Morbid - Episode 338: Interview with Defense Attorney and Author of BONE DEEP, Joel Schwartz

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

You might remember episodes 287 and 288 when we covered the Betsy Faria case. Betsy was found dead in her home just two days after Christmas in 2011. Immediately suspicion fell on her husband Russ Faria, even though there was evidence pointing in the direction of one of Betsy’s friends, Pam Hupp. We got to sit down with one of the authors of Bone Deep, the first and only book on this case Joel Schwartz. Joel was Russ Faria’s defense attorney in both of his trials and ultimately got Russ exonerated. Joel was an absolute pleasure to have on the show and we hope you enjoy his one of a kind insight on this case!BONE DEEP by Joel Schwartz & Charles Bosworth Jr.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's W-O-N-D-E-R-Y-P-O-D. Audible.com slash wandery pod or text wandery pod to 500-500 to try audible for free for 30 days. Angie has made it easier than ever to connect with skilled professionals to get all your home projects done well. Just bring them your project online, or with the Angie app, and answer a few questions. With Angie, you can book instantly at an upfront price, or request and compare quotes from multiple pros, so you can find the best price for your project.

So the next time you have a home project, just Angie that and start getting the most out of your home. Download the free Angie mobile app today or visit Angie.com. That's ANGi.com. Hey weirdos, I'm Alina Anash and this is morbid. And it's a special episode of Morbid because today we got to sit down with one of the co-authors of a new book that might sound familiar to you. This book is Bone Deep, Untangling the Betsy Furia Murder Case. And it was written by one of the authors who we were joined with today, Joel Schwartz.

He's amazing. Amazing. He was the defense attorney for Russ Furia, if you remember, and his co-author is Charles Bosworth. And like, are you almost at Charles? I really just wanted to be British about it. Charles Bosworth. Charles is such a distinguished name, you know?

But we covered this case. I think it was episode 287 and 288. It is one of the craziest cases I would say that we've ever covered. And so crazy, it went on to inspire a Keith Morrison podcast. Hell yeah, Keith Morrison called The Thing About Pam. And then that podcast went on to inspire maybe something that you might have seen on TV.

I'm not sure. We have not, we have not gotten any messages that you should watch this. So I think my entire message box on like Instagram and Twitter is just filled with like, have you seen nothing about Pam? Which we get it because it is so good. You guys are right. Yeah, it's wild.

It's a wild show, but we got the pleasure of sitting down with Joe Schwartz today and just kind of got to walk through his whole book. I mean, obviously, again, he was the defense attorney for Russ Furria. So he knows this case inside and out. Unfortunately, in the first case, Russ was sentenced to life without parole in prison for a crime that he, one million bajillion percent did not commit.

There was zero evidence against him. I mean, there was so much evidence pointing in another direction that it's wild that we're even here talking about this. It sure is. But without further ado, here's Joel. He's awesome. We love him. Yeah, Joel. So we'll get right into it. So we have Joel Schwartz on the podcast today. We're going to be talking about his new book, Bone Deep, which is absolutely incredible. And congratulations on finishing that and getting it out there. Well, thank you very much. It was quite the process.

Frankly, I would say start to finish it was the book itself, talk about 10 months. The case itself is now 10 years old. Wow. It's so crazy to think that it's wild. It's almost a teenager. And still ongoing. It's definitely going to make it to a teenager because we have a multi-scheduled for trial for a year or two years who knows. Wow, I know that's the frustrating thing too because everybody's waiting for answers on this. So with that being said, this obviously has to be one of the craziest

cases that you've ever covered. Was there a certain point in your involvement that you said I just have to write a book about this? I kept saying I have to write a book after I won. It was, I've never heard of a scene in another case like it as far as my career or anybody's career. It's went through. There's been now six deadlines. Most ever on cases were four and that was two extremely high profile cases.

That was the OJ Simpson case and the John Bony Ramsey case. We have completed six episodes. Three of them were two episodes and we are, and we will be doing a seventh episode without question on Pam's trial. So the fact that one case has now consumed almost 10 hours of day life in addition to a mini series, gives you a real good indication as to how far out this case was.

Yeah, it's pretty telling. It's like a rotten onion that you just keep pulling back the different layers. It's been it's been absolutely incredible and it was heartbreaking and heart wrenching and then it kind of reversed. Now it's been a happy ending for... Well, I say it's been a happy ending. It's been a happy ending for me. It's been a happy ending for Russ. But his wife is deceased. She more than likely would have been deceased by this time. But the Lewis-Gumpenberger situation

where Pam Hub attempted to frame Russ the second time is as unfortunate as it could possibly get. It really is. He just, he didn't have anything to do with this at all. There was no reason for him to ever be involved. Now, that gives you an indication as to who Pam Huff is and even more. So if you think it through what she did

and she hasn't been charged, and I have to say it legendally, but her mother died with Pam being the last one with her and somebody tampered with the bars. And if it was Pam, she had to take her mother who was well under her. She was 200 and something pounds. She was not mobile. She had, I think it was 16 times or eight times the recommended dosage of ambient.

