Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - Someone Came Home: The Murder of Betsy Faria

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

On the night of December 27, 2011, Russ Faria came home to find his wife Betsy dead on the living room floor in Troy, Missouri — stabbed over fifty times. He called 911. He was convicted of her murder. Then he was freed. Then prosecutors tried again. The case of Betsy Faria is not just a murder mystery — it's a story about tunnel vision, a justice system that locked onto the wrong man, and the real killer who walked free for years while an innocent person sat behind bars. Morgan and Kaelyn trace every turn in a case that became a masterclass in how badly things can go wrong. Head over to our Clues YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@CluesPod Join Crime House+ to binge a special limited series on Murder: True Crime Stories for America’s 250th: The Crimes That Built America. These are the cases that created the FBI, gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and gave us America’s Most Wanted. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. You’ll also get episodes of Clues ad-free and released a day early. 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals including Crime House 24/7, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow us on Social YouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudios Instagram: @cluespodcast | @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia Clues is hosted by Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore  Instagram: @morgsyabsher | @itskaelynmoore TikTok: @twohottakes | @heartstartspounding To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, listeners, it's Carter Roy, host of murder true crime stories. I want to let you know that Crime House Plus and Murder True Crime Stories are celebrating America's 250th by dropping a four-part limited series on the crimes that built America. These are the crimes and cases that gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and a murder that built America's Missing Children Movement. Follow Murder True Crime Stories for, a new episode every Monday leading up to July 4th, or you can binge all of them right now, add free with Crimehouse Plus. To join, go to CrimehousePlus.com, or if you're listening on Apple

podcasts, tap try free at the top of this show's page. This is Crimehouse. Betsy Ferrea, a terminal cancer patient, was stabbed to death in her own home. Investigators needed to answer one huge question. Why would anyone kill a dying woman? Investigators thought they had their answer. The lead suspect was convicted and sentenced, but if you think that meant case closed, you couldn't be more wrong. Hi guys, welcome back to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.

I'm Kailen Moore, and I'll be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories, and the court files released on these cases. And I'm your internet sleuth, Morgan Absher. I'm the one who's diving into anything I can find online to talk about the lesser-known details and pull out the threads that just don't add up. Don't forget to share your thoughts on social. Want ad-free and early access to clues and the rest of the crimehouse lineup?

Subscribe to Crimehouse Plus and get at least two bonus episodes from across Crimehouse every month. To join, go to CrimehousePlus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of the clues page. Now let's get in a Betsy Faria's case and the clues that defined it.

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Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. This is another one. one of those whiplash cases. Did you watch the thing about Pam, the fictional version of this show when it came out? I'm actually curious if any of our listeners have, starring Renee Zellweger. Oh my gosh, no. They fictionalized this case, but Betsy Faria's daughter came forward

definitely doesn't support the fictional version of the telling of it. Yeah, which I thought was really interesting. We'll get into it more, but her daughter, both of her daughters have had a lot to say on this case. Absolutely. Especially in recent years. We're going to get into some of their interviews. But this is one. Buckle up, my friends. Yes, definitely. We're going to get into it. And just a quick reminder, if you're watching on YouTube, you're going to see a lot of the stuff we're referencing, pictures, videos. And if you're listening, you can see all those same assets on our social media. That's at Clues Podcast on Instagram. Join us there. And a warning before we begin, this episode does contain discussions of suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis, you can always call or text the suicide hotline at 9. 8-8 for help. But again, please just listen with care. All right, this case begins on December 27th, 2011, in Lake St. Louis, Missouri, which is a suburb of St. Louis. Forty-year-old Betsy Faria

has a long day ahead of her. She's battling stage four breast cancer, and she has a chemo appointment that morning in the nearby town of St. Peter's. Betsy lives 25 minutes away in Troy, but she stayed at her 74-year-old mother, Janet's apartment, that night to be closer to the appointment. Janet's snoring kept her awake, so she's already pretty tired, and the infusion is just going to make it worse, but at least she's going to have company today. Janet's close friend Bobby, who's known Betsy for most of her life, is visiting from out of state, and she plans to drive Betsy to her cancer center and sit with her during the hours-long chemo appointment. They both know it's one of their last chances to talk. Two months earlier, Betsy's doctors told her that the

cancer had spread and it was, unfortunately, time to put her affairs in order. Even so, Betsy chose to continue treatment, just hoping for a miracle, or at least a little bit more time with her family. That day, as she gets ready to leave, Betsy texts her friend, Pam Hup, who usually drives her to chemo, and she lets her off the hook. At 10.35 a.m., she writes, quote, Bobby is going, and I want to spend some one-on-one time with her. Pam replies one minute later saying, bummer. It's kind of a strange response, but Pam has been making it for a lot of lost time in their 10-year friendship.

They hadn't seen each other for a while until they reconnected in the wake of Betsy's original cancer diagnosis, which happened two years earlier. So Betsy figures that Pam is just disappointed to miss out on some time together. Betsy finishes getting ready and leaves the house with Bobby at around 1 p.m. They check in at the cancer center at around 120 and the infusion starts by 1.30 p.m. And that is when Pam walks in. She said she was already on her way when she got Betsy's text. And Betsy's surprised to see her. That's not really what the bomber text indicated was happening,

but she still lets her stay. She and Bobby also invite Pam to dinner later, but Pam declines saying that she has plans with her husband, Mark. She does offer to pick Betsy up afterwards, though, and drive her back home to Troy. Betsy's husband, 41-year-old Russ, is already scheduled to pick her up after his weekly game night. but Pam says she could get her home a couple of hours earlier.

So Betsy takes Pam up on it and she texts Russ to let him know. After the infusion, Betsy and Bobby have an early dinner at a place called Lion's Choice, and then they head back to Betsy's mom's apartment for a round of upwards, which is Betsy's favorite board game. And Pam comes back, as promised, at 5.15 p.m. to pick Betsy up. At around 6.30 p.m., Betsy says good night and leaves with Pam. and that is the last time that Betsy's mother will see her alive. Because just over three hours later, Betsy's husband Russ calls 911.

Between uncontrollable sobs, he tells the dispatcher, quote, I just got home from a friend's house and my wife killed herself. She's on the floor. But before we really start to unravel what happened that night, let's talk a little bit more about Betsy because this is a story, like I said, has been on TV a lot of times. It's been in a bunch of episodes of true crime stories. It's been fictionalized.

