Rotten Mango - #167: The Deadly Housewives of Missouri (Case of Betsy Faria & Pam Hupp)

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Pam was a normal housewife, she had a nice husband, and a job in the insurance industry. Everything about her was normal. Except, the dead body in her hallway. She had been ambushed in her own home and shot her attacker. When the police arrive they find the attacker had no ID, but a bizarre note in his pocket, it was detailed instructions on how to kidnap and murder Pam. “Make sure the knife is sticking out of her neck. Make it look like Russ’s wife.” The police were shocked. Russ’s wife had recently been murdered and the killer left a knife lodged in her neck. Was someone targeting the housewives of Missouri? Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com 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

Rambles. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are, whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier or pay to description starting at $12.99 per month. Bettering Better Boot. Welcome to this week's main episode of Rotten Mingo. I'm your host Stephanie Sue.

And let's talk about Pam. Do you guys know Pam? Y'all know Pam. Pam was a normal Midwestern housewife, okay? She had a nice husband. She had a job in the insurance industry. She lived almost a painfully normal life, and she quite liked it that way. She liked to be normal. Everything about her was exactly what you would expect.

Well, maybe not the dead body in her hallway. That's not exactly what you were imagining, and that's not how she was imagining her day going, but here she was. She had gotten into her car, trying to reverse out of her driveway, when a second vehicle screeches to a halt, blocking the driveway entrance.

A man jumps out of there with a knife in his hand, ambushes her inside of her car. He put the knife up to Pam's throat and is yelling, bitch, give me the money. Pam is screaming. I mean, this guy, he's slurring his words as he on something.

I don't smell the alcohol. What's going on? She screams, knocks the knife out of his hand. She's trying to get her neighbor's attention. Jumping out of the car, screaming all the way back to her house. And she could hear him chasing after her. She runs into her room and grabs her pistol. You're like, whoa, Pam the housewife is locked and loaded. Listen,

she probably got it because, you know, news of crime rates were increasing. It scared her. She'd never thought that she would ever use it. She wasn't a good shot either. I mean, she makes pies on the weekend. This is not an episode of Good Girls. Why is there someone attacking her right now? What money? She has no money. She holds the pistol in her hands. 911 has already been called, and she shoots. And the attacker drops down.

Please help, please. My name is Pam, and I just shot an intruder in my house, please. When the police arrive, they find the attacker dead on the ground. And inside of his pocket, his pants pocket, he has a plastic bag. He's got nothing else. He has no ID, no wallet, nothing. Just a plastic bag, like a Ziploc bag. Inside of that Ziploc bag was a ballpoint pen and a piece of paper.

Okay, it's weird. The paper were the detailed grotesque instructions of how to kidnap, rob, and murder, Pam, as well as nine crisp, new $100 bills. Are you telling me that this is a $900 hit job on a random housewife? That's so weird. The note said, get Pam in the car. Take to bank. Get Russes.

Some dudes money. Russell. Get Russell's money. 100 to 150,000 dollars. Take Pam back to the house. Get rid of her. Make sure knife is sticking out of her neck. Make it look like Russ's wife.

Make it look like Russ's wife. What does that mean? This medicine would chill down the police's back. Because Russ's wife was Betsy Faria, and she was murdered in her own home, stabbed over 50 times, and left with the knife sticking out of her neck. With someone after the housewives of Missouri. As always full show notes are available at RottenMinglePodcast.com. There's like six date line episodes on Pam, and there's a mini series called The Thing About Pam where Renee Zellweger plays Pam Hup.

There's also a book on this case called Bown Deep, the Untangling of the Betsy Faria Murder Case. The author is Charles Bosworth, Junior, and Joel J. Schwartz. Okay, handful of names. They Faria murder case. The authors Charles Bosworth, Duner, and Joel J. Schwartz, okay, handful of names, they're very fancy sounding. So Charles, he's such a talented writer. He's actually written a ton of heartfelt books on other true crime cases. He has a really good book on John Bonet Ramsey,

the Paula Sims case. We've briefly talked about that, remember, where the newborn daughter was Kimnet from the crib, and then a few years later, the second daughter was was Kim not from the crib and then a few years later The second daughter was also kidnapped from the crib and everyone's like, okay, it's got to be the parents It's got to be the parents. It was all just so suspicious Charles Bosworth Jr. is just really an amazing author. I highly recommend on honestly anyone of his books And the book is also co-written by Joelle J. Schwarz who was one of the attorneys on this case

There is a lot of legal insight in this book that I could not find anywhere else. Now, side note, the book is written so that all the legal information is just so easy to digest. You don't have to be versed in the legal world to understand how much of a shit show this case was. The book also never loses touch with the emotional side of this tragic story. I actually cried twice in this book because of how raw the emotions are and how they're depicted, even the emotions of the trial.

