything else, really, because it had no direct
connection to the case, which is wild. When Pam was being
cross-examined during the trial, they asked her about why
she changed her story about what happened that
night several times. But of course the prosecutor objected and the judge sided with them. So the jury never got to hear anything about Pam being the beneficiary, anything about the insurance money, they didn't even know about it, which is so crazy because that is perhaps the most important element in this case. So five days before the trial, Pam had put $100,000
into a separate account for Betsy's daughters. It should have been a lot more than that. And then she said that she planned to use the rest of the money to help a friend's
twelve-year-old daughter whose mother just died from breast cancer. She said, you know, Betsy, would've been very
proud of her for doing this, but she never did it. So during the closing arguments, the prosecutors made their
final pitch to the jury about what they think happened that night. And here's what they think went down. They claimed that when Betsy texted Russ saying that she no longer needed a ride, that's when he decided to put
his master plan into action. They said he left his
phone at his friend's house and then went and made all
the stops to secure his alibi, then went home to kill Betsy. They claimed that he had
sex with her one last time to control her and then
violently killed her. Afterwards, he showered, got dressed, put the dog outside and then called 911. But what about the fact
that he had his phone? What about the fact that
he has this Arby's receipt that is marked at 9:09? Well, their explanation for
that is that a friend came and drop those things off for him and helped him complete
the perfect murder. Joel Schwartz was shocked by this. He ended his closing statement, telling the jury that Leah Askey had just accused four people
of murder with no evidence. They also tried to make the argument that this was some type of
weird role-playing thing because Russ was playing
role-playing games but Joel explained to everyone that his character in the game was like a monk and it just wouldn't even make
sense for him to role-play or for that to have
anything to do with it. It was just a fantastical made-up story. Plus he pointed out that
Betsy was fully clothed when she was found, meaning he would have had to readdress her after he killed her. He also went through all the evidence, showing that there was
no physical evidence tying him to the scene. There was no blood found on him and just the fact that there
wouldn't have been enough time for him to commit such a gruesome murder, quickly clean up and then call 911. It just made no sense, but the jury wasn't buying it. And one of them actually
wrote down in their notes. They're just trying to blame Pam Hupp. So the prosecutors got the final word. They said, "Russ is guilty and there is no evidence
pointing anywhere else," which is just a straight lie because we all know there was, it just wasn't included in the trial. So the jury deliberated for 4 1/2 hours before coming back and saying that they had found Russ guilty. Russ was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. And some of the people
who were on the jury told media that the main
reason they made the decision is because they thought
Russ' alibi was too good that he was trying too
hard to make it seem like he couldn't have done it. So during the trial, Joel privately asked Pam, why had it taken her so long to set up the trust for Betsy's daughters? And she said she had been
dealing with her mother who had Alzheimer's and that's when this shit
gets even more crazy. The day after the trial ended, Joel Schwartz started getting
a ton of emails from people saying that Pam's mom
did not have Alzheimer's. And they explained that she recently died, but not of Alzheimer's. Her mother's name was Shirley Newman. She lived in an assisted living community, but had no idea signs of dementia. And it turns out her death had nothing to do with Alzheimer's
and was nothing natural. Her death was caused by a fall
from a third story balcony of her assisted living home. It turns out that she had
spent the night with Pam, the night that she died. She had gone to the hospital
cause she had back pain. Pam picked her up from the hospital and brought her back to
the assisted living home and told the staff that her mom would not
be coming down for dinner or for breakfast the next morning but she may be down for lunch. And no one heard anything
else from Shirley that night. But then the next morning, around lunchtime actually
it took this long, a housekeeping staff came
in and she quickly realized that Shirley had fallen
off of the balcony. Two of the upright metal
posts from the balcony were down on the ground with Shirley laying next to her body. But the main support bar was
still up there, kind of weird. And when they examined her, they realized that Shirley had eight times the normal dose of Ambien that night. And she had been experiencing
some confusion lately. So the staff thought
maybe she did get confused and had taken too much of her medication and had fallen off the balcony. But after learning all of this, Joel Schwartz remembered
the police reports and that when Pam was being
interrogated she said, that her mom had a huge
life insurance policy and if she wanted money,
she could just kill her. But the police investigated the case and quickly determined that Shirley Newman's death was not suspicious. So time went on, Shirley's death remained an accident and Russ remained in jail for the murder of his wife, Betsy and Pam is just out living. But somewhere along the way, Leah and Mariah changed their minds. And they ended up filing a wrongful death suit against Pam in 2014. And during Pam's deposition for the trial, she seemed incredibly nervous. And she even mispronounced