Yep. So it had to be a complete dead weight she had a roll to the edge of that gal. Can a squeeze her mother through the bars and push her from three floors onto a concrete slab. That's diabolical. Yeah. And she came right out and said that if she did want to kill somebody for life insurance, she would kill her mother. So she basically admitted. We have paid attention. That's crazy. She advertised what she was going to do. They glossed right over it and she did it. That's crazy. It really is. I mean, I've often said if I knew now, what if I knew then what I know now, I am as anti-gun as they come. Not to make a political statement.

We've carried a gun knowing what was going on with her running around. Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't blame you at all. Yeah, so it is. The thing started out. I got a call. And I've since talked to several people like the women who played Betsy with who played tennis with Betsy for real, who was Russ' first wife. And they were all told when they said, what happened to Betsy? They said her husband killed her, her husband confessed.

And when I went into this, that's the information that I have. Now, I always tend to go into things with that. Both eyes open, along with a little bit of cynicism. I also still, after 33 years, go in with a little bit of naivete, which it's just my nature, I can't help it. And I went in, I met Ross, and I believed him. His story was simply too good,

and it was simply so easily disprovable. All right. A couple calls to you. I'll buy witnesses and check out these videos. And I would say, you know, why did you use waste my time lying to me? Yeah, there's video footage. There's receipts. There's everything.

I honestly believe, once I got hired and met with Russ and got the discovery, which is the reports in the video. I knew I was going to sit down, I knew in my heart, and in my soul I was going to sit out with a young prosecutor without being patronizing and sitting and have a long conversation with her, and in this case would be over. He would be dismissed, and I didn't know if they would be able to go after Pam Huff or not. They had done zero investigation regarding her and couldn't have been more wrong. Seriously, do you think that it all comes down to the 911 call? Do you think that's why they zeroed in on Russ? Because his first initial thought was since her arm had been slashed.

It was suicide. I certainly think it, I can't say it all comes not to the events part of it. They got the nightmare long call. He said suicide. And as we all know, the spouse did it. Generally, the husband did it. Oh, hey, yeah. They're at least a suspect.

But in this context, they assumed he did it. I don't know why in still to the state can't explain why nobody stepped back. There wasn't an officer in the room or cooler head that would prevail that said, wait a minute. And if they look, it was really easy to determine. Betsy Faria had attempted suicide in the past. She actually had been involuntarily committed by some working officer for running a stop sign. She said, he walked up turns and said, you okay? She said, I just want to kill myself. So he had her committed about a year before.

And she had just been diagnosed with terminal illness. So even though it was relatively ludicrous, given her injuries and given her knife in her neck, for us to assume that we're suicide, his reasons were sound. Definitely. Yeah, it made sense. Now, he didn't think it through and he didn't think, okay, a knife in her neck and this

gash on her forearm, I mean, her wrist was slit. The wrist wasn't what I would call her right wrist wasn't slit. It was as if somebody was trying to cut her hand off. I mean, it was, and they almost succeeded. It was all the way to the bone and almost three of the bone. So you can't do that and live. And if you look at it, it was very little blood. So we know this is all done post mortem.

However, had they looked at that, they may have considered, okay, maybe we should take a look at this. And especially once they discovered that Pam Hupp was a person who was assigned the insurance proceeds five days previously through various suspicious needs. We still don't feel the state don't know exactly what happened.

Although we do know, Pam's office, insurance office had been investigated for four juries several times in the past. And I think we know what that's about. Additionally, we too. That was the last one, with her, Pam initially lied about going in the house, Pam lied about staying there, Pam lied about where she was, and she called that seat 20 minutes later. So given those, I'm not saying that conclusive that Pam helped committed it, but why would nobody look at her? I pushed and I pushed and I continued to push.

And I guess I could say ultimately I got somewhere. She's charged now, but that took about 10 years. We all have that one friend. When you ask how they're doing, she says she's fine, he says he's fine. It's the same with my cat. For both of them, Franklin and Lux, they seem fine, and because I don't speed cat, I usually just go with it. Or excuse me, I should say I used to just go with it.

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Pretty litter.com slash morbid. So crazy that it took that long, especially when you think about all the things she lied about the morning after. Did you go in the house? No, I didn't. Yeah, I did. Only for a minute. Actually, a while. Like, it doesn't make any sense. I can't believe they didn't look at her right away. And that actually leads me into my next question in something you touched upon was the life insurance because Russ had been the beneficiary for close to 11 years if I have that right.

And then Pam was switched as the beneficiary. And this allegedly all happened at a library and a librarian bore witness to this change. Do you believe that, that whole thing happened or do you think it was a shady or manner of events how she ended up on that beneficiary line? No, I know it didn't happen with Pam, because Pam and what we call Pee Doc,

the letter that was written on Betsy's computer. Yep. We know it was written the day before the beneficiary change. And it was allegedly from Betsy saying, I want to change you and make you my beneficiary. Well, so Pam knew the day in advance that that was going to happen. Initially, Pam said Betsy surprised her.

