True Crime with Kendall Rae - How Pam Hupp Murdered Her Best Friend & Almost Got Away With It – The Murder of Betsy Faria

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

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And now for my next trick, I will combine the strength of hefty ultra-strong trash bags with the joyfully clean scent of fabulous salt! Wow! Smells like greatbows and unicorns! Happy, happy, happy, happy! Well, that turned out better than when I tried to split my assistant in half. New hefty ultra-strong trash bags with fabulous oescent, so strong, so joyful, it must be magic. Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Happy to have you here.

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.

So let's start by talking about Betsy Faria. So Betsy was born Elizabeth K. 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 Elizabeth's 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's kids and she also had another lifelong friend from high school named Susan She introduced Susan to her husband and then she deejied 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 and 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 the simple pleasures of life. He loved to be outside, he loved 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 crews

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 in 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 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, 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 Emmy and dinner with his mom every week and then he also had a routine on every Tuesday to go over to one of his Friends house to play games. I'm not sure exactly what game he and his friends would play But it was some type of role playing game and they did it every week. So this was very much a part of his routine. The night before Betsy actually had stayed at her mom's apartment because she had a cameo 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 five 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 conical 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 556 he stopped at a convenience store in Lake St. Louis and bought cigarettes and two snapples. Then he went to Green's County store to get some dog food and he ended up getting over to Mike's house around 6 p.m. 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 it in 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, parked 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, hung it up. Then he walked into his living room. And everything in his life would change at that moment. At 9.40, rest made this frantic call to 911. What is the address for you need to come? 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 30, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, Oh, how long were you gone today? I was about to run on fire. I just got back.

But she was out of mind. The new friend was bringing her home. So I don't know what time she got home. Okay, she's been depressed lately. Oh, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, got, she's got, she's got, she's, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got, she's got,. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. that Russ said that he thought she had committed suicide because this scene is so clearly a homestide. 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's 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 corner ended up counting 55 stab wounds. So two investigators, it's immediately obvious that this is a homicide and not a suicide. Betsy, Ferria, had been stabbed 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 artier 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 to be someone in her life someone who

really did not like her or wanted 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 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. Now this friend is named Pam. She was the last known person to see Betsy live 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 a 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 Huff. 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 Ophalan, making 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 a 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. 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. Hmm. 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 it 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 it 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, just be it's 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's 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 want to 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 crews. 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 crews, 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 would 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 question Pam about this, she said, wouldn't I have made sure that the insurance policy change had actually gone through before I murdered her? 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 have 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 p.m. 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 baby sitter 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 Huff 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 7pm. When Pam pulled into the driveway, she called her husband Mark to let him know where she was, but he didn't answer, just went to message. And she actually put Betsy on the phone and had her wish mark a married 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 rest 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 going to 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 it 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 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 727 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, signed 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's 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's 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's 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 Hup 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's 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 p.m. Plus, he had his receipt from Arby's, which was timestamped 909. But one thing that police questioned about Russ's 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 spotted 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 6 o'clock, and Betsy was still alive at 705 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's 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 in 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, on 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 Huff 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 Hump 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 com-cool collected, totally clear and confident in her answers, but when they left, she would go into this very zen-like meditative state. And during her interrogation, she spoke very warmly of Betsy saying that she loved 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 because they were grieving. And during the interrogation, of course, Betsy'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 purse 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 Wolf, 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, a new investigator that she had changed her story so many times for 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 Russ 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 he 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 Hup, 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's 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's 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 in a short summer 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 ahead 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 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 zoom classes and zoom classes are pretty hard at some point, she was actually filmed running away from a reporter, like pretty fast. And she also did Zoom classes, and Zoom classes are pretty hard. So 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 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 Aske, 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 beneficiary. 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 start test that they had run and they had determined that there was blood all over the house and also leaving the bedroom and 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 Bryce's slippers. So Betsy's daughters, Leah and Mariah,

had been 21 and 17 when their mother was killed and they testified against Ress. Leah said that Betsy and Ress spot all the time that it wasn't the Brady bunch at their house. A medical examiner who did Betsy's autopsy said that she was very likely dead before 721. In court, they talked about 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 Rass's 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 Rass 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 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 honestly, this 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 a hundred thousand dollars 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 12- year old daughter whose mother just died from breast cancer. She said, you know, Betsy would have 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 909? Well, their explanation for that is that a friend came and dropped 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 Aske 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 Raspus 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 redress 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 Hup. So the prosecutors got the final word. They said, Russ is guilty, and there's 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 four and a half 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's 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 it had 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 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 because 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 Bethesies in 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 Ryan never saw any of that money. So they ended up requesting a moony motion, which is a rare motion that brings new evidence for a judge to consider