So make sure to go pick up a copy of Bone Deep. I mean, I watched the Dateline series, read several in-depth articles. This book is the best deep dive you will get on this case. Now, like I said, a series of bizarre events were taking place in Missouri to very normal housewives. It all started when Betsy Faria was found murdered. Now, it would be hard to call Betsy a normal housewife. She was not normal. She was admirable. She was a loving mother, daughter, and that was suffering from terminal cancer.

The doctor gave her three to five years to live, and even with this grim prognosis, Betsy made it her goal to live her life to the fullest. She had just gotten back from this celebration of life crews with her friends and family. Then a few weeks later, she found dead in her home, stabbed over 50 times, covered in blood, and left to die with a knife sticking out of her neck. Pam also lived in Missouri. Pam was quite the normal housewife. As I mentioned earlier, she found herself cornered in her house with an attacker.

She shot and killed him, and the police found a note in his pocket that said, make sure to kill Pam like Russ's wife. Make sure the knife is sticking out of her neck. Then later, the police were talking to a woman named Kathy about a seemingly unrelated incident when she asked to use the police restroom. After a few minutes, the police were worried, okay, she's been gone for too long, why isn't she back?

They bust into the bathroom, they see Kathy bent over on the floor of the bathroom in front of the sink, and when she looks up, they see Kathy bent over on the floor of the bathroom in front of the sink. And when she looks up, they see blood dripping from her wrists. There's blood splatter on the floor on the walls of this police bathroom, and a pen, a ballpoint pen, was sticking out of her neck. What? So what the actual hell is going on in Missouri? This is going to be such a complicated case. I worked, I think I spent like a full day

Not even researching just just with the whole setup of this case. How am I gonna tell this to you in a way that Really shows you how bad it was because I think hindsight is 2020 So in hindsight everyone's like, I knew that was what was gonna happen But truly it was insane. So it all starts with Betsy. Betsy, Faria had been murdered. And I'm gonna be honest with you, by all accounts, yeah, it seemed like her husband,

Russ Faria was guilty as hell. I mean, let's be real. It's always the husband, isn't it? And I'm not saying that to be dramatic, statistically speaking, it's the husband. And this husband, well, he was particularly suspicious. He said he came home expecting Betsy to be alive and well, but instead he found her cold, stabbed to death in the living room.

He called 911 and was like, hey, my wife killed herself. She committed suicide. 50 stabs? Yeah, with a knife sticking out of her neck. Now, when the police get there, they're s-eying this guy really hard, because, like I said, Betsy had been stabbed 55 times, and the knife was still lodged in her neck. The police are not having it. Why would this Russ guy even assume it's a suicide?

I mean, it's so obviously not. And on top of that, Russ discovered Betsy's body and he called 911. A 2015 US statistic showed that in 30% of convicted murder cases, the person who reported the crime was also the person who perpetrated the crime. The police also noted in their reports, listen this Russ guy? Yeah, he's sobbing, he's wailing, he appears to be distressed, but his eyes are dry as the desert. Is he just acting? Is he appears to be distressed, but his eyes are dry as the desert. Is he just acting? Is he just making noise? What's up with that?

The police administer a polygraph. They come back to his interrogation room and they tell him the news. Listen, rostris, tell us the truth. You failed. You weren't 65% deceptive. You weren't 80% deceptive. You were 100% deceptive. You failed 100%. The police do some light digging. Russ, you know, it says here that a few days before Betsy's murder, she changed the beneficiary of her life insurance policy. Of one of them, it used to be you, but she changed it. Did that make you angry?

Angry enough to kill her? He's like, what? I don't know what you're talking about. I would never kill my wife. I told you the truth. I love my wife. Yeah, Russ, that's what they all say. They love their wives. Charging with murder and armed criminal action. So the police, they start building a case against Russ.