It'll send me to the library. Surprise to her and pull out this phone that was already filled out. Well, Betsy zip code was incorrect. She wouldn't have done that. And there was something sign. And the librarians say, yeah, these two women came up to me, the blonde, which would be Pam, was carrying a conversation, she seemed to be in charge,

but Betsy did use her library card and check out a book that day. So we do know they were there, only know something was signed. I think it was probably that beneficiary for them. I've had handwriting experts look at it and they do say it's Betsy's, they say what they say is they can't say that it's not Betsy signature. Right. So it probably was Betsy signature and I think she either signed it not knowing she was signing it or as her friend Linda had talked about the she was supposed to meet Pam and Friday and didn't want to she Pam was pressuring her or something. So what we did find out is they were going door to door collecting money for a friend of Pepsi, for a friend of Pam, so I'm sorry who's undergoing cancer and eventually died. They were using her Christmas card and it was all

a bunch of garbage, but Pam was taking money from these people and I'm guessing that she convinced that they were going to open up some sort of home for women with cancer and this is my own termizing this but sure in any sense and maybe she just told Betsy what just used it for some form of collateral with a bank to get alone to do what we need to do. She had led Betsy to believe that she had plenty of money so she really didn't need this and that's been my assumption all along, but there's just no way to prove it. Right.

And I had to be done immediately because they were gonna send notification about the change of beneficiary to Betsy. It also leads me to believe that Pam said, I'll just hold on to it. I won't submit it, we won't do anything with it. So I think all those things leads to believe. We know something fishy went on.

It's just impossible to say, but you know, your intuition is spot on, at least it's in agreement with my intuition. I just have nothing to go on behind the way I already know. That's exactly how I feel, but your scenario makes a lot more sense to me. It's so frustrating to not have any, it's like there's, you feel like there has to be something that will prove,

because you're like, this just makes so much sense. Right, that it has to be the truth, but you're like, give me that thing. I need tangible proof. I need tangible proof. Well, that leads me into my next question too. I feel like so many cases involved this whole life insurance as a motto for murder. Just asking you, because again, you've covered so many cases involve this whole life insurance as a motto for murder.

I'm just asking you, because again, you've covered so many cases. Roughly what percentage of cases that you've taken on, does life insurance seem to be a major factor in? Very few. Really? That's something in the movies. Ah. It's just too easy. Most people, contrary to what you believe, the case where the husband hires the hitman to kill his wife, those all make the news.

Those become glorified there, out there the husband takes, usually takes the kids away, something along those lines. It's more often than not a heated argument. It's just the life insurance, it's just, if you're plotting it out and you have life insurance, it's just too simple. This is, I've never had a case like this where some random individual is the beneficiary of life insurance proceeds again, which is, speaks to the lives as to what the hell were they thinking about when they didn't invest in

the payment? Seriously. Yeah, and then what the hell was a judge thinking which you didn't allow that in. But it's, after 33 years, I don't know that I can think of more than one or two cases where a life insurance proceeds where the motivating factor. There are others where people receive the life insurance, but nothing where it was just bought within days. It had become a motive. Most, you know, somebody's married 20 years

and they've had life insurance on their spouse for 20 years. You can argue it's a motive, but it kind of falls flat. Why didn't he or she kill the spouse within the last 20 years, you can argue it's a moly, it's kind of fall flat. Why didn't he or she kill that spouse within the last 20 years? Right. That makes sense. Thank you. That's why it's interesting.

Thank you for saying that because it's good to talk to like real people about this because it's true that it gets skewed with like CSI and movies and like a lot of order because that's always the like number one motive. But when you really think of it, what you're saying is right that it's like, those are just highly public. It's too easy. Yeah. Well, what was crazy in this case is the reason that judge, the prosecutor argued that Pam Hupp's information, the life insurance proceeds, Pam Hupp's lies didn't come in as because under Missouri law and many,

many laws, there's what's called the direct connection rule. To take it out of our realm, for example, if a not to get too graphic, but a child is molested on Helen Street and a defense attorney learns that a guy was recently released and he lives on main street three blocks away. And nobody can account for his word about it during the time the child was molested. You can't just introduce that as a red herring, unless you have some way to connect those two people, a direct connection. Maybe they knew each other, maybe he babysit for them.

You can place his cell phone outside the house at the time. Anything. In this particular case, the court ruled that there was no direct connection to Pam Hub. And the insurance meant nothing because she assigned her, what does that mean? And I kept arguing there's much more of a direct connection to Pam Hub than there is to Russ Faria.

Russ Faria. Definitely. Russ Faria. Russ is the husband. Russ got insurance as well. It's like, of course, Russ Faria because he's the husband, everything will be there. And that's fine for a jury to hear, but they need to hear about the other person who does have a drug link.

And the judge didn't have the, let's say, the brain power, understand that just because she wasn't the person charged, under her ruling, there would never be anybody with a drug connection. And the conviction was so egregious that I've never seen this. I filed my appeal. Then I filed what's called a moody motion for newly discovered evidence. It's so egregious, a jury would more than likely have a

different result if they had heard it. I've never heard of this in my years of practicing and I've talked to many, many attorneys and nobody's ever heard of this. But the Court of Appeals sent it back for a new trial without a reply from the state. Wow. I never heard of anything like that. That's wild. So normally convictions, something like this, they take or generations.

The average is about 10 to 14 years. And we've heard stories of 20 years, 25 years. We not only got it overturned, we were in trial, and our second trial, less than two years. That's how, egregious, the original, the original trial, and how angry the court of appeal has learned sets it back for the trial. I remember being shocked that it happened so quickly

when we were covering this case. I was like, wow, this was like immediate. And again, you're really killing it at this interview because that leads me to my next question. You're great at segways. When Russ was, he's not behind you, I'm saying, we'll talk about this subject.