Betsy's last name a few times. She also refused to say
how much she inherited from her mother, which was odd. But eventually she ended up telling them it was only $100,000, which is very different from
what she originally said. And during the deposition, one of the attorneys referred
to Betsy as Pam's best friend and Pam corrected them and said, "she was one of my best friends," but then less than a
minute later, she said, Betsy was her best friend. She said, "Betsy loved me. Whether she told people or
not she was my best friend, I don't know, but she
was and she loved me." She started saying how
Betsy would want her to have the best life possible. And when the attorney asked her, if maybe Betsy would want her
daughters to have a bit more of her life insurance policy, Pam said, "Absolutely not. That's not what she would
have wanted at all." It turns out that that initial detective who was the lead on the case, Ryan McCarrick had told her to set up the trust for Betsy's daughter just to keep up her appearance. And she waited a week until
the trial to set up that trust. But by that time, her and her husband had
just bought themselves a new four bedroom house. And it turns out that just a few weeks after the trial ended, Pam emptied the whole account and Leah and Mariah never
saw any of that money. So they ended up requesting immune motion, which is a rare motion that
brings new evidence for a judge to consider that might
nullify a guilty verdict. And actually immune motion
has only been granted three other times in history
by the State of Missouri. So this was the fourth time and it was a really big deal. So of course, Russ was very relieved and happy that this was going to happen. So a new trial began for
Russ in June of 2015. This time the prosecutor's office randomly found 132
pictures of the crime scene that hadn't been used in the first trial. So they were able to use that this time and actually show blood evidence and what the crime scene looked like, which is very important to a jury. And not only did he now have those photos, but these photos wildly
contradicted everything that the prosecutors had
presented in the first trial. First of all, a crime scene investigator determined that there was no sign of any type of cleanup at the crime scene. They testified that
the floors in the house still had dirt on them
unrelated to the crime scene. So it's not like they had been cleaned. Plus they believed that
the blood on the slippers had been purposely placed there and the slippers had been
thrown in the closet. Then something really big
came out during this trial. It turns out that Leah Askey, who was the prosecutor in the first trial, who had had some type of
relationship with Michael Lang, who was the captain of
investigations in Lincoln County during the previous trial. In fact, there was email proof that they were having an affair. This was an email that he had sent to her. It said, "This is not a puppy
dog crush on the hot girl in high school kind of love, this is epic. Shit stories are written
about kind of love. I will do my best to be
everything you need." Leah tried to deny that
they had a relationship because that looks really bad 'cause now it's obvious
that they could have been working together the whole time. Also in this trial, Joel Schwartz was able
to get a copy of one of Pam's interrogations that
he had never seen before. And in this, Pam said something shocking. She claimed that she
and Betsy were lovers, not lesbians though she said, she explained that Betsy's trauma from her husband had led her to Pam. She said that she was
kind of replacing Russ, that she was acting as a husband for Betsy in her final days. Pam also claimed that a month
before Betsy was killed, Russ had walked in on
her and Betsy having sex. She claimed that he was very
angry that he had taken Pam grabbed her neck and screamed in her face. And according to her, he screamed, "If I ever catch you
guys doing this again, I will bury you in my backyard." Pam insisted over and over again that Betsy was planning
to leave Russ that night, but she wasn't able to. But what's very interesting
about all this is, close friends of Pam's said that she was one of
the most homophobic people that they had ever known, imagine that. And also to spice things up even more, a month before this new trial, Pam came out with a huge
new bit of information. She claimed that Russ was
actually at the crime scene that night. She explained that she suddenly
had this recovered memory due to her head injury. And that the night that
she dropped her off, she actually did see two men in Russ' car, a silverish-whitish looking car. And she said that one of these
two men was definitely Russ. She said that she literally
just remembered this information because of her head injury, but also because of how
much Ambien she takes. She has major sleep problems and Ambien can leave her feeling cloudy, but it really seemed like Pam
just had selective memory. She remembered anything that
would make her seem less guilty and make Russ look more guilty. Also this time, for some reason, they were able to actually
find that document that Pam had been telling them about, you know, detailing how bad everything was with Russ and how she needed her help and stuff. They were never able to find that, but then they actually did
recover it from her computer. But what's weird is the
document was from Microsoft 97, which Betsy did not have
installed on her computer. Also, it was the only file
saved on her computer, where the author of it
was listed as unknown. A small bit of the document
was read in court and it said, "I know we talked about this yesterday, but I feel I really
need you to believe me. I really do feel that Russ is