But in a lot of those tellings, Betsy seems to get lost. And so we just wanted to take a second and actually talk more about who Betsy was. Betsy was born on March 24, 1969, as Elizabeth Kay Meyer in Richmond Heights, Missouri. Betsy, as everyone called her, grew up the second youngest of four sisters and developed a larger-than-life kind of class clown personality. She had rosy cheeks, short curly brown hair, bright blue eyes, and an infectious smile. and she loved nothing more than making people laugh, except maybe dancing and board games. A fun night in with music, family and friends,

was always Betsy's idea of a good time. In 1990, at 21 years old, Betsy began building a family of her own when her first daughter was born, and four years later, that daughter, Leah, got a little sister named Mariah. The girl's father never married Betsy and eventually moved to Florida

where he started another family, and he didn't have much contact with any of them after that. But eventually, Betsy married a guy named Ron Carter. After this brief marriage, they realized that they were better off his friends than partners, and Betsy divorced him. And after that, she struggled on and off with depression and anxiety, but she put on a brave face for her daughters. They saw her as being positive and optimistic. Meanwhile, Betsy worked various jobs to make ends meet, insurance assistant. She was a gas station cashier.

But her real passion, from what we've read about her, was DJing. So back in high school, she started. her own DJ business called party starters, and she kept it going her whole life, and she played all sorts of events in the St. Louis area. To Betsy, there was no bigger thrill than playing a song that got everyone out on the dance floor, and she was really good at being a DJ. She hoped that the business would eventually grow enough where she could support her family with it, and that passion was one of the first things that Russell Ferrea, who went by Russ, noticed about her when they met in 1997. Russ was 28 at the time. He was a year younger than Betsy, and he managed

a liquor store near the gas station where she worked part-time, and he kept coming back as a regular customer. Russ loved the Kansas City Chiefs. He fished a bunch. He loved reading the Bible and riding motorcycles. And like Betsy, he loved a good game, though she was more into word games, and he was a tabletop role-playing game kind of guy, but they both loved a night out at the casino. But from what everyone said about the couple, these were a really good match at the beginning. When they started dating, Russ was spending a lot of his spare time helping her grow her DJ business, and he helped her transition from turntables to computers. In 2000, the couple married and Russ became the girl's stepfather.

Leah was 10, then, a Mariah was 6. However, it seems like their marriage wasn't all smooth sailing. They did separate and reconcile multiple times over the years. Allegedly, there was some name-calling and condescension from Russ, followed by threats of self-harm from Betsy. after they moved to Troy in 2009, conflicts with the girls put things on even shakier footing. Both daughters eventually did move out. Mariah went to live with her grandparents and Leah went to live with an aunt. And then came Betsy's breast cancer diagnosis in 2009 when she was just 40 years old.

As if that wasn't enough, Betsy's parents suddenly divorced in their 70s. But the illness reoriented everything in her life. The petty arguments between Russ and Betsy slowed down. They focused on her health. They joined a new church, and Russ helped out his mother-in-law Janet a lot more as she adjusted to living alone. In 2010, a mastectomy put the cancer into remission. And by early 2011, Betsy felt confident enough to plan what she called a Survivor's Cruise, which was a week-long Caribbean trip with friends and family.

But then, in October of 2011, the month before her trip, she got some bad news. The cancer had spread to her liver, and it would likely kill her within three to five years. But Betsy was determined to beat the odds. She renamed it a celebration of life trip. She went away. She restarted chemo. Unfortunately, though, she would never find out how much more time those treatments would have given her. Because on December 27, 2011, Betsy had her last appointment at the cancer center.

So December 27th, at 6.30 p.m., Betsy left her mom's house. By 9.40 p.m. that night, Russ called from the kitchen landline, sobbing and hyperventive. That call is our first clue. And a quick warning, this section does get into graphic details of injuries and suicide. Russ told the operator, quote, I just got home from a friend's house and my wife killed herself. She's on the floor. We're going to play a clip of that 911 call here for you guys.

Let us know what you think about it and Russ's demeanor in the comments. What is the address where you need this to come? 1.30 CMAQ. Well, I killed herself. She's on the floor. Oh, my God. Okay, just take a couple of deep breath for me. Russell, how long were you gone today?

I lost around five. I just got back. But she was at her mom's and her friend was bringing her home, so I don't know what time she got home. Has she been... She's got cancer. I need you to get those medications for the paramedics, okay? Okay?

I think they're here on a table. What are we going to do? Russ appeared so distressed that the dispatcher had to walk him through breathing exercises just to get his address. Between screams and sobs, he managed to say that Betsy was on the living room floor, nobody else was home,

and when asked by the operator if she had been depressed, he said that she had cancer. He also said she had a knife in her neck and slash wounds on her wrists. Now, the slashes on her wrists are pretty relevant to note because Betsy had attempted to take her own life before, and during that attempt, she had slashed her wrists. By 9.49 p.m., a Lincoln County Sheriff's deputy arrived and entered the house while Russ was still on with dispatch. The deputy immediately noticed two things. First, Betsy was beyond any medical help. Her body was already cold and stiff.

When fire and paramedics arrived at 9.51 p.m., they estimated that she had been dead between one to four hours. Second, there was absolutely no chance that Betsy had died by suicide. Betsy had so many deep stab wounds that they couldn't even count them all at the scene. She had been stabbed repeatedly in her liver, her left eye, her skull. And just a note we have here from our researcher, multiple stabbings are extremely uncommon. in terms of suicide, less than 1% of cases. The slash wounds on her arms also had no visible blood flow, suggesting that they may have been inflicted after she was already dead.

So they didn't need to wait for an autopsy to be able to tell that Betsy Faria was a homicide victim. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales. Using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

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to uncover the truth. Listen to The Snare, a new series from ABC Audio. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. On the night of December 27, 2011, first responders continued to pour into the Faria's house in Troy, Missouri. Meanwhile, a deputy took Russ outside and sat him in the back of a squad car, telling him that his home was now a crime scene. With Betsy's wounds so obviously not self-inflicted, the officers thought Russ's 911 call was pretty suspicious. When they pressed him on it, he said that she had a history of suicidal ideation and had been previously hospitalized for depression, which other family members did later confirm.

He also seemed to believe that the slashed risks were the cause of death. But there was so much blood at the scene that this just didn't make any sense to the investigators. Plus, Russ mentioned the knife in her neck during his 911 call. wouldn't it have made more sense that that was her cause of death? This guy just walked in and his wife, though, is horrifically assaulted, bleeding. Like, we don't know. Like, yeah. I mean, come on.