It's exactly, yeah. So when Russ was awarded his new trial, you made the decision to do a bench trial instead of a trial by Jerry. This is a little bit of a three-part question, so how often do you do that? Were you nervous about doing that? And do you think things would have gone differently? Had you not done that?

Well, I'm still second-guessing myself. Really? I'm excited to be talking. Yeah, on a high-profile murder case that's being covered by national news to do a bench trial is crazy. Everybody was talking behind my back saying, what in the hell is Schwartz doing? And then the people who knew me said, don't you think he has a pretty good idea what he's doing?

All I can say is all wealthy, all as well that ends well, and it ended well. So I made the right choice. You definitely did. He did based upon the judge who got appointed. This judge, if there was evidence there, would have convicted them without any qualms, without a question if he felt they proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt. But I knew the evidence or the lack thereof.

I talked to the judge afterwards. He said to me, it was a no brainer, I kept waiting and waiting for that piece of evidence that was going to be dispute, that was going to link him to the homicide. I've never tried a case where there wasn't a dispute of fact, meaning there's a witness long accusing of lying or being misinformed or making a mistake. Or there's two people. One says, yes, one says, no, I don't mind. The person who's saying, no, it's telling the truth.

This, you shouldn't believe this. Other than slippers that were obviously dipped in place in this closet with one of them, there was zero to indicate he did it. In the, I actually had an expert ready to testify, but we were able to get their experts testify that based upon her experience, those slippers appeared to be dipped in blood, which to me was obvious on his face. I was going to say, I could see that than anybody. Yeah. And the first jury argued that, so they just didn't buy it. And I they if anybody who's on that first

year, he listens to this, I would love and provide for them to contact me because I've never spoken to any of them. And I can't contact them, but they have everything right to contact me. I would love to understand what went on. Yeah. Same.

Two is I have done it. I've done it in the past. But it's one of those things where it's kind of like the prosecutor knows they have a horrible case, but they can't dismiss it due to political factors due to a victim due to whatever reason. And we all, it's a four-about conclusion. We know what the court's going to do. So I've done it.

Or we have something worked out, but we need the court to do it. We just can't come up with a deal, and the court says, well, this is what I'll do, but it's gonna have to be a bench trial. So it's sort of a way to get to a result that you already know, it's almost preconceived. And then your third question was.

What have gone differently, do you think? I certainly hope not, but part of the decision was made because I still, even though I couldn't get in the information regarding Pam Hopp and the jury didn't hear any of it, there still was no evidence of Russ Ferea committed the murder. So I was perplexed as to how the jury arrived at the conclusion that the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed murder. There was another case that someone in the dismissal was already out of Boone County, he kept by the name Brian Ferguson.

That was out of Boone County, but they filed for a change of venue because it was so high profile and they brought in only concounted jury. And again, with no evidence, they convicted him the end of doing over 10 years before he was exonerated. And that was just one of these mornings I was out for a run and I was thinking about Russ and jury and Judge Omar had just been appointed and then Ryan Ferguson popped in my mind and I was like, what is wrong with these juries up there? And then I thought maybe I should judge try this case. I got home and I spoke to my wife Mary Ann's also an attorney, a criminal attorney and I said,

what do you think of this? You're crazy. And I said, you're right, it's crazy. I shouldn't do it. And it just wouldn't leave my mind. And then I brought Russ in and he and I talked about it and his position was whatever you think and I just kept and I Kind of went through in my mind. I categorized all the other and I thought This judge has been in San Luis City who was a prosecutor and he's been a judge for like 20 years maybe I don't remember And I know him we weren't remember. And I know him. We weren't friends, but I know him well.

I tried cases in front of him. He is a guy who's gonna hold the state to their verdict and they're not gonna be able to prove the other reasonable doubt that Russ Ferrier committed the murder. The opposite would be true, and I argued in closing argument. I could prove he was innocent, much less what they had.

So that was what I decided to do and had a jury been there, I'd like to believe it would have gone the same. I shuttered a thing still. It just still blows me away that he was convicted after the first trial. It blows everybody that I've ever spoken to about this case away. I mean, I watched an interview and you said that your son was actually going through the files himself and said, Pam did it. My son was 12 years old at the time.

His span of attention was probably a normal 12-year-old. He looked at it and said, maybe it was 45. And he looked up and it was like a riddle game. He said, Dad, you wonder who did it? I said, I would love to. And that and I included in the book. And I don't think it wasn't in the TV series. We're unfortunately. Oh, that would have been a great scene.

Well, they filmed it. They filmed all these things. They filmed something. They filmed me with my guitar and my band. They filmed all these things. But it was Pam's story, not my story. Hopefully my story will air. We're trying to do that and there's some momentum.