going to do something to me. He continued to tell me how much money he would make after I die. Last night was the worst. I fell asleep on the
couch while watching TV. I woke up to Russ holding
a pillow over my face. He said he wanted me to
know what dying feels like, I need to change my life insurance. Do you think I could put it in your name and you could help my
daughters when they need it? If something happens to me, would you please show this to the police?" Now Betsy's actual close friends, one of them being Rita Wilson knew that this was absolute bullshit and there's no way Betsy
would have written this. And if she really needed help, she would have reached out to
one of her closest friends, not Pam who had only been
around for the last six months. So in this trial, they opted
for a bench trial instead. So that means there's no jury and it's gonna be decided on by a judge. And the prosecutor on the
case was still Leah Askey. And she tried to prevent as
much information as she could from being shared during the trial but the judge wasn't
having any of it this time, he wanted to hear it all. So now that they could introduce in trial that Pam could have done
this and here's why. Here's the information about her changing life insurance policy, here is the information about her changing her story multiple times. Here's how much money she was
gonna make when Betsy died. And that changed everything. Pam was in the courtroom during the trial and was willing to testify but she was never called to the stand. So eventually she went home. So she wasn't even there when the judge read his final verdict. And that was that Russ was
acquitted of all of the charges. And as you can imagine, this was huge news and people
were very torn about it. There was a lot of, you know,
talk going around in the town of what could have truly happened. A lot of people were looking at Pam now. So in July of 2017, Russ ended up filing a civil lawsuit against the Lincoln County prosecutor and three detectives who
worked on Betsy's case. He accused them of fabricating evidence, ignoring evidence that
would have exonerated him and failing to investigate
the other obvious suspect. And he actually settled just
last year in March of 2020 for $2 million. - My lawyers, I think it was about six
months after my exoneration decided that we were
gonna file our lawsuit. - Of course, Russ and Joel Schwartz who'd been working on the
case for years at this point were relieved that Russ was free, but they were worried that
if Pam was still free, she could hurt someone else because believed that she
had also killed her mom. So just when you think this
video is coming to an end, it is definitely not. And all my pets have
abandoned me at this point because it's taking too long. So oh, a cat, I'll take a cat, thank you. This case continues to get even crazier because in August of 2016, this 911 call came into dispatch. - [Operator 2] 911 what's your emergency? - [Woman] Hey, hello, someone
has broken into my house, help. - [Operator 2] What's
the address you are at? (indistinct) - [Woman] No, get away,
get out, get out, get out. Help. - [Operator 2] Ma'am, what's
the address you're at? (indistinct) - [Woman] Help. - [Operator 2] Hello. - [Woman] Help, help. - [Operator 2] Ma'am, can you hear me? - [Woman] Help. - We cut the recording off right there because in the next seconds you could hear five gunshots ring out in succession. - When officers arrived on the scene, 33 year old Louis Gumpenberger was dead. And guess who killed him? None other than 58 year old Pam Hupp, according to Pam, Lewis had
attacked her in her driveway and was asking her for Russ' money. He held a knife to her throat and scared the shit out of her. She said she managed to knock
the knife out of his hand and then ran into her house just in time for her
to be able to get a gun that she had in her nightstand because this guy had
followed her into her house. She said, when Louis came in, she shot him until she was out of bullets. Now, Louis was a partier
in his younger days, but after a car crash in 2005, he had suffered severe brain damage and couldn't really
process complex thoughts. He also had a limp and
limited use of his left hand. He lived with his mother
and rarely left the house except to go on short neighborhood walks. So when they first interviewed Pam, they brought up the name Russ 'cause she was heavily
involved in that and she said, she didn't know anyone named Russ. But during her second interview, she magically remembered
who Russ Faria is. And this next part is one of the weirdest things
I've ever heard in a case, but it turns out a week before Louis died. Pam was actually out pretending
to be a Dateline producer because Dateline has covered
Betsy's case like five times. And none of them are available online because they take everything
off which is super helpful. So I've never seen any of them, but Pam was very worried about the narrative that Dateline put out. She was constantly calling them up, trying to feed them
information about Russ, make sure they were pointing
more in the direction of Russ and less at the direction of her. And it actually got to the point where she pretended to be
one of their producers. She went up to this
random woman in public, said that she was a Dateline producer and that she needed her
to reenact a 911 call and that she would pay
her 1,000 bucks to do it just right there on the street. And this woman actually
thought about it for a second because she thought it was
kind of a cool opportunity, but she was really confused. I mean, Pam had actual proof that she was working for Dateline. She didn't have like a card or anything and the more that the
woman thought about it, she just thought it was really strange. Like why would Dateline be