I know, and his brain is probably making the connection in that split second. And he's like, she's already attempted to take her life. This is maybe what happened. She has cancer. I know. And the police come in and they very, they're going through the crime scene a lot slower and a lot more meticulously. So they're picking up on stuff that Russ didn't even see. But so they kind of.

of have more information on the scene, so they start thinking that he's really suspicious. Yeah. And really, the only theory that made sense to the deputies was that Russ killed her and was trying to stage this as a suicide, especially because his behavior in the squad car did continue to raise red flags. The deputy noticed that he was making these sobbing noises and he was also hyperventilating, but he was shedding very few tears. And they talk about this, too, in like the Dateline episode.

about this and they even mentioned that the deputies must have missed the part where, you know, Russ is wiping his tears away as he's being interrogated. But, you know, they keep saying he wasn't even shedding a tear. He wasn't crying at all. That's just not necessarily true. After he had a cigarette to settle his nerves, he then laughed and told a story about Betsy's daughters. So around 10.30 p.m., they took Russ to the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office for questioning. And they reassured him that he wasn't under arrest. This was just a routine interview. But Russ had an alibi. He worked his IT job from home, finished around 5 p.m.

and then left to run errands before driving 25 miles to Lake St. Louis for his regular game night with his friends. And on the way, he stopped at a gas station for gas, a second one for cigarettes, and Green's country store for dog food. Then he made a fourth stop at a convenience store near his destination for two bottles of iced tea and arrived at game night right on time at around 6 p.m. One of their usual six players had to bail last night. minute, so it was just a party of five, which meant that they couldn't play the usual game that they were playing, which was Rollmaster. So instead, they watched movies and smoked a little bit of weed. Russ had planned to leave early and pick Betsy up from Janet's, but since Pam gave her a ride instead, he stayed until around 9 p.m. And on his way home, he stopped at Arby's for a late dinner,

which he had a receipt for. And when he got back to their house in Troy, he noticed their Chow, golden retriever mix, Sicily, was chained outside in the yard. That was, unusual, since she normally just came straight back in the house after potty breaks, and that's when he went inside and he found Betsy's body, and then he called 911. So to confirm this alibi, deputies interviewed everyone at the game night to retrace Russ's steps, and they also looked for receipts and security footage. Meanwhile, the police at the scene called in the major case squad of Greater St. Louis, which was considered the best homicide investigators in the area. Their teams canvass the neighborhood for witnesses. They couldn't find anyone who had seen or heard anything

suspicious, though. Plus, no one could think of a single enemy who might have wanted Betsy dead. Another team searched the Faria's house and backyard. What they found is our second clue. In the primary bedroom closet was Russ's house slippers, and they were stained with blood that was later confirmed to be Betsy's. The light switch plate in the same room was also smeared with her blood. In the primary bathroom, a detective noticed water droplets in the bathtub, suggesting that the shower had recently been used. Detectives also seized washcloth, towels, a bath rug. Testing found that both Russ and Betsy's DNA was on the towels. Nobody else's DNA, though. There also appeared to be a bloody paw print on Betsy's pants. And Russ had said that he had found Cicely, their dog, chained in the yard when he got home.

but if the dog was inside during the murder, it might point to a killer, Sicily, knew, and trusted. Detectives photographed the possible print and took the dog's paw print with an ink pad for comparison. They also found two non-bloody palm prints on the sliding glass door leading from the kitchen to the backyard. These palm prints were later confirmed to be Russ's. However, there's no way to know when they had been left because Russ lived there too. On top of that, Detective seized electronics, motorcycle gear, and the section of carpet from under Betsy's body. Then they checked Russ's blue Ford Explorer. They swabbed it for blood and DNA, placed a hidden tracking device on it, and seized the items on the passenger seat.

That included an Arby's bag and a receipt timestamped 9.09 p.m. on December 27th. There were also the two bottles of brisk iced tea, a carton of cigarettes, minus one pack, all items that corroborated Russ's story and timeline, which takes us right into our third clue, a parallel investigation into Russ's alibi. On the morning of December 28, 2011, detectives interviewed all of Russ's game night friends. All of them confirmed. The same exact details. He arrived at 6 p.m., watched movies for three hours, and left at 9 p.m. security footage also placed rest buying gas at a gas station at 516 p.m. Then at U-Gas buying cigarettes at 531 p.m.

At 5.52 p.m. His credit card showed a charge at Green's country store for the pet food. At 5.56 p.m. He was on camera at the convenience store, buy nice tea. Now the Arby's cameras were actually broken, but again, they had that 909 p.m. receipt. So now the question was, how long? was the drive from Arby's back to the house. His 911 call was at 9.40 p.m., 31 minutes after the Arby's receipt,

so detectives start trying to figure it out. Two detectives timed the drive. One clocked it at 26.5 minutes, another at just over 24 minutes. Rolling back a couple of minutes to account for potential speeding, they estimated he was home by 9.31 p.m. leaving nine minutes between his arrival and that 911 call. This doesn't seem like a lot of time to commit a murder. And paramedics when they arrived did also estimate Betsy to be dead for anywhere between 1 to 4 hours when they arrived at 9.51 p.m. Yeah, I feel like it'd be easy for them to tell how dried the blood was right when they got there and be like, oh, this has been dried for four hours. I mean the temperature of her body. There's so many ways you can kind of narrow down a time. However, because the way in which Betsy was killed so brutally, the medical examiner couldn't even figure out a precise time of death.

The medical examiner even had to ask for a deadline extension because he wasn't able to finish counting her wounds. But eventually, the medical examiner did determine Betsy was stabbed 55 times. Even with all of the evidence pointing away from Russ, though, detectives still considered him their primary suspect. And essentially, they thought, you know, if he was guilty, maybe all of his friends are lying for him. Maybe he committed this murder while he was at Game Night,

left his phone behind and went and did it and then came back. Or he killed Betsy in those nine minutes and then somehow made her body appear cold and stiff by 9.49 p.m. when that first deputy arrived. Now, something that comes up quite a bit in this case is this rare and somewhat controversial phenomenon called cadaveric spasm or instantaneous rigor. And this is essentially where the body will bypass the normal decomposition process. It's this intense, instantaneous muscular stiffening that occurs at the exact moment of death. Now, some studies have called it a myth.

It's so uncommon that it's only occurred in a handful of documented case reports and only when the person dies under extreme muscular distress. And so investigators are trying to make that kind of fit in Betsy's case. However, most murder victims develop rigor mortis on the more normal schedule. Again, like this is very, very rare and controversial. Now, investigators know Russ's alibi seems pretty solid, but if it didn't seem solid in their eyes, They still needed a motive. Why would Russ kill his terminally ill wife? And that brings us to clue number four, a concerning letter provided by a key witness. The last person to have seen Betsy alive was, of course, Pam Hupp, the friend who drove her home. So detectives arrive at Pam's

house early on December 28th. Pam seemingly hadn't heard the news yet. She broke down sobbing when they told her that Betsy was dead. She said that she had seen Betsy almost every day. during her cancer battle. They then started asking her, you know, some routine questions, including ones about Betsy and Russ's relationship. After which, Pam went on to describe that Russ was a pretty terrible partner to Betsy. Pam said that he was always drunk, arrogant, condescending, a total misogynist, and he constantly reminded Betsy how much that he would collect from her life insurance when she died.