So we'll see what happens. That's exciting. I support that. I appreciate that. So that's how it was on its face, a 12-year-old, where it regards to how intelligent that kid was, or at least I like to think he is, he figured out, and that has always perplexed me as to why the prosecutor,

why some officer doesn't say, wait a minute, guys, we don't have anything on this guy. Yeah, right. He's got a... His soul is nanobite. I mean, I had the judge said to me and I said, anyone who was involved in this case would say, and he'd never seen a better alibi, because it doesn't exist. If somebody, nobody's going to be charged with a crime with this alibi. No, he's not a video. Elfware. He's no blood, his cell site does it, he tracks the time

he got home. He arrives home based upon his cell information about 45 seconds before he calls 911. I mean, everything tracked. He had our Arby's received his carcel. We know he stopped. I mean, the prosecutor had the gall to argue that one of the alibi witnesses got Arby's received.

I mean, who would have that kind of foresight? When we covered the case and said that, I was like, why would nobody would do that? Yeah,sight? When we covered the case and said that, I was like, why would nobody would do that? Yeah, that was the thing that blew both of our minds. I was like, that was an actual argument. Like, I was like, that doesn't make sense to anyone. No.

Regardless of log experience, it's like, what? Who would do that? And then it was crumpled up in his car. Yeah. So, alibi winnest would have had to bring him the Receive and then they would have to have the force like to say okay Well, let's not make it obvious and put it in my car. I crumple it Put in the car in the trash with oh any guy the alibi with this also ate a couple of Arby's Rose beef sandwiches and crumpled The rappers up as well on the car. Yeah

Again, it's all these things I can point to so many factors that I still just don't understand what the hell of jury was thinking. With my schedule and how I'm always go go go go go go go go go. I really don't have a ton of time to do the things that I love to do. Like reading. That's why I love Audible. Audible offers an incredible selection of audiobooks across every genre, from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs, mysteries, thrillers,

motivation, wellness, business, and more. You'll discover exclusive Audible originals from top celebrities, renowned experts, and exciting new voices in audio. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. All audible members get access to a growing selection of audiobooks, audible originals, and podcasts that are included with membership. You can listen to all you want and more get added every month. A few of you have showed me recently that you were listening to this book called Bone Deep written by Attorney Joel Schwartz who we have on the show. If you haven't, download that book, get Audible and listen to it because it's a pretty good book. Let Audible help you discover new ways to laugh, be inspired or be entertained. New members can try it

free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500. That's audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500 to try audible free for 30 days. audible.com slash morbid. Well, one of those factors, we got to talk about the blood and the lumen all testing. So when the crime scene was first analyzed, the investigators made it seem like there was some trail of blood going from Betsy's body, and it was a towel drawer, I think, in the kitchen. And they said they did the Luminol testing,

and you know, the room lit up like a Christmas tree, but the only thing that stinks is the photos didn't develop. Oops. Somehow, somehow you got your hands on those, so walk us through that. That was interesting. I was overturned. I kept, the officer testified that they didn't develop.

And he was never clear. I kept saying, are we using film still? What is it that didn't develop? I want the camera. I want the negatives. I I would whatever's there. I don't know what's there. I kept insisting I wanted it. And I was kept, okay, we'll get it. Whatever's there. And it was about six weeks before the second trial.

I got a DVD in the mail from the Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. And I had no idea what was in it and I opened it up, put it on, and it was photographs, it's only 32 of them. Like finally I got them and that guy perjured himself because of these all developed and he didn't only perjure himself about what was shown but the fact that they didn't develop. So I was going to destroy this guy in the second trial. I couldn't wait. And we start the second trial, and Leah asked me, the prosecutor

does an open statement that she talks about the search, and she talks about the limiter on, and unfortunately, the camera malfunction and so the photos developed. I leaned over to my co-cons on Nate Swanson and said, she has no clue that we have these photos. You must have been so excited. I was just like, boom. I was frothing. Yeah.

He got up and he testified the same way. And I just, I'm sitting there, I can't believe it. And I get up and I go on the attack. And that's probably one of the more accurate portions of the film with Josh Dumal. When he attacked the officer, I was a little bit more rabid when I went to the movies. I just, oh, I got up and I started with the photos and Leah ASCII said to me under her breath. Where did you get those? So I knew, oh, I knew during the Big statement she didn't know I had him.

It was a shock. Yeah, I still don't know. I can't prove, otherwise she'd be charged with a crime. What she knew and what she didn't know. And I don't know how I got the photos of the sentence. That's so wild. You never, she just trusted the officer and never looked at the D-D-D and forwarded to me? Or there was that whistle blow in her office, like they portrayed the Tina and TV series.

Right. I don't know. But it was like a man, I went up and it was like a magic trick. Take a photo and it's all up. Really? It didn't matter what you picked, they all developed. And that one showed this lumen oil trail, that only it showed a cleanup trail. And there would be no sense for some random person to clean up, to go get towels and make my

butt. It would be a it would be a pamphop or some random person. And it would indicate it was Russ if he was telling the truth. He clearly was not. So that doesn't happen very often either. You catch people in lives, but something that's that egregious. It's a, I mean, for people who do that, should be, especially on a murder, prosecutors and, and rust-free at his on a huge bandwagon like this. Prosecutors are immune and police have qualified immunies. They can do this stuff and walk away. If they lose, they lose, okay, no big deal, but if they win and get away with it,

people go to prison, and in Russ's case, it was for life without parole. So had we not discovered these and had we not got it overturned, he would be dying in prison. And that's so scary to think that it could have gone that way. Had you not done the bench trial, you know? Well, I like to think the second time

would have gone better probably because I with those photos especially. Yeah, with the photos, just with the photos, but I got in everything. I was able to show that by cell side, Pam Hubs was still at the house at the time of the murder. For the life of me, I can't get a reason as to why the judge really couldn't get into that.