They found Russ's bloody slipper in the bedroom closet. It's like he threw it in there. There was blood splatter on the light switch of the bedroom, aluminum and all tests lit up the kitchen, indicating that potentially there had been blood or a blood clean up. What really intrigued the police is that Russ never had a drop of blood on his body when he came to the scene. You know that's weird, Russ. You don't think that's weird? Your next year wife dying, covered in blood. I mean, how does a grieving spouse who just found their loved one dead resist touching them, even a little? He's like, I wanted to, I wanted to cradle her body in my arms, of course I did, but I knew that would tamper with the investigation, so I stopped myself.

But Russ, what investigation? You thought it was a suicide. Oh my god, this guy's a mess. So yeah, we're not buying it. You know, the only problem that the police and prosecutors were facing was that Russ had an airtight alibi. Or so he thought. He said that night, like he does every Tuesday night,

he was with his friends playing role playing games. From six to nine p.m., he was with them sitting on the couch inches away from the four of his friends. They could testify that he didn't leave their site for more than a minute or two. And his house was pretty far away, like he's not gonna go home and come back. And the police thung.

Roll playing game, what kind of roll playing game? Two years later, in 2013, Russ was on trial for the murder of his wife. The prosecutor gave her a closing statement, which has been modified for length and honestly a little modified for confusion. She told the jurors, I'm gonna tell you guys how I think it happened. Russ decided this would be the ultimate role play.

The ultimate game, the ultimate way to stage a murder, but it required all hands on deck. It required a pretty good script, one that could be committed to by memory. They had to memorize this script, so this prosecutor is implying that his four friends are in on Betsy Faria's murder She said now I'm not saying that Russ knew all along December 27th, 2011 was gonna be the day he kills his wife But I am suggesting that months before maybe years before he had the idea and I think he brought it to his friends I think they talked about it. How could we do this? How would the ultimate role play happen? How would the perfect murder happen?

So the prosecutors are implying that Russ had helped from his role-playing co-star slash co-conspirators. Betsy had gotten chemo that day. A friend had dropped her off at home, and why didn't this doding husband think to himself? You know, my wife is sick. I should cancel game night and pick her up. Why didn't this doding husband think to himself, you know, my wife is sick, I should cancel game night and pick her up. Will Betsy's decision to go home that night, sealed December 27th as the day that she would die. And so the ball starts rolling, the momentum starts gaining, he makes all these stops so

he can establish an alibi. Not a bad idea. I don't know if any of you picked up on his friend Brandon when he was on the stand. When the defense counsel asked him, one was the last time you saw Russ Faria. Brandon said, not since the night, not that night. Not that night we played games, not that Tuesday, not that night we celebrated Christmas as friends. He said, the night, the night that we've been talking about and planning four years, the night. It's here, tonight is the night. Sure, GPS records will show that Russ's phone

was at his friend's Mike's house the whole time. But he could have simply left his phone at his house and left. That doesn't mean Russ was at Mike's house the entire time. So Russ leaves his phone, comes into the house, Betsy's on the couch in the love seat. She's covered with a blanket, and I submit to you that he has sex with her. He violates his wife one more time. That he controls her just one more time. He's thinking, I'm going to humiliate

Betsy in a way that only I can one more time. Knowing she's tired, she's sick, she's not well, she lay there, probably disgusted with many things at this point. So the prosecutor believes this because there was sperm found in Betsy's vaginal canal. The prosecutor was on a roll, she said, and why doesn't he have blood on his clothes? Because I don't think he was wearing any clothes. I think he walks past her in the kitchen. I think he goes around the refrigerator to the butcher block, where he knows it is. I think he gets the steak knife out of his own kitchen.

I think he gets this knife out and he comes around to where she's lying on the sofa. I think he comes around the corner and I think he's really hopeful that he's gonna stab her one time in the neck and it's gonna look like a suicide. And folks, I'm not gonna pretend that I think the stabbing in the neck is a suicide

or that it even looks like one. I'm sure you don't think that either. But guess what? The defendant sure does. And why do we know that? Because when he called 911, he said, I just walked in, my wife killed herself and she has a knife sticking out of her neck. He believed that was plausible. I think he stood over her on top of her. He stabbed her in the neck and when she moved, he stabbed her with such force in her bicep as she lay on her side that it went through her bicep and into her lung. I think at some point, obviously she gets up. She sits up and struggles somewhat. But not much.