Pam also said that Betsy, had been planning to have a very serious conversation with Russ on the very night that she died. She wanted to buy her childhood home before it went into foreclosure, and her idea was that she and Russ could buy her old home together, and in order to help with a mortgage, they would rent their place in Troy, which only had Russ's name on it.

Betsy's mom Janet would move in with them and live upstairs. Betsy's daughters would also move back in. Betsy essentially wanted her whole family together under one roof for as much time as she had left. But Pam said there was one problem with this plan that Betsy had. Russ would absolutely hate it. He was not going to go for it.

They had already lived in Lake St. Louis before. He wasn't happy there. He loved the house they were in now in Troy. This wasn't going to go well for Betsy. And when asked if Pam had ever heard about Russ getting violent, she did say that Betsy was definitely afraid of him, afraid enough that just last week, she had written up a document to Pam about what Russ did in order to leave a paper trail.

And this led them to an even bigger red flag, which is clue number five, the life insurance policy. Or more specifically, Betsy's recent beneficiary change. You see, Betsy's original beneficiary was Russ, her husband. But Pam freely admitted that on December 23, 2011, four days before. Betsy died, she had actually become the sole beneficiary on Betsy's state farm policy. Pam said Betsy asked her to be the beneficiary in order to keep the money out of Russ's hands and to make sure her daughters got the money when they were older and more responsible. Betsy was kind of worried that her girls might spend it if they got it now. I mean, her youngest daughter was only 17 at this time.

Right. Pam also said that Betsy didn't want her mom Janet to be the beneficiary because Janet would just hand the money straight to the girls. Pam claimed that, you know, she was hesitant at first. She wasn't family, but she said Betsy insisted. After she agreed, they went to the library together, had a young librarian witnessed the signing of the beneficiary change form, and they mailed it in the same day. Now, in most cases, where someone changes their life insurance

right before being killed, that new beneficiary becomes a suspect. But in this case, Pam and the detectives believed that this clue actually pointed to Russ. And she essentially says that because the change form had to be received, process, and later confirmed before it took effect,

why would Pam do it before it was even locked in? Betsy mailed it in on December 23rd, right before two federal holidays, meaning there was a chance it wouldn't even have been processed by December 27th the night she died. Meaning Russ might still be entitled to collect it if she died in that window of time. And Pam knew this because her and Betsy had both worked in insurance sales. That's actually how they met.

So they understood the processing timeline. And Russ would have likely known about this because of Betsy and her experience in it as well. So detectives felt like they now had their motive. Russ killed Betsy to collect her life insurance before the beneficiary change could be processed. Except he didn't collect it. On New Year's Eve, four days after the murder, Russ called Betsy's insurance agent. about the payout saying that he was struggling to cover the funeral. State Farm told him that they had to investigate at first because the cause of death was ruled as a homicide. Instead, Russ scraped together funeral money without the insurance payout. And the funeral was held on January 3, 2012. The following day, January 4th, Russ was arrested on charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action. His bail was set out a million dollars,

but then it was reduced to $250,000. He couldn't afford either, so it didn't really matter. he would stay in jail until his trial. A cousin helped him hire a defense attorney named Joel Schwartz, and Joel immediately wanted to know why they were charging someone with an airtight alibi. But prosecutors countered and said that it wasn't actually all that airtight. Those errands could have been staged to place him miles away from the crime scene. They asked, why stop at a second gas station for cigarettes

when he could have gotten them at the first gas station? Why drive to his mother-in-law's neighborhood to buy dog food when he could have bought it closer to home. But Russ explained that the second gas station has cheaper cigarettes, and Green's country store has a rewards program. Buy enough bags of dog food, get one for free. But prosecutor Leah Askey trusted the major case squad far more than she trusted Russ and his defense counsel.

She did ask the major case squad whether someone else could have committed the crime, like Pam Hup, who was alone with Betsy, dropping her off at home right around the estimated time of death. But the major case squad explained that they had ruled Pam out saying that she was physically incapable of this. She was recovering from a head injury two years earlier, and she still had balanced problems requiring a cane. At least that's what she told everyone in her deposition, though she declined to share any medical records. Pam did provide a doctor's note saying that she was medically unable to take a polygraph test, though.

This unable to take a polygraph because of a doctor's note is really, really, really, interesting to me. It turns out that Pam actually emailed the doctor herself, requesting that the doctor write her a note that she's unable to take a polygraph due to injuring herself. No medical records document any injury, no head injury, nothing. And the doctor, when asked by investigators, why did you write this note? He basically just says, because she asked me to. So he wasn't the one that treated her for her head injury and said, oh, you can't do this because of the head injury? No. Pam asked. for that note to get out of a polygraph.

Interesting. And investigators don't really get into it. They just take everything she's saying at face value. By this point, there was a lot about Pam to be suspicious of. She had received the $150,000 state farm payout, and she hadn't given any of it to Betsy's daughters, which is what she said that she had promised Betsy. But Pam also didn't place it into a trust for them.

And even stranger, there were still two other policies which Russ was still the beneficiary on, one for $100,000 and one for $50,000? Why would Betsy change the beneficiary of one and not the others? Did Pam just not know about those? When it came time for Pam to defend herself, she said, quote, if I really hate to say wanted money,

my mom's worth half a million that I get when she dies, there was an easier way. What a weird thing to say to the cops? Basically like, hey, I didn't kill my friend, Because if I wanted to kill someone for money, I'd just kill my mom. Yeah, I've already ranked everyone in my head on who I would kill first and my mom is number one. So why would I have killed Betsy? Such a weird thing to say.

This isn't looking suspicious, guys. I know. Is it like, what do we do? It's time for a side eye or? Oh, where'd my side eye emoji go? I know. I can draw one. It's definitely side eye.

I think the fact, too, like, I know medical records are protected under HIPAA, but you can get warrants for records. You're not going to verify anything she's telling you. you, you're just taking it all at face value? I think they were really tunnel-visioned on Russ. Clearly. Pam was a caregiver for her elderly mother who had Alzheimer's and lived in a local senior center. Did it make sense for her to get the money from Betsy? Well, when Russ's lawyer, Joe Schwartz, reviewed transcripts of that interview,

he found those offhand comments about killing her own mother to be disturbing and confusing. Yeah, I'd be off-put by them too. He didn't necessarily buy that physical and capability argument. Betsy had just had a chemo infusion and her toxicology showed a low dose of Benadryl, which can be used as a sleep aide. If Betsy was asleep when she was attacked, it really wouldn't have taken much strength to kill her. And even if she wasn't asleep, I mean, she'd just come back from chemo and she's a Benadryl deep. Probably wouldn't have been that hard to attack in general. No.