that might nullify a guilty verdict. And actually a moony 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 then the slippers had been thrown in the closet. Then something really big came out during this trial. It turns out that Leah Aske, who was the prosecutor in the first trial, who had had some type of relationship with Mike Lane, 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 fucking bad. Because 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's car, a silverish whiteish 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 ambience she takes. She has major sleep problems and Ambien can leave her Fianclaudy. 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 a known. A, it was the only file saved on her computer where the author of it was listed as a known. 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 going to be decided on by

a judge. And the prosecutor on the case was still Leah Aske 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 the life insurance policy. Here's 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 Vetsy'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, was about six months after my exoneration decided that we were going to 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 they 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 the car, but you know, win the way I'm right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Help. Help. Why don't you address your ass?

Help. Help. Okay, somebody bring her a tool. Help. Help. Hello. Help. Help.

And can you hear me? Hello. We cut the recording off right there because in the next second, you could hear five gunshots running 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 Hup. According to Pam, Louis had attacked her in her driveway and was asking her for Russ' money. He held a knife up 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 Lewis came in, she shot him until she was out of bullets. Now Lewis 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, because 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 Ferria 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 Lewis died,

Pam was actually out pretending to be a date line producer because date line has covered Betsy's case like five times. And none of them are available online because they take everything off, which is super fucking helpful. So I've never seen any of them, but Pam was very worried about the narrative that date line put out. She was constantly calling them up,

trying to feed them information about Ross, make sure they were pointing more in the direction of Ross and less at the direction of her, and it actually got to the point where she pretended to be one of their producers. She wanted to this random woman in public, so that she was a Dateline producer, and that she needed her to re-enact a 9-1-1 call, and that she would pay her a thousand 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 no 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 want to do it, and so Pam just brought her back home. But she thought it 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 Lewis and had lured him to her house to do the same thing to record a 911 call. So the day after Lewis was murdered, I know this is getting confusing, but try to stay with me. Mark Hubb, 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. Surely 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 Lewis, he actually had $900 bills$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 wood pile outside Russ's house, then kill Pam Hup. Once that was done, he'd get the rest of his payment. Now Russ didn't have a wood pile 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 Lewis 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 jugular 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. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, an Alfred plea, which we talked about in last week's video on Michael Peterson. If you haven't heard of an Alfred 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 Alfred plea, she was able to avoid

the death penalty and get life in prison for Lewis's 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 going to 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. It gets Pamela Hupp in the stabbing death of Betsy Furea. 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 Furea, 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 Furea'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 her 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's socks into blood and dragging them around the house to make it look like a more violent attack. The probable cost statement attached to charging documents outlined in great detail and 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 Furea investigation. They also found proof that the prosecutor had asked witnesses to lie on the stand and that after Russ's 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 limitation, and the prosecutors are going to be seeking the death penalty for Pam Hup, but of course Pam has continued to deny any involvement in Betsy's murder. And here is Russ's reaction to all of this. What are the emotions that you are feeling today? Right now, a lot of relief and joy, you know. I did with my second trial and I was exonerated,

but for law enforcement to actually come out and say, hey, we believe there was a shotty investigation. And we believe that it would be the other that should have gone the other way. For that to be publicly said, it means a whole lot to me. The only way that I can describe him, hope, is evil and carnage, compared to people like Charles Manson. I just like to thank everybody that supported me

through these last ten years, and everybody has helped us get to this point. And just, you know, in there a little longer. We're going to have a trial and I'm going to do something I haven't done before and then take the stand. And just recently on July 15th, Leah and Mariz felt publicly about everything for the first time. 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 ASP 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 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 like it was from someone affiliated with Russ.

Looking back now, I'm sure it was sent from Pam Hub. 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

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 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. I'm so glad that all of this happened this week before I filmed 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 Lewis, 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. That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts.

It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. This is the smell of a warm three-day-old egg-solid sandwich in a wimpy trash bag. Smell of a warm 3-day old egg-solid sandwich in a wimpy trash bag. Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy! Blah! And this is the smell of that same sandwich in a hefty ultra-strong trash bag with new Fabulouso

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