At 9:40 p.m. on December 27, 2011, Russ Faria walked into his house on Sumac Drive in Troy, Missouri, and called 911. His wife Betsy, 42, lay on the living room floor near the couch. She had been stabbed more than 55 times. A serrated kitchen knife was still lodged in her neck, and her wrists had been cut to the bone. He had spent the evening at a friend’s game night in Lake Saint Louis, stopped at an Arby’s on the way home, and kept the receipt. Detectives arrested him the next day. The friend who had driven Betsy home that night, Pam Hupp, was already telling them what she had seen.

A Dying Woman and a Change of Beneficiary

Betsy Faria had metastatic breast cancer and knew it was terminal. Days before Christmas 2011, less than a week before she died, she signed paperwork changing the beneficiary on a $150,000 State Farm life insurance policy from her husband to Pam Hupp. Hupp, then 53, a former insurance agent, told investigators the money was meant for Betsy’s two daughters and would go into a trust. No trust was ever funded, and under oath years later she admitted keeping most of it.

On the evening of the murder, Hupp picked Betsy up from a chemotherapy session in O’Fallon and drove her home. She said she dropped her off around 7 p.m. and left. Cell records placed her phone near the house at 7:04 p.m.

The Conviction of Russ Faria

Prosecutor Leah Askey built her case around the husband. Four friends put Russ at the game night until about 9 p.m., and the Arby’s receipt and surveillance video matched his 25-mile drive home. None of it mattered. In November 2013, Judge Christina Mennemeyer barred the defense from presenting evidence pointing to Hupp, including the beneficiary change and the 7:04 p.m. call. Jurors did hear about a laptop document in which Betsy supposedly described fearing her husband; it had been created in an obsolete version of Microsoft Word.

On November 21, 2013, the jury convicted Russ of first-degree murder and armed criminal action. He was sentenced to life without parole plus 30 years. His attorney, Joel Schwartz, kept working the case from outside.

Retrial, Acquittal, and a Mother’s Fall

An appeals court ordered a new trial in 2015. Russ chose a bench trial before Judge Steven Ohmer, and this time Schwartz was allowed to talk about Pam Hupp. On November 6, 2015, Ohmer acquitted him. Russ had served nearly four years. In March 2020, Lincoln County settled his civil rights lawsuit for $2 million.

Reporters had also begun asking about another death. At the end of October 2013, Hupp’s 77-year-old mother, Shirley Neumann, was found on the lawn beneath the balcony of her third-floor apartment at a senior living complex in Fenton. The aluminum railing was broken. Hupp said she had been the last person to see her mother alive. An autopsy found zolpidem, a sleep medication, at roughly eight times a normal dose. The death was ruled accidental until November 2017, when the St. Louis County medical examiner changed the manner to undetermined. No one has been charged.

The Man in the Hallway

On August 16, 2016, at 12:08 p.m., Hupp called 911 from her home on Little Brave Drive in O’Fallon and reported an intruder. She said a man had forced his way in with a knife, demanding Russ’s money, and that she had shot him in self-defense. The man was Louis Gumpenberger, 33, who had disabilities from a 2005 car crash. He had been shot five times in the hallway. In his pockets police found $900 in cash and a handwritten note instructing him to kidnap Hupp, get Russ Faria’s money from her bank, and kill her for a $10,000 payment.

The staging fell apart fast. A $100 bill on Hupp’s dresser carried a serial number in sequence with bills on the body. Witnesses described a woman calling herself a Dateline producer named Cathy, offering people cash to reenact a 911 call. Hupp was arrested on August 23, 2016. The Lululemon murder showed how far a killer will go to dress a scene; Hupp built one from nothing.

An Alford Plea, Then a Second Murder Charge

St. Charles County Prosecutor Tim Lohmar sought the death penalty. In June 2019, Hupp entered an Alford plea to first-degree murder and armed criminal action, accepting that the state could convict her without admitting guilt. On August 12, 2019, she was sentenced to life without parole. A jury later awarded Gumpenberger’s mother $3 million; by mid-2022, $783 had been collected from Hupp’s prison wages.

Askey lost reelection, and the new Lincoln County prosecutor, Mike Wood, reopened the Faria file. On July 12, 2021, he charged Hupp with first-degree murder in Betsy’s death and said he would seek execution. His theory: Hupp attacked Betsy while she lay weakened from chemotherapy, then pulled off her socks and used them to smear blood so the scene would read as a husband’s rage. NBC’s “The Thing About Pam,” with Renée Zellweger as Hupp, aired in March 2022 and made a regional story national, much as the streaming era did for the Menendez brothers.

Where the Case Stands in 2026

In June 2025, a special prosecutor charged former sheriff’s deputy Michael Merkel with two counts of perjury, alleging he testified at Russ’s 2013 trial that crime scene photos had failed to develop when at least seven images clearly showed blood-test luminescence. His bond was set at $250,000, cash only.

Hupp’s trial had been set for August 3, 2026, in St. Charles County. It did not happen. In April, Judge Christopher McDonough removed himself and Judge Joseph Rathert took over. On April 28, 2026, Hupp waived her right to a jury in exchange for the state dropping the death penalty. She will face a bench trial, now scheduled for January 2028. Wood said the arrangement makes it easier for witnesses. Russ Faria said he was looking forward to saying his piece on the stand. The defense has pressed on DNA: Y-STR testing found male DNA on the knife handle that does not match Russ, a thread defense lawyers also pulled in the Idaho student murders.

Why This Case Still Matters

The Faria case is a study in how a bad first theory hardens. Detectives had a husband, a knife, and a friend describing a troubled marriage, and they stopped looking. An alibi with receipts, a beneficiary change days before a death, and a phone ping near the house were all available in 2011 and all set aside. Russ Faria lost four years. Louis Gumpenberger, by the prosecution’s account, died because Hupp needed a new story to keep the old one alive. A perjury charge against a former investigator and a trial still pending 17 years on show how long a correction takes once a system commits to a mistake.

Betsy Faria’s socks, pulled from her feet and soaked in her own blood, were photographed on the living room floor in December 2011; the first jury never learned why they were there, and the judge who will finally decide has not yet heard a word of testimony.

Related Cases

• The Lululemon murder — a Bethesda store, a staged robbery, and a coworker’s lie.
• The Menendez brothers — Beverly Hills killings, two trials, and a 2025 resentencing.
• The Idaho student murders — four students, a knife sheath, and Kohberger’s plea.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Pam Hupp
• National Registry of Exonerations: Russell Faria
• NBC News Dateline: Pam Hupp avoids death penalty with plea
• St. Louis Magazine: Pam Hupp sentenced to life
• First Alert 4: Perjury charges shine new light on 2011 trial
• First Alert 4: Pam Hupp waives jury trial, death penalty dropped

Watch the video version: new true-crime cases every day on Enigma Chronicles Reels on Facebook. Follow the page so you never miss a case.