And that's exactly why Joel planned to present Pam as an alternate suspect at trial. Going into Russ's trial, Joel believed that he had the smoking gun, which is clue number six for us, Pam's cell phone location records. So we're going to circle back to Pam's timeline from the night that Betsy was murdered. Pam had told police that she dropped Betsy off at around 7.04 p.m. She drove home and then called Betsy at around 7.30 to say that she had made it home safely. The records confirmed that she called Betsy at 727 p.m. but when she made her. that call, her cell phone pinged a tower near Betsy's house in Troy. Confronted with this, Pam changed her story. She said she pulled over at a fork in the road to call and say that she was almost home, but she had no explanation for why she didn't just wait until she got home. In some sources,

I have seen that Pam actually said she got lost. Yeah. On the route that she had taken a bunch. Yeah, this is one of your close friends to where she puts you as her life insurance beneficiary and you're getting lost on your way home. Yeah. Okay. Pam also didn't have an explanation for why it took her 23 minutes to get from Betsy's house to a nearby fork in the road. In short, her cell phone records placed her at or near the scene of the crime for nearly half an hour right around the time that Betsy likely died. And she had lied to police about what time she left. again, like her story's not adding up and it's changing. Joel believed that this was enough for reasonable doubt.

But the judge ruled it inadmissible. None of it was allowed to be presented in court. Missouri has a precedent called direct connection rule, and an alternate suspect can actually only be introduced if evidence directly connects them to the crime, not just because they had motive or opportunity or because they look suspicious. So this is, I'm going to mark it as a botch, but I'm going to introduce a new botch category where we actually botched the system.

I like that. I like that. We've been doing that, but we can be more explicit. Explicit about like systemic botches. Yeah. These are botches that you can actually go to the polls and vote for them to be changed. Also, you can't establish a direct connection because no investigation was done in regards to Pam. Was Pam ever looking?

out as a suspect, no, they didn't find any blood on her clothes. They never really investigated Pam. So this is a really interesting law to have in place. I know. You can't have someone be introduced as an alternate suspect just because they have motive, opportunity, and look suspicious. It's interesting. That's an interesting one. I know. Any lawyers out there, please chime in if you've got other experiences with this. I'd be curious if this is just one weird case. I mean, I get why they do it, right? Just because you look suspicious doesn't mean you can be tried in court as being like an alternate suspect if they don't have any. I get that they're maybe trying to protect people, but it does seem like you'd probably be able to. But if there's enough reasonable doubt, the person that's being charged shouldn't then be convicted.

It's essentially just like I get it. Maybe it's like they're throwing mud at a wall and they want to prevent that. But it's not like Pam would be under trial then. It's Russ on trial, and let's just show that there are other people who could be considered. Now, Joel Schwartz, the lawyer, thought being alone with the victim at the crime scene right around the time of death was enough of a direct connection. But the judge disagreed. Now, Joel Schwartz was allowed outside the jury's presence to ask Pam about the life insurance. So the judge could then decide if benefiting from Betsy's death was directly connected.

But Pam said that she had just put $100,000 in a trust for Betsy's daughters five days before the trial and had given the other $50,000 to the family of another woman who had died of breast cancer. Now, she said the delay in doing this was because that she had been dealing with her elderly mom's death from Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, the judge wouldn't let any of that go to the jury. And I will say there's no mention of it again being corroborated with any document or actual evidence.

Again, just taking Pam at face value here. Russ's trial began on November 18, 2013, 22 months after his arrest. And remember, he didn't post bail. So he was in jail. Joel Schwartz's defense leaned heavily on the alibi. Four witnesses placed Russ at game night from 6 to 9 p.m. And there was cell phone location data matching his stated route.

He expected the prosecution to focus on the nine-minute window between Russ's arrival, home and that 911 call. Leah Askey introduced that theory plus the cadaverick spasm argument or that instantaneous rigor that Morgan explained. But her main theory was a complete surprise to Joel Schwartz. She told the jury that Russ's friends hadn't just lied for him. They had helped him cover up what he had done. She said here was a group of friends that weren't just into tabletop role-playing games.

They wanted to play out real-life. adventures together, like covering up a murder. So prosecutor Askey said that they had driven his cell phone around in their own cars that night to fake a timeline. It reminds me of satanic panic when they thought all the Dungeons and Dragons kids were actually like worshiping Satan and killing each other. As someone who plays Dungeons and Dragons, it makes me very upset. Also, if that's your theory, you could easily corroborate that with car data, other cell phone records, why are these other five people, these friends who are accomplices in this murder, why are they not also being charged?

Exactly, because there's not enough there, but she's just trying to make stuff up. She even suggested that one of them might have gone through the Arby's drive-thru for Russ, and that's how he got that 9.09 p.m. receipt, and then maybe they handed it off so he could plant it in his car. None of the friends were charged, mind you, like Morgan said. but Russ's friends all stuck to their testimony that Russ was with them at the time of the murder. And after three plus days of testimony, both sides rested on November 21st, 2013. The jury deliberated for four and a half hours, and at 4.30 p.m., they came back with a verdict. Russ was guilty of first-degree murder and armed criminal action.

In December 23rd, 2013, Russ was sentenced to life without parole for the murder plus 30 years for armed criminal action. Case closed, right? Someone is now in jail for Betsy's murder. Well, not exactly. I need to know everyone's thoughts where we are right here. Time stamp, thoughts. Yeah.

Like, if you were on that jury, what would you think of this evidence presented before you? A lot of the jurors when asked about the alibi and how could you convict given such an airtight alibi, some of the jurors responded that they thought it was too good, that it had to be fake. That's so wild. Too good of an alibi. Like, that, it doesn't make any sense. But unfortunately, I mean, you give him the 911 phone call that, you know, he was saying she died of suicide. She definitely didn't. It does. Like, I could see how it's suspicious and you just maybe assume that the husband did it. And so what did you think of the 911 call? Because I didn't ask you when we had it initially. I feel like I forgive a lot of behavior when people are in grief. And also,

I know that people when they initially come upon a scene that is very shocking behave very strangely. And police and investigators are often very critical of those people. But I just can't imagine if I saw someone bleeding to death in my apartment how I would react. And I'm sure it would not be consistent with like any other behavior I've ever had in my life. So I didn't think it was suspicious. I didn't either. When I heard the 911 call, I genuinely could feel his distress. And watching the footage of him inside of the interrogation room, sobbing.