Luckily for her, I would imagine that she would have died within a minute. But this is personal. It was passionate. He gets around the ground and at some point I think the overall feeling is oh no, this is going horribly wrong. Reality sets it. Now what do I do? The killer gets careless. He starts, you know, I'm gonna cut up her arms. Except we know what happened after. He's thinking what do I do? He goes back, takes a shower, gets any evidence off of him. And when he comes out, the killer is careless because guess what? They have a family dog and he forgets that dog. Now, a dog by nature is gonna be inquisitive.

When there's blood, they're gonna be curious. And let's face it, it's the dog's owner and so the dog is kind of investigating things. And the killer thinks, oh no, so he picks a dog up, throws it over the kitchen, and then chains him up outside. He's careless. We have entered into evidence what looks to be a bloody paw print on Betsy. This is important because this implies that the dog was inside hanging out and the killer

later chained the dog outside. Because that's where the police saw the dog when they came. Russ himself even told 911 dispatch that his dog was chained up outside when he came home. Who would think to do that? Who could even do that to a big dog other than their own owner? Now, the prosecutors suggest that Russ has cleaned everything up, chained the dog up outside, and re-created the scene of himself walking in and finding his dead wife. He calls 911, and while he is standing there, hysterically crying to 911, he realizes something. His fucking slippers. They have blood on them.

He forgot the fucking slippers. So the prosecutors believe that while he's on the phone with 9-1-1 he walks into the master bedroom and throws them in the closet. They say you can tell that he's moving in that 9-1-1 call. I ask you to listen to things like the differences in pitch, the differences in the echoes of his voice. He is moving around. The prosecutor went on to end her rather grand presentation with. We heard from the 911 operator that Russ is hysterical. Then all of a sudden he can answer a question. Then he's hysterical, then he can answer another question.

She judged him a little bit. The first person on the scene, Officer Hollingsworth, he took Russ outside, handed him a cigarette, and he said, Hey, this guy, I think he's going into shock. And then minutes later, Russ is in his car smoking cigarettes, and they're laughing. They're talking about how he used to take girls down to a bubble-head road. Who's saying this? The officer, Russ is saying this to the police officer. Laughing it up, not even an hour after his wife is dead.

The officer judged him. Detectives Mark Gold Floyd and Harnie, the officers who interrogated him. They judged him. You know, he's crying, he's on his knees, he's whaling, though he never needs a clean ex. Not one time in all of those hours. And ladies and gentlemen, I will be frank. I judged him too.

I believe we've proved this case beyond a reasonable doubt. I believe you should be firmly convinced and you should return a verdict of guilty on all counts. Thank you. It worked. Russ was found guilty a first degree murder and armed criminal action. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Now you're like Stephanie, why is this podcast so long? That should be the end of it, right?

This is the part where we say we freaking knew it that guy was up to no good. Maybe we dig a little deeper today. If you want to know the sometimes ugly truth about someone's relationship Do you go straight to the source? Do you go to the people in the relationship and ask them how's your love life? How's your relationship? Or maybe do you ask the friends and family? What gets you the truth? Friends and family. So let's start with the relationship. Russ Faria, by all accounts, again, I mean, this is a trend in this episode. He was a normal guy. He grew up in the Midwest. He got his GED. He worked a series of jobs, and eventually

he becomes a manager at a liquor store. Now, this guy kind of bounced around working on jobs in there. Here and there, he just, he couldn't find a spark in his life. Even in his late 20s, he just didn't know what he wanted. Until he met Betsy Carter. She was a year older than him, and there was just something about her. There was something about Betsy. There was something about her expressive blue eyes, her curly brown hair.

She had this magnetic smile. She was bubbly, expressive blue eyes, her curly brown hair. She had this magnetic smile. She was bubbly, extroverted, confident. He knew that she would change his life. And we can assume Betsy's hot too, because she's the one that asked him out on their first date. And when Betsy's divorced, her current husband was finalized. So she was already divorcing this guy before meeting Russ, you know, you get it? It takes a long time.