I was able to get into Pam Hubs' lies at the second trial. I couldn't get into any of those things in the first trial. The things that you couldn't say in the first trial, I remember reading through it and just thinking, but why can't he bring that? It's relevant, I don't understand. Well, every other lawyers who have read it around here who are my partners, they knew it was frustrating,

but they had no idea to make sense, so they read the book and they were like, how did your head not explode? Truly. That's what I was thinking the entire time. My head would have exploded. Because you know you're right. And we usually, we read these cases

from like a completely outside point of view, obviously. Like, and when we read things like that, when somebody walks it, especially this kind of thing, where they walked into that crime scene, even with a preconceived narrative of what they decided happened there. Immediately. It is so infuriating, because you're like,

that's not your job. But like, your job is to look at it fresh and to let it speak to you. And it's the same thing in the trial. It's like, it seemed like there was this preconceived narrative that was just working against the facts. It was maddening, it was infuriating. and at my mind though, I'll also say I knew how long it was, and I knew I'd get a second trial.

If I lost this trial, I also knew I wasn't going to lose until I did. Well, that was the main thing in this case that really ticked me off was they just completely lied about those luminol tests amongst various other things. Is there anything other than the luminol testing that really you can point to that just you were like, furious about? How much time we got? What did you want? Go off. I mean, this Ryan MacKarrot pulled my client, pulled Russ out of his cell twice to attempt to get him to confess after he was represented.

Again, that's a civil rights violation. Did he have to do that? He wrote, and I didn't find out this till after the book was published. He had put someone in his cell and an attempt to rough them up. He put someone in his cell and attempt to get a confession. And he had actually already written the report with the confession. Oh my god. Yeah. I didn't find out about that till I took the book was published. So if there's a follow-up, that would be in it. Yeah. That's got to be in there. That's wild.

Part of the problem with it was never utilized. It was never so I can't, there's no civil rights violation because it was not effect. But we see what we were dealing with. And we also see with wide open eyes, what happens and what can happen. Because people tend to trust and believe police, and when you get into more rural counties,

for whatever reason, there's more of a trusting nature, and I think it's just due to population, because people know his brother-in-law, are they know his cousin and they trust him. So when you get an officer saying this guy can fast, you want to believe it, you want to believe that the officer's telling the truth. And you have to go way back in the 80s when I was a younger man.

Starting the side of people would say, a police allow the time. And I grew up in a suburb of St. Louis. Pretty sheltered. And I kept thinking to myself, I was, why would they do that? That doesn't make any sense. If they say they saw this, you should be able to believe them.

Why would they lie about that? Well, I'm here to say they do. Unfortunately, it gives many, many police officers a bad name. And it's a minority to do it. And what's been really telling is, every time date line airs, I will get emails and I'll get voicemails, text. And I get so many people in law enforcement thanking me for exposing these guys because they make them look so bad.

Of course. They're exposed to better it is. Yeah, it's frightening what goes on. When I'm done with doing what I do and I work back, that's one of the things that's still to this day, bothers me and I can't even give you the extent to what you've brought us, maybe because I cannot imagine,

I first of all, guiltier or not, I can't imagine going to be the cage. No, these cages are about 60 by 80 and it's small and everything in there is steel. I can't imagine that. Take that to a whole different level of being innocent of a crime and going to live in that cage and you're convicted because somebody lied And that just, I've been in these cells. I've been in many, many prisons and many, many jails and I always go in and I leave. I just can't imagine hearing those bars clang

for somebody like Russ Furrier. So it's a bit of a cautionary tale. And if people in the prosecutors and law students can watch that or read the book and understand, hey, this could happen. I don't do this. I did an interesting story. I got a letter from a gentleman who son is the dean of one of the I give him the mosque. And he told me he read the book and he sent to a son recommending that it become required reading for every law student. I was just gonna make it so much easier. Yeah, it should be. It is a cautionary tale.

You can pull that off. I'm all in safe. It would be really useful to say. Let's get it going. We've got to figure this out for you. It reminds me, too, of it's just like it has little echoes of the West Memphis three case with the confession thing, how it is hard for people, especially in a small town kind of thing, to hear

that somebody either confessed or if they didn't either way, but hearing a confession, and nobody can wrap their brain around the idea that somebody can falsely confess to, or that is just being lied about completely. Like it's something that nobody can just sit there and be like, oh yeah, they're probably lying. It's like you want to believe that that's real. And it feels like certain investigators kind of prey on that idea that we all kind of trust that. It's very, very difficult to understand

why something you confess to something that didn't do, especially something serious. But if you watch some of these documentaries now, the Making a Murderer, the nephew that can pass, can I go back to school now or can I go home? Exactly. My very first murder trial, a guy confessed to shooting a killing woman, his confession was on videotape. And there were two eyewitnesses, two, a 10-year-old, a 12-year-old. Well, I don't want to get into all the details of that, but he was found not guilty. It was clearly a false confession. And Jerry's running a why and public wants to why would somebody ever do that, if they've ever found themselves in

that situation, then they understand the fact of the matter is if the police have a solid case and they've got the evidence, they're not going to waste their time trying to secure a confession. They'll try and they'll be done. In that particular case, they questioned them for 12 hours before you find the confess and they just break you down and beat you down and I've never been in that situation and I know I wouldn't confess to anything, but I can't tell you where I would have done before I did this. Of course, you don't get it, they don't understand. We say that all the time because we've covered a few cases where they've confessed, but it's clear it was under duress.