Like, crying so hard he's almost throwing up. And he is wiping away tears. I don't care what Aski says, where she was like, I've never cried so hard and didn't need a tissue. He is wiping away his tears. Like, she just ignores that part? Was he offered a tissue? I mean, in one of the sources I saw that when he was getting interrogated, there's a source, too, that he was interrogated for hours. One source even says at least 24 hours.

Wow. His wife just died. Yeah. And he came upon the scene. That distress, and he'd never asked for a lawyer. Like, he was willing to talk to them. Because they told him it was just an interview. 30 hours, I think.

We're going to have to double check that. But it was a long time. Yeah. Almost as soon as the guilty verdict broke, Russ's attorney, Joel Schwartz, started getting email tips from locals who were on Russ's side. That brings us to our seventh clue. Pam's big lies.

The day after the verdict, Joel Schwartz learned that Pam's mother hadn't died of Alzheimer's, like Pam had told the judge under oath. Pam's mother died in a suspicious fall from a third floor balcony at her retirement home on October 31st, 2013, two and a half weeks before the trial.

The death was ruled an accident, but it was a really strange fall. She went through a railing that appeared to have been previously damaged in order to weaken it. Yeah, I feel like when you see the picture, too, it's just like one of the parts of the railing is missing. She just went through it.

It wasn't even like, oh, you were leaning on it and you fall over. It's like she had to have gone through the railing. It was very, very strange. A local news investigation later found that Pam's 77-year-old disabled mother couldn't have generated enough force to even damage that railing. Additionally, toxicology reports for Pam's mother, Shirley. revealed that she had 0.84 micrograms of Ambien in her blood. According to toxicologists, this is more than eight times the amount found in a normal prescribed dose.

Joel Schwartz, the lawyer at this point, is floored. Pam had joked in her police interview about killing her own mother for life insurance money. And everyone thought it was weird. Except the police. Yeah, except the police. And again, Pam had lied about the cause of death. under oath. Like, why do you lie and say,

my mother passed from Alzheimer's not, my mother passed from falling off a third floor balcony? Yeah, it's suspicious. You hear that and you're like a weird to lie about. Joel Schwartz filed appeals seeking a new trial, arguing his evidence on Pam should not have been excluded, and while that was playing out, another lie surfaced. In mid-2014, Betsy's daughters, Leah and Mariah,

now 23 and 19, sued Pam and her. her husband Mark for their mom's life insurance money. Their attorney then called Joel Schwartz with a tip. Pam had revoked the trust that she set up for the girls almost immediately after Russ was convicted and kept all but $300 of the $100,000 for herself. As for the $50,000, she claimed to give to the family of another local woman who died of cancer. Well, a news station tracked down that family. They had never received a dime. The reporter also found that Pam had previously raised money for that same family by going door to door with Betsy's help while she was still alive, and the family never received any of that money either. And you know what else she spent some of that $100,000

on? A new car and a facelift. So with all of this, Joel Schwartz had a pretty solid appeal filing. So on February 24th, 2015, that's 15 months after Russ's conviction. And remember, he was in jail for a long time before that, too. An appeals court ordered the judge to reconsider granting Russ a new trial. Three and a half months later, the judge finally did grant it. And this time, Joel Schwartz could present Pam as an alternate suspect. The retrial began on November 2nd, 2015, as a bench trial. We've talked about this before, but bench trials are just trials without juries.

in some states you can choose those over jury trials. So it was just going to be to the judge. There was going to be no jury. Pam didn't testify, but the entire proceeding was about who looked more guilty, Pam or Russ. With the alternate suspect theory now allowed, a lot of the evidence looked a lot different, like Russ's bloody slippers. A crime scene investigator said they looked like they had been intentionally dipped in blood, not like someone had stepped in it.

And another note I saw is, you know, they thought he might have. has showered and got all the blood off him. That's why he was clean when they arrived. They tested the drains. They never found any blood or DNA evidence in those drains either. Right, right. And there was also no bloody footprints anywhere in the house, even after luminal testing, making it really hard to believe that anyone had actually been wearing those slippers inside. And then there was a document that was found on Betsy's laptop. The major case squad had seized Betsy's laptop. And with forensic software, they found a Microsoft word document written December 22nd, five days before the murder. Here is an excerpt of that document.

Quote, last night was the worst. I fell asleep on the couch watching TV. I woke up to Russ holding a pillow over my face. I didn't know what was going on. He said that he wanted me to know what dying feels like. I need to change my life insurance policy out of his name, but can't let him know that I have taken him off as beneficiary. I need your help with this. I can't give it to my girls because they will blow it. Do you think I could put it in your name and you could help my daughters when they need it? I really need to talk to you about this. I am so tired from the cancer.

I am so afraid of staying in Troy alone with Russ. If something happens to me, would you please show this to the police? End quote. Digital forensics were able to determine that it was the only document not associated with any user account. the author was actually listed as unknown, and it appeared to have been created with a word processing program. Betsy had never even installed, which to investigators, this would then suggest that someone may have created that file on another device

and then transferred it to Betsy's computer via a USB flash drive or something like that. Now this wasn't proven, but it's one possible explanation for the forensic findings. Additionally, someone had tried to open MS Outlook and email, program Betsy didn't use right after the document was first created. And the laptop's Wi-Fi history suggested it was possible that the document was created while Betsy and Pam were together at their tennis club. Now, Joel Schwartz argued that the prosecution's best evidence against Russ had all been staged by Pam. For their part, the prosecution introduced a new theory that hadn't appeared before the first trial. Pam now claimed that she and Betsy had actually been having an affair.

And Russ found out. It comes out of nowhere. Again, like, you're sharing so much with these investigators. Why not just admit that from the jump? Yeah, it's so late in the game to be admitting that. And what evidence do you have of this affair? Yeah. According to this new account,

Russ had even once assaulted Betsy in front of Pam while using anti-gay slurs. Again, no evidence of any actual affair. and according to friends of Pam's, who were interviewed in later media coverage, Pam was not interested in women. In fact, some of these friends claimed that she was fairly homophobic. So the judge is not buying any of this new theory. On November 6, 2015, they returned a verdict of not guilty on all charges. Russ was fully exonerated after three and a half years in prison. He immediately began preparing a civil lawsuit.

against the three key detectives and the prosecutor for false arrest and due process violations, and he waited to see if anything would happen to Pam. But no one could have predicted what came next when nine months later, Pam Hup made a call to 911. The consequences of leaving Pam Hup on the street were far worse than anyone anticipated. On August 16, 2016, Pam Hup, now 57, called 911 to report someone breaking into her home. Now, we're going to play a clip of this 911 call here. Again, let me know what you guys think in the comments. 9-1-1, what's your emergency?