out asking random people to do their voice work? Is that really how it worked? And it turns out Pam, didn't just find this woman on the street, she actually picked her
up from a trailer park. She was literally going around and asking people to help her with this. And the woman decided
she didn't wanna do it. And so Pam just brought her back home, but she thought he was very suspicious and she ended up reporting it to police. They also pulled up security
footage from this woman's home and saw Pam's vehicle there. And it turns out that Pam had found Louis and had lured him to her house to do the same thing,
to record a 911 call. So the day after Louis was murdered, I know this is getting confusing,
but try to stay with me. Mark Hupp, Pam's husband,
threw out a bunch of trash that contained a lot of important things, including Betsy's death certificate, a 1099 tax form for Betsy, Shirley Newman's will, Pam's mom, transcripts of Pam's police interviews, sticky notes with bank information on them for multiple relatives, some T-shirts and a pair of flip-flops. When they found Louis, he actually had nine
$100 bills in his pocket in a plastic bag with a note
and this is what it said. It instructed him to get Russ money, leave it in the woodpile,
outside Russ' house, then kill Pam Hupp. Once that was done, he'd
get the rest of his payment. Now Russ didn't have a
woodpile outside of his house, but he did recently and a neighbor's security
footage actually saw Pam driving around his
neighborhood casing his house. It was obvious that Pam was
feeling the heat at this point, it was making a desperate attempt to try and frame Russ again. Dateline had already
put out three episodes on Betsy's murder and the US attorney General's
office was reviewing the case. So the heat was on. It didn't take them
very long to figure out that Pam had killed Louis and
that he never attacked her. And seven days after the shooting, Pam was arrested and charged
with first degree murder. And things just continue to get crazier because they bring Pam
in to interrogate her and they leave her in
the interrogation room while they're waiting
for her attorney to come. And Pam from experience knew that she was being filmed in there. So she very subtly and sneakily pulled a pen off of the desk and put it in her pocket. You can also see her in the footage, putting her fingers up to
her neck multiple times, looking for her juggler vein. Then she asked to use the bathroom and was escorted there
by a female officer. And as I'm sure you've already guessed, Pam then tried to end her life because she knew she had been caught. So she stabbed herself
multiple times in the wrist and in the neck with the pen. You can actually hear an
officer calling out for a medic from the interrogation room footage. - [Officer] We need a medic. Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, talk to me. - Luckily officers were able to get to her and get her medical help before she able to take her own life. So she does have to face what she did and they took a mugshot of her and in it, she has white
bandages all around her neck. So in 2019, she enters an Alford plea, which we talked about in last week's video on Michael Peterson. If you haven't heard of an Alford plea, it's basically where someone
is acknowledging that the court does have enough evidence
to convict them of a crime, but maintaining your
innocence at the same time. It's a very strange thing
that is pretty rare, but because of the Alford plea, she was able to avoid the death penalty and get life in prison
for Louis' death instead. So that's when Mike Wood comes along, who is the newly elected Lincoln County prosecuting attorney and he decided that with Pam
just committing another murder, they should probably look at the murder of Betsy Faria again. So that brings us to now. And when I decided to cover
this case back in June, I had no idea this was gonna
be happening this month, but on July 12th at a press conference, Mike Wood announced that Pam Hupp had been charged with first degree murder and armed criminal action in the stabbing against
Betsy in December of 2011. - So as you may know I'm here to announce that we have filed murder
charges in the first degree against Pamela Hupp in the
stabbing death of Betsy Faria. For a decade, this case has loomed large as a dark cloud over Lincoln County. And in late December,
2018, as I was sworn in as the prosecuting attorney, I knew we had to work diligently to begin a thorough review of the facts surrounding Betsy's death. After a complete and comprehensive
review and investigation, I came to the conclusion that
beyond a reasonable doubt, Pamela Hupp killed Betsy Faria and I believe her motivation
was simple, for greed. Just four days prior to Betsy's death, Pam Hupp became the sole
beneficiary of Betsy Faria's $150,000 life insurance policy. The facts in this case are
quite simply indisputable. Pamela Hupp was the last
person to see Betsy alive, cell phone records indicate that she was at or near the
home at the time of the death. She knew that Betsy's husband
would not be home that night. She lied about her whereabouts. She lied about the details. And lastly, she murdered an
innocent man in cold blood to prevent herself from
being considered a suspect. - He said that Pam had
waited until Betsy was weak from her chemotherapy
appointments to kill her. And that she also knew that if she did on a Tuesday night, Russ wouldn't be home. He went to game night, every Tuesday. It was the perfect way to frame him. And according to court documents, they are accusing her of
dipping Betsy socks into blood and dragging them around the house to make it look like
a more violent attack. - The probable cause statement attached to charging documents
outline in great detail an extremely compelling