But I would say thankfully, in my opinion, at least the right person is now on trial. Pam is finally facing charges for Betsy's murder. And the prosecutor, Mike Wood, is actually going for the death penalty. What do you think the outcome, in your opinion, what would that be? It's going to be difficult because remember, they did absolutely knowing no investigation regarding pain. Okay. No investigation.

It might be. Fortunately, she couldn't shut her mouth, she continued to talk. And her lies, and that will give another sense. And then Louis Gumpenberger murder, where she tried to frame Ross and left a note on it allegedly from Ross. That can be used as consciousness of guilt to show motive. And she tried to cover up the Pam Hub murder because she was made, I mean, they, that's if you're a murder because she was being investigated. So there's enough there. We can place her there by cell site.

And the question becomes it's such a severe penalty. And there is no direct evidence to say she did it. Have they done an investigation? And I don't want to accuse anybody. But there are more than likely would have been an accomplice. Or there might not have been. Who knows? But we don't know.

We have no idea. Their defense is going to argue the amount of strength it would have taken to drive that knife into Betsy bat many times. There's no evidence that this blood anywhere on Pam, because nobody looked. Right. And she took like eight showers afterwards. She's getting married and she handed them clothes. They never confirmed whether or not those are the clothes she was wearing.

We don't know. Nobody ever checked her car for DNA or blood evidence. There was never anything done to secure anything with those. So even though we all know in our gut and our head that she did it, proving it beyond a reasonable doubt is another thing. And then asking not only to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt is another thing. And then asking not only to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but to give her the death penalty, it's a very, very big ask. If you do get to a penalty phase, you've got the Lewis-Cumman Burberry cold blood murder. We know about that. And then you tread in dangerous area, trying to get into the murder of her mother, because you've got, she's never been charged and you've got no proof.

So it's a fine line for a prosecutor to try to walk. I don't know the outcome. The Lany harm she's handling it with my is very, very good. They're being as thorough as they can. But there is no smoking gun here. So it will be interesting to see. I do think she'll get convicted. Definitely. Do you think there'll get convicted. Definitely. Do you think there is a situation in which they would introduce another Alfred plea, like they did in the Lewis-Gumpenberger murder?

I would say there's no chance. Okay, good. I'm glad to hear that. Talk with Mike about that. I don't think they'll do that. The, to me, the most damning evidence of a murder first against Pam is going to be what they attempted to use against Russ. And that will be the document that Pam created on Betsy's computer the day before the

beneficiary was changed. That showed exactly what she was planning on doing. And that was six days in advance or five days in advance. So that shows most murder first charges are murder first. Nobody, people get killed and it's murder, but for the most part, nobody really wants to kill somebody else. That's a small percentage of people who have been sentenced from the first. And this was a murder first degree. She plotted it out. She wrote exactly what she was doing. She was going to do it because everyone in the world knew that and the bus was gone for about four hours, every Tuesday night.

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and sign up for 10% off your first order. That's 10% off your first order when you go to Everlane.com slash morbid and sign up Everlane, helping people live their best lives with the least impact on the planet. [♪ music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in That's the craziest thing too. And even just her wanting to take Betsy to her appointments, like Russ was supposed to take her that day and Pam pushed to do it.

I wonder if that could be pushed in as evidence at all? Oh, absolutely. And then, like initially, Pam said she never received a text, but Betsy texted her, she said, essentially, don't come. I'm going to spend one on one time with body one, the woman who was in town visiting. And Pam said, bummer.

The thing she went anyway, when I deposed her, she said she never received the text. And then I crossed to examine her. She said, well, I did, but I got it, but I didn't. And I used it in some of my speaking engagements, because that's Pam's speech. I don't know what that means. I did, but I didn't. I got it, and then I didn't get it, and someone I speak engagements because I that's Pam speak. I don't know what that I did, but I didn't I got it and then I didn't get it. And then I did I never understand how they think they're going to get away with that,

especially with like an attorney, like a defense attorney. It's like you're not going to get that pass. So no. And then something. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Almost with Pam, she never would. She wouldn't answer anything. And then once you give an answer, she would just say, well, she wouldn't answer anything. And then when she'd given

answer, she would just say, well, that's my brain injury. Well, we never got the medical records. So it became, she had drop foot. Yeah, she had a back injury, she had a spine injury, neck injury, she had a head injury. So she couldn't remember anything. If you'd asked me a question now, I'm going to answer a different thing. I said 10 minutes ago because my brain injury. me a question now, I'm going to answer a different than I said 10 minutes ago because my brain injury. And so I'm afraid. I do believe there was an injury of some sort, but nobody knows the extent. That's the problem.

And then something that you touched upon before was there is a possibility that Pam murdered her own mother. And that death certificate was actually changed. The manner of death was changed to undetermined. Do you think that that could help if she ever did face charges for her mother's murder? Well, we have to be too homicide. And I mean, it got changed because I contacted.