Hey, hello, there's someone working in my house. Help. What's the average your ass? Don't. What means do you do you? We'll make you to do what? No, I'm not getting in the car with you. No.

Get away. Okay. Get out. Get out. Tell him. What's the average your app? Help. Help.

Hello. While on the call, the operator does hear gunshots. And those gunshots and the subsequent killing is our eighth clue. The victim was 33-year-old Louis Gumpenberger. Pam said that she had shot Lewis multiple times in self-defense after he broke in and threatened to kill her while asking for, quote, Russ's money. When police examined Lewis's body,

they found a handwritten note in his pocket, a list of instructions, The note said Lewis should kidnap Pam, take her to the bank for Russ's money, and then kill her and leave the cash in a woodpile in Russ's front yard. In exchange, Lewis would get $10,000. The police spoke to Russ about this. He said that he had never met Lewis, but he did have a woodpile in his front yard, which hadn't always been there. He wondered if Pam had actually been casing his house to make the frame more careful.

convincing. Luckily, a neighbor's security cameras pointed at the street, and they actually captured Pam, driving past Russ's house in both directions shortly before Lewis was killed. There was also something already in police files that was even more damning. Six days before Lewis was killed, a woman named Carol McAfee reported being approached by a stranger. This person seemed really suspicious to her. They were claiming to be a Dateline producer, offering her $1,000 to participate in a reenactment, but she would have to leave her cell phone, keys, and wallet behind. Carol needed the money, so she agreed, but hid two knives on her before getting in the stranger's car. Great looking out.

They didn't get far before Carol felt something super strange and made up an excuse saying that she had forgotten to lock the door. The woman turned around, and when it seemed like she might try to, follow Carol inside. Carol said, quote, not only do I have cameras on my house, but I know how to dial 911, and I have a knife in my pocket. Have a good day. Then she heard inside. Carol wasn't line. She did have cameras, and she gave that footage to police. It showed the car clearly enough to read the license plate, and the license plate number matched Pam's Gray 2016 GMC Acadia. Clearly not a Dateline producer. Yeah, geez.

Prosecutors believed that Pam wanted to lure Carol to her house and shoot her, and then plant that fake note from Russ on her body. Basically, the exact thing that she eventually did to Lewis, and she probably used that same dateline story to lure him. And not to mention, Lewis had suffered a brain injury. Yeah, Lewis was a brain injury patient and had a cognitive disability. no history of violence, so they weren't seeing this would even fit. Yeah, they knew he wasn't even physically capable of doing that. No, and Lewis was also found without his wallet or cigarettes,

which he always carried on him, much like how she had told Carol to leave her things behind. After getting a warrant for Pam's phone records, police found that she had been at Lewis's apartment, 13 miles from her own home for about four minutes, less than an hour before he was killed. Which means Pam likely went and picked Lewis up and then drove him back to her house in her car. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update.

Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drape you denim wide leg. A week after Lewis was killed, police arrested Pam and charged her with first-degree murder. An hour later, before she could even be arraigned, Pam stabbed herself in the neck and wrists with a pen that she had taken from the investigators.

Yeah, watch this clip of Pam. You see her just sitting alone in the room and just slowly sneak a pen into her pocket. Yeah. And then she goes to the bathroom at one point and you just hear the police start screaming. You can hear her screaming and them shouting from that same interrogation room. Officers cannot immediately reach her attorney. They read Hup her rights. And they ask her to initial she understands.

Officers leave again to try her attorney. Hup touches her neck, slowly feeling both sides. You can see how she's thinking about what's next. She knows she's on camera, so she's subtle. Watch this. Hup grabs the water bottle to hide the pen, then slides both back slowly, casually. She takes the pen behind her to hide it in her pants. Then her neck again.

It appears she's looking for her jugular or another vein she's about to strike with the pen. That's where she's escorted to the bathroom, where she stabs herself. There's an over here from a little bit of a street to the back room. About five minutes pass when you can hear officers yelling. Pam Pam did survive this. She was left with a big bandage on her neck and her mug shot. And, you know,

investigators said when they looked at the wounds, they weren't even that deep. So she just wasn't really getting herself hard enough. Now we can't put the pictures of her wounds on YouTube. It'll get taken down. But they are available on Google if you want to look yourself. Oh, my God. They're gory.

They, yeah. They're in multiple places. The best way I could describe them, and skip ahead, just one click, if you don't want to hear this. They look like Freddie Kruger's face. Yeah, just like a bunch of puncture wounds. Yeah. Yeah. After almost three years of legal wrangling, Pam made an Alford plea in exchange for life without parole instead of the death penalty.

And in Alford plea, we've talked about it before. But it means that the defendant doesn't have to admit guilt, but does acknowledge that the evidence is sufficient to convict them. So if anyone still doubted whether Pam was capable of murder, Lewis's case put those questions to rest. And while Lewis's case was working through pretrial hearings, something significant happened in Lincoln County. In 2018, both the prosecutors on Russ's case, Leah Askey and the original trial judge lost their elections and left office. And then, finally, three years later, July 12, 2021, Pam Hup was officially charged with Betsy's murder. Mike Wood, who is the new county's prosecutor, says this. And it just,

it chills you. Quote, this is one of the poorest examples of investigative work that I, as well as my team, have ever encountered, driven largely by ego working towards an agenda rather than truth. Wow. And at that same time where they're announcing they're going to charge Pam Hub, they basically say we're going to look into any wrongdoing from the prosecution and anyone involved in this case and basically being like people perjured themselves. And yeah, that's a felony.

And also they're going to start looking into Pam's mom's death now. Because all of a sudden, that looks a lot more suspicious. As of this recording, the case has yet to be tried, but Pam isn't going anywhere soon. She's still serving life without parole for Lewis's murder. And the justice system in Lincoln County is still struggling to rebuild public trust after Russ's wrongful conviction. New prosecutors are trying to make it clear that nothing like this is going to be tolerated again. And in June of 2025, nearly 14 years after Betsy's murder, one of the deputies in her case was charged with perjury for giving false testimony in Russ's first trial. And false testimony gets a botch. That's a botch. Yeah. Deputy Michael Merkel had claimed crime scene photos showed the killer cleaned up blood at the scene, which would explain why no blood was found on Russ despite the brutal murder. But according to prosecutors, those photos actually showed the opposite, that there was no cleanup. That case, all.

also hasn't gone to trial yet. Russ has been able to move forward, though. In 2020, he settled his civil lawsuit for $2 million, and he now works as a motorcycle mechanic, and he spends a lot of time on advocacy with the Midwest Innocence Project. And it turns out that Pam Hup did one nice thing for Russ, though it was completely unintentional. When he met Carol McAfee, the woman that Pam tried to lure into her house as a dateline producer, there was actually an immediate spark. They began dating and Russ proposed to her in 2021 and they married in 2024. But, and this is, you know, another sad part of this case. It seems like Russ is still estranged from Betsy's daughters.