So after the divorce is finalized, Russ moves in in and he tries to be a father to Betsy's two girls that she had from a previous relationship. So not the ex-husband, but a relationship prior. This is kind of important later. You know, they're all in their late 20s when they meet. A little bit about Betsy. It's hard to not love her. So when she was a kid, she grew up in a really strict Catholic house, but she was so active. She played softball, and in high school she even started her own DJ

business called party starters. Literally Betsy was the life of the party. Like you would pay her to make your party good. She killed it as a DJ. She even performed at like 1500 different events, different weddings. I mean, she really was that girl. So Russ and Betsy get married and Betsy is still good friends with her ex-husband Ron. By the way, now Russ knew all of this, he's super chill with it. He knew that Betsy wasn't attracted to Ron anymore. Even until the day that Betsy died, Ron would come over to fix stuff around their house. Besides, Betsy was beyond devoted to Russ.

She encouraged him to go back to school. She picked up more slack around the house so he could get a bachelor's degree. He ended up getting an amazing job in IT. I mean, this is a long road away from picking up odd jobs here and there. He had started a career for himself because of Betsy. Now, of course, like every couple they're going to have their issues. Russ had a bit of a volatile temper. Now I wouldn't necessarily call it a violent temper.

Nobody has ever said he was physically abusive, but it was volatile and it was a temper. He would get mad, he would just yell things at Betsy, and even her two daughters that he would later regret. He would say a lot of nasty words during fights. During their 11 years together together they separated multiple times. Their longest separation was like an entire year. They both had relationships outside their marriage, but every time it seemed like they would come back and forgive each other, try to make it work.

They even bought a home out in Troy, Missouri. So this is about 35 miles away from where Betsy grew up. This is like 35 miles from Betsy's mom. This is important later. Now, the daughter's decided, I'm gonna stay with grandma. You know, we're 21 and 17 years old. We need to finish high school here. It's just easier. I don't wanna, you know, move for senior year.

And truly now, Betsy and Russ are alumni. They're gonna have a fresh start to their marriage. They're even starting to go to church, seeing a marriage counselor. But the whole happy spell just is like not destined to last, because the same year they bought that new house, Betsy was dying nose with breast cancer. She underwent a successful mastectomy

where they had to remove even her healthy breast tissue. She had to have reconstructive surgery, and two years later she was considered to be in remission. So everyone around her is so happy. They start planning this cruise that they were all going to take called the survivor's cruise. That's what they called it. The little trip. Right before the cruise, a month before the cruise, Betsy gets life-changing news. The cancer is back and it's spread to her liver. It's inoperable. The doctor gave her three to five years to live. Betsy chose even with the scrim prognosis that she was still gonna undergo chemotherapy.

And she told her loved ones, I beat it once, I can do it again. Honestly, nobody would have blamed Betsy if she wasn't happy all the time, you know, imagine. Like, she doesn't have to be so smiley and her usual bubbly self, but she refused. Even though she had to quit her job working for the insurance company,

she didn't quit DJing in her free time. She never quit tennis. It was her favorite, but tennis is not an easy sport. She loved it so much she joked that she would die on the tennis court. Now, if anyone that you know has ever been through chemo, it drains you physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. But even when she was so depleted from chemo, she's like, I gotta go play tennis. She was determined toeted from chemo, she's like, I got to go play tennis. She was determined to live her best life and remember that survivor's cruise that she was going on with her family and everyone's like, oh, how do we approach this? Well, she's like, let's do it! Let's call it the celebration of life cruise instead. And even though she struggled with her energy

levels on this cruise, she got to swim with the dolphins. And when she got back, she told everybody in her life, this was the highlight of my entire life. I swear her attitude is truly so inspirational. She was so positive, yet she had this realistic approach about her situation. I mean, just truly admirable. So what happened between November 2011 when she went on this cruise and December 27th, 2011 when she was brutally murdered?

A lot of people think that the answer lies within her relationship with Russ. How was her relationship when she died? Now Betsy was not spending as much time at home with Russ. Russ claimed it was because Betsy's mom's house was closer to the chemo sessions and it was just easier to save on gas and time. And after chemo, Betsy was so tired, save on gas and time. And after chemo, Betsy was so tired, it's hard to make the 40 mile drive back. Russ claimed sure we had problems in the past but we were working on it. We were focusing

on her health that was all. In fact, we're doing better than ever. But of course, Russ would claim that. Betsy's friends and families had otherwise. They would even go as far to say Betsy was terrified of us. We do know that Betsy wanted to move in with her mom. She wanted to pitch the idea to us. Why don't we rent out our house in Troy and we move in with my parents? It'll just be easier.

They can help take care of me. It's closer to my chemo. She knew Russ wouldn't like the idea, but she hoped that he would say yes because I mean, this is not a normal situation. According to her friends, she was planning on telling him that night, December 27th. So what happened that night?