circumstantial murder case. One that is very difficult to deny yet prosecutors and investigators
denied it all the same. Sadly, all of these facts were available to prosecutors at the beginning, even while Betsy's husband was twice prosecuted for her death, this was one of the poorest
examples of investigative work that I as well as my team have ever encountered. Driven largely by ego, working toward an agenda
rather than truth. And because of this, I'm also announcing today
that we are launching an investigation into the potential prosecutorial and police misconduct in the Faria investigation. - They also found proof
that the prosecutor had asked witnesses to lie on the stand and that after Russ' acquittal, the Sheriff's office
drafted a destruction order to destroy all the physical
evidence in the case. As of right now, they're saying that a report
will be released to the public after this investigation and criminal charges may be filed against law enforcement as well. He also noted that
perjury in a murder case is a class A felony with
no statue of limitations and the prosecutors are going to be seeking the
death penalty for Pam Hupp. But of course, Pam has continued
to deny any involvement in Betsy's murder. And here's Russ' reaction to all of this. - [Reporter] What are the emotions that you are feeling today? - Right now, a lot of
relief and joy, you know. I did win my second trial
and I was exonerated but for law enforcement to
actually come out and say, you know, hey, we believe there was a shoddy investigation and we believe that it went the other, that it should've gone the other way, for that to be publicly said, means a whole lot to me. And the only way that
I can describe Pam Hupp is evil and cunning. Compare her to people like Charles Manson. I'd just like to thank
everybody that supported me through these last 10 years and everybody has helped
us get to this point and just, you know, hang
in there a little longer, we're gonna have a trial and I'm gonna do something
I haven't done before and it's take the stand. - And just recently on July 15th, Leah and Mariah spoke publicly about everything for the first. - It was a time where I
was supposed to figure out my next steps in the world and then I got my whole world shaken up when my mom passed away and I basically lost my
father in the process. - They told me if I were not
to talk during the trial, they were going to have to subpoena me. And Leah Askey told me
I would not like that. - Leah and Mariah explained that every time they brought up the idea of Pam having killed their mother, they were told that that's
impossible, there's no way. And prosecutors were feeding them the idea that the only possible suspect was Russ. - And they always had a snarky response. It kind of made me feel stupid for asking. So as a 17 year old just kind of trying to figure out this whole process, they just made my feelings feel invalid. - And they also revealed that years ago, someone sent in an anonymous
letter to them at work that told them a bunch of
things about their stepfather, which only further divided
them from their stepfather Russ who really needed them at the time. But now looking back, they're sure that this
letter came from Pam. - A very hateful letter
saying really mean things and it made it seem like it was from someone affiliated with Russ. Looking back now, I'm sure
it was sent from Pam Hupp. We had police conspiring
to keep us from Russ and Pam sending us letters, keeping us kind of against him. As a teenager and a person
who's grieving their mother, it's really hard to wrap your
head around the whole process. - They also broke our family apart and not only did we lose our mom, we lost both of our parents because of their shitty investigation. - So this is not over yet. This story is only going to continue, but that is all I have as of right now. And Mike was careful not
to specifically name anyone in the press conference, but it sounds like they're
gonna be going after the prosecutors and
possibly some other people who messed up everything in this case. We probably won't know a
lot about that for a while. He said that he's hoping
to finish the investigation by the end of this year. But as far as Pam goes, I'm not sure how fast things will move. In fact, there could already be some new updates out by the time this video goes up. And if there are, I will leave
them in a pinned comment. And I think this might
be the longest video I have ever done. But, wasn't that a rollercoaster? I'm so glad that all of
this happened this week before I found that Pam
was charged and you know, justice is in motion for Betsy, but I just can't believe all the years that Russ spent in jail, all for murdering his wife who
was already dying of cancer, he was already losing her to that. Then she is murdered violently, he has to find her. Then he's charged with her murder and sent to jail for years, unbelievable. Meanwhile, this Pam woman
is just running around continuing to kill people. She clearly killed her mom, she killed Louis and we all know she's
the one who killed Betsy all for greed. Truly, I think this is one of
the wildest cases out there. Wow, I feel exhausted, like I need a nap after that. Of course though, I wanna know what you guys think of all this. I'm pretty sure I know how you'll feel, but go ahead and let me
know your thoughts anyway, but that is going to be
it for me today, guys. I hope you enjoyed
learning about this case and found it as interesting
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listened all the way to the end. I know this one was very long, but I so appreciate you joining me and listening to what I
have to say on these cases, but I hope you guys have
a good rest of your day. Stay safe out there and
I will see you next week. (upbeat music)