Yeah. He is upset about their testimony. Mariah and Leah had to basically be character witnesses in the trial and testify against Russ's character, even though I don't think they knew that's what they were doing. And they were young. They were young and I've watched interviews with them. They are devastated. by this and how everything has turned out.

And they essentially say that they were forced into it. And they talk about their experience with Aski and basically that they didn't want to testify. And Aski was like, well, we'll subpoena you. And you really won't like that. And they mentioned in this interview that they had brought up Pam multiple times. Yeah. And investigators just kept dismissing everything they would say and basically being like, nope, that's impossible.

It's impossible. It's Pam. Yeah. So they were really rock in a hard place and they had just lost their mom. I know. And they did make some statements. Mariah offered Russ a heartfelt apology and she gave this public statement that said, quote,

We need to bring more awareness to wrongful convictions and the effects it has on families. The influence these people and authority have when they abuse their power. I'm glad to see where the investigation goes with the initial corrupt investigation of my mother's case. I hope that those individuals are held accountable for their actions and neglect. And Leah did share this quote. Mariah and I are so strong. We are very strong women and we have our own beautiful families that we've grown and life could not be better at the moment. And as of this recording, Betsy's trial is scheduled for 2028.

The complexity of the case and debate over the trial's location means that both sides need significant time to prepare. So on April 28th of this year, 26, prosecutors announced that they would not be seeking the death penalty against Pam and they cited Russ's input at the cost. To taxpayers regarding death penalty appeals, I know I remember, seeing that in one of the documentaries is he was talking about how it just costs too much to do the death penalty and he didn't want to like make it everyone else's burden. Let her rot in there. Yeah. And so she'll just be in there forever, hopefully. Pam is already serving life without parole. So the trial won't change her punishment. But it'll be about vindicating Russ and giving more justice to the victims. And Russ agreed with the decision saying, quote, I've never really been a proponent of the death penalty.

And people would say, well, you might not react that way until it happens to you. Well, I'm here to say, it did happen to me, and I still am not really a proponent of the death penalty, except in extreme cases of monsters. And she would be deserving of it. She's one of those monsters, but she'll be judged by a higher power in the very end. As long as she's locked up and she answers for all of her crimes, I think that's sufficient. Obviously, we have a couple loose ends with this one, like Pam's mother's death. After a local news investigation, the coroner did change the manner of death from accidental to undetermined, but whether there will ever be a full criminal investigation in that case remains unknown.

Betsy's daughters never received any of the life insurance money, and they did lose their lawsuit. A judge found insufficient proof that Pam ever promised to pass the money to the girls. That lawsuit happened before Pam was charged with Betsy's murder, and Missouri is one of the few states with a codified slayer rule on the books, but courts usually rule against killer's claims on victims' estates in practice. Now, four days before Pam was arrested for Lewis's murder, she gave her then 29-year-old son Travis a check for $122,57574 and $84, and a handwritten note calling it a loan from her LLC. When investigators found out, Travis said Pam asked him to deposit it in his own account,

in case her bank accounts got frozen, and he did. No word on what happened to it. Maybe it'll come out at trial. Again, people speculate if that's what's left of Betsy's life insurance policy. Sometimes we end on activism. This week we want to actually end on a message from the family. So Betsy's daughter Mariah, who's 32 years old now, has a message that she needs people to hear. She has been using TikTok to talk about how her family's been affected by true crime

portrayals of her mom's case, especially, like we mentioned earlier, that fictionalized series called The Thing About Pam. Now, I will say Russ was heavily involved in the show's production. For him, the most important thing was that it raised awareness of wrongful convictions. He thought that there could be good that came out of this show. And Mariah does agree that that's valuable, but she thinks that it could have been done in a way that centered her mom's life instead of making the whole thing about Pam. She wants true crime to center victims.

She called on networks and streamers to stop making reenact. Actmen shows where actors play fictionalized versions of real killers and victims, and to make documentaries that celebrate victims' lives and remind audiences that people are more than how they died. And some of the things that Mariah wants everyone to remember about her mom is that she was a great DJ. She never missed a chance at the dance floor herself. She had a great sense of humor. She loved to make people laugh.

And there are also a lot more victims in this case than we see because Betsy touched so many lives and her murder changed a lot of them. And one thing that Betsy did say when it comes to a true crime reporting, quote, if it feels gross and disrespectful to the families, then turn it off. If we keep giving these people views or ratings, they're just going to keep making them. And you can follow Mariah on TikTok at Trauma Mama Mo to keep up with her advocacy for ethical true crime and her life as a mother of two, including the daughter that she calls a feral diva queen born in March of 2022 and named after Betsy. And with that, we are going to highlight a missing person this week.

The missing person we want to highlight this week is Stacey Chapman. Stacey Chapman was last seen on May 6, 2002 in St. Louis, Missouri. Stacey is described as a black female, black hair, brown eyes, 5-5, about 100 pounds. She was 31 at the time of her disappearance. Little information is available about the circumstances surrounding Stacey's disappearance. Authorities have never publicly stated what may have happened to her, whether foul play is suspected, or who she may have been with before she disappeared. With so few answers and little media attention over the years,

her case has remained largely forgotten, despite her family still searching for truth. More than 20 years have passed since Stacey disappeared, but her loved ones continue hoping someone may come forward with information that could finally bring answers about what happened to her. Anyone with information about St. St. Chathman's disappearance is urged to contact the St. Louis Police Department at 314-44-4-4-5-3-5-0.

And that's all we have for this week's episode of Clues. Now we turn it over to you guys. Your thoughts, your feedback, your theories, all of that are really what makes this community special. I know. I'm going to be looking out for so many of your comments, especially those reactions to the clips we played. Yeah. I try to make it a goal to respond to quite a few of you. So, yes. Pop them in there. And at Crime House, we really value your support. So again, share all your thoughts. And remember to rate review and follow and subscribe. Subscribe. To Clues, help others discover our show. And don't forget, for early access, add free access, subscribe to Crimehouse Plus at

crimehouseplus.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap, try free at the top of the clues page. Thanks, guys. Bye. Bye.