Now the day starts off completely normal. Betsy was already at her mom's house and she texts Russ that morning before her chemo session. She said, you're supposed to get dog food tonight. Yes, I'll get it when I come in. You still have your game night tonight? So Betsy is referring to how every Tuesday, Russ and his friends would do the roleplay game night. Okay, it's similar to Dungeons and Dragons, but it's called rolemaster, which I hear is very similar.

So essentially, you use your imagination. You create these characters, this storyline, but you have to follow this rolemaster guidebook. It sets the ground rules. Now, it's not as like wild as it sounds. I'm sure people do this, but you don't actually dress up most of the time. You don't really go into full character.

You're not swinging around an imaginary sword. Which I kind of thought the first time around, I heard of it, right? I was wrong. You're not doing all of that. You just sit around the table and talk about potential scenarios. There's this dungeon master or a role master,

I believe, in this situation. So let's say we sit in a role master, I believe in this situation, so let's say we sit in a circle and we're coming up with a true crime plot. So I say, okay, Stephanie is the killer, Jane is an accomplice, my fiance is the victim, and Dan Dan is a witness. So the dungeon master would say, okay, perfect. So you guys are in the fiance's kitchen, he's on the floor injured, Stephanie is attacking him with an icicle. Dan Dan, the witness walks into the room shocked. And then you go around the table to take turns to say what happens next.

So, for example, my fiance who is the victim in this situation would say, I want to attempt to take Stephanie's icicle from her and try to attack her back. The dungeon master would give him a couple of dice and say, if you roll a 10 or more, you get the icicle. Okay. So if my fiance rolls a couple of dice and say if you roll a ten or more you get the icicle Okay, so if my fiance rolls a 12 let's say he gets to seal the knife Then it's the next person's turn maybe dandia and the witness says I want to do blah blah blah

So I I'm not I've never played myself, but it does kind of sound like improv It sounds like a group of people rolling dice and using some cool diagrams and asking the dungeon master Hey, can I do this? And the plot slowly moves along. I mean it's definitely not a violent game like the prosecutor made it out to be. I mean I'm sure that if you have violent players it's gonna get violent, but Russ and his friends claimed they never did. They said they were more into like the Lord of the Rings type of ventures. So anyways, game night always took place at this guy's Mike's house.

The sessions lasted a few hours and then Russ would drive back home. So Russ texts Betsy back. Yeah, I'm going to the game and then I'll come get you. We'll call when I'm on the way. It shouldn't be too late. So the plan was for Russ to finish his work, go home, change, go to the game, and then drive to Betsy's mom's house, pick up Betsy, drive her home to their home in Troy. They had multiple cars, but like I said, it was exhausting for Betsy to drive, so she didn't

want to drive. Betsy let's know, okay, great honey. But a few hours later, she let's know there's a change of plans. Hey, I got the toilet paper and Pam wants to bring me home to bed. I need rest. White blood cell count is low. Got the infusion anyway. So you coming home here, Betsy?

Yes, Troy Russ. I'm going to Troy. She's going to bring you here? Yes, Troy Russ. I'm going to Troy. She's going to bring you here? Yes, she offered and I accepted. Okay, see you soon then, Betsy. Okay, great. So that's settled it. Russ didn't have to pick up Betsy.

Even after work, Betsy gives Russ a call and tells him, Hey, listen, just reminding you Pam's going to drive me home so you don't have to pick me up. Oh, and I have something to tell you later when I get home. Okay, good or bad? It's good, don't worry. Remember, she planned to tell him about moving back with her parents. So Russ finishes work, comes home after, switches cars, heads for Mike's house. On the way, he fills up on gas, buys some cigarettes, buys dog food for their golden retriever. You

know, all of that. He gets to Mike's around 6 p.m. right on time. But they get bad news. They're not going to be able to play rolemaster that night. One of their friends had an emergency. They can't play without all the characters, it would just be weird. So they play something where their storyline progresses every week. It's not a new one. So imagine a few chapters where the main character is just vanished, she would just be weird. So they all decide to watch a movie instead, just on the couch right next to each other, inches away from each other. It wasn't a big party where it would be easy for Russ to slip away. So they sit, watching movies, smoking weed.