What happened is, and this is something that you could use, is during the course of the first trial, I would do what's called an offer of proof of all the witnesses, because of the stuff I couldn't get into in front of the jury. You need to preserve the information for the court of appeals. So an officer would testify, I had the jury would leave,

and then I would ask her about Pam Hops lies, things like that. Well, I did it with Pam Hops, and we talked about the insurance, and we talked about her lies. She continued to just be slippery as she could, but one of the things she did say, and volunteered, volunteered to meet, she said, would you like to know what took me so

long to make the trust? Because she created a trust for Betsy's kids one week before trial to make it look good. I said, absolutely, what took you so long? And she said, my under oath, my mother has been sick with Alzheimer's and she just died three weeks ago of Alzheimer's. And I think I said, I'm sorry to hear that. The trial ended, the day after trial, I think I got six calls from people saying her mother did not die of Alzheimer's. This is her mother's name, Shirley Newman, look it up. I looked it up, Shirley Newman fell from the third floor balcony and was found.

The day later in Pam H was the last one with them. So I called County St. Louis County homicide and that with them they did a cursing investigation, changed the manner of death and since the Louis Guamperon-Bergham murder they had been conducting investigation but there's just too many issues. It was a day after there is no security cameras, the doors at F-City are locked. So it's one of those things where if I were defending Pam, I would just argue in front of you, or even. Yeah, you may all believe in your gut. Your instinct may tell you, this is Pam, how I was doing. But is there any proof being

on a reasonable dial? I don't need to answer it. There isn't proof. There really isn't. without any interest. There isn't proof. There really isn't. I mean, what do we know? Yeah. We know what we know, but there's no point. So frustrating. Well, one of the greatest things that came out of this case is your book, obviously, which went on to Inspire Keith Morrison's podcast, The Thing About Pam.

Like we said, that that went on to Inspire a series with the same title. You've seen it. What are your thoughts? Of the series? Yes. I met with, I was an integral part of meeting with the writers for weeks and weeks,

and I spent time with Josh first on Zoom, and then that Josh Dumel in person. And when the first episode aired, it was like, oh, what are they doing? I didn't, I mean, they told me it was going, Keith was getting narrated. They were trying to differentiate it from all the other streaming out there because because there's so much. Um, and it was like I was taking a back a little bit. I enjoyed it, but Pam hup singing and... It's a lot. She was, I mean, it was crazy.

It's very campy. So it campy satirical. So I was a, yeah, on a serious subject. So I was a little bit concerned. And then it got better and better and better. And the obsession of the true crime fans, and even the general public with this, it was over the top. They were really, I was upset that there wasn't at least two more episodes that could have

been four more, because they just didn't include, and I talked with Josh about this, on my level of frustration, and the arc that I went through to get to where I was, because it was, I mean, there was so much behind the scenes, but then I under, you know, you realize it was, right now it's Elwegger, it was the Pam Huck story through Pam Huck's eyes, and I think they did an incredible job. I have been told I haven't verified it, but it's the highest rated NBC show of the year

It might be Streaming and least show. I'm not exactly sure. I believe it. Yeah, that's incredible. I Went to have you guys ever heard of or been to crimecon? We haven't been but we have definitely heard of it Yeah, so I went to crimecon to share it. And the way I characterize it is I was I spoke there at room of 4,000 people, it was a play was such a joy. Uh, I was like Tom Cruise at the top. That's an awesome. You show and they knew all about me. All right. Well, my last question is a little just gossipy.

You don't have to answer if you don't want to. But Leah asked you, Cheney, the prosecutor in the original trial and second trial. She said that most of the podcasts, the book, the series, done on the case, portray her in a way that is, quote unquote, fundamentally false. Do you have any comment on that? You saw the last date line. I did.

She will put her morals up against anyone's. Yeah. If that gives you. If that if her morals are anywhere near the rest of people in society were in trouble. No, it was not fundamentally flawed. I will go on record saying the woman Judy Greer, who played Leah Aske. Love Judy Greer. Love so much. Judy Greer is incredible.

Yeah, see that. My cameo was spent, you know, I spent the afternoon and evening with Judy Greer. So it was a scene where she was in a bar as Leah Aske cutting me down, which was really kind of fun and surreal. But as wonderful as an actress that she played and is over the top bitchy, as she attempted to be, she still didn't touch the real thing. Wow, wow.

That was a great comment, Joel. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. Everybody needs to go out and buy your book, obviously. Is there anything else that you want to say before we wrap up? No, it's been a pleasure and I hope people enjoy it

and I do hope people go if they're interested and get owned deep because my partners who looked at me and said, why do I need to read this? Read it and they were, I mean, they read it. They both said that they couldn't put it down. So hopefully your listeners will find the same and enjoy it and I appreciate you guys having me on. Absolutely, anytime.

And we both enjoyed the crap out of the book so we know our listeners. I was just gonna say I could not put it down. And I have like no time for leisure reading at all. I couldn't stop this one. I was like, hold on kids. I have like serious ADD and I was turning those pages. I thank you guys so much. I appreciate it.

Absolutely and thank you for coming on the show. I want to do a redo. Let me know. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen Add Free with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery's podcast American scandal.

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