Around 9 p.m., everybody starts finding their way to their cars. Russ calls Betsy to let her know he's about to leave, but she didn't pick up. That's fine, she's probably home in a sleep. He gets in the car, starts the drives. But what's that? His stomach is rumbling. He decides to make the executive decision to get Arby's. Probably he didn't want to whip something up

when he gets home because Betsy's asleep. He eats it while he's driving, and he gets home around 9.45 pm. He parks in the driveway, brings the dog food in, puts it down near the front door, takes off his jacket, Betsy, I'm home. Now this is Russ' story. He looks up and his eyes fall on Betsy's lifeless body,

contorted over the front of the sofa with a pool of dark red, almost black blood staining the beige carpeting. Betsy's not exactly laying on the ground or the couch. She's kind of twisted over the edge of the couch with her shoulder almost touching the floor. So he's screaming, Betsy, Betsy, he drops down on the ground, he's screaming,

no, no, no, no, no, no, her hair was matted with blood, her face was covered in blood, and then he saw it, the black handle of what looked to be the kitchen's steak knife coming out of the side of her neck. Betsy's eyes were closed,

and he could see her tongue protruding between her lips. He said in that moment, he knew already she was dead and gone. And so with the shock, the grief, the panic, he thought Betsy had committed suicide. And looking back, he says, yeah, that was a dumb assumption to make.

But Betsy had cancer, she was battling depression. In addition to cancer medication, she was on depression and anti-anxiety meds. She had threatened suicide once before. With the diagnosis of the terminal cancer, the debilitating chemo, the constant struggle of depression, Russ is spinning mind-tooled him, she must have reached her breaking point. He said the first thing he wanted to do was cradle her in his arms, but he couldn't. He knew that the police needed to get there first, so he forced himself off the floor and called 911.

He was hysterical, loud, he could barely talk, there were breathless sobs. He's saying like, this is Rafa,, I just got home from a friend's house and my wife killed herself. She's on the floor. Okay, Rafa, I need you to calm down. Take a deep couple of breaths. We're gonna get someone on the way there. What did she do?

She's got a knife in her neck and she slashed her arms. Okay, okay, honey calm down. Is she breathing? No! Rafa, how long were you gone today? I left around five. I just got back. She went to her mom's house and her friend was bringing her home,

so I don't know when she got home. And you said she's been depressed lately? She's got cancer. Where is the knife now, Russell? It's still in her. It's laying next to her? No, it's in her neck. Oh my God, why would she do this to me?

Why would she do this? Russell, they're on the way, honey, okay? They will be there shortly. Is anybody else in the house with you? No, no, no, no. There's nobody else here. What am I gonna do? No!

What am I gonna do? Betsy, no! Oh my God, no! Russell, do you think she's beyond help? I think she's dead. Oh God. First responders arrive at the scene at 9.49 pm. They take one look at Betsy and they knew she was long gone.

Her body was already cold and rigor mortis was setting in. Her fingers were frozen stiff. The blood around her had already started coagulating. She had been dead for at least a few hours. But nobody had any idea how someone could look at the scene and think that she had taken her life. So the first detective on the scene, Chris, offers Russ' cigarette, like I said, right?

And at one point, he's joking around and Russ points out, you know, my dog is chained up outside and that's unusual. My dog is like an inside dog. This is weird. Like I said, the police are already sideying him at this point. They know that Betsy didn't commit suicide. And they're looking at Russ with a filter of suspicion. They bring him in to be questioned.

And even at the police station, they're even more skeptical. Like at one point, he's breaking down screaming, no, no, no, no, like falling to his knees on the floor. And they're just watching him. They're staring at him. And then the police look down at their notes to jot. Russell's face does not appear to have any moisture when crying. Instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York City cops had become them. I would suit up in my uniform and we're going to rob some drug dealers and I know how to do it really well. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat?

100% I saved my soul just like everybody else does. Listen to and follow the set, an Odyssey originals documentary podcast series available now in the Odyssey app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm not a big guy man, but I love being that dirty mother f***er. Russ also painted a completely normal picture of their marriage. It's been a dirty mother f***er. Russ also painted a completely normal picture of their marriage. He said, yeah, we had our tough moments, but we were working on it. Okay, we'll tell us more about that night, like who dropped off Betsy. Oh, Pam, Pam Hup.

How do they know each other, Russ? Uh, I don't know. I think they met, like, working at State Farm Insurance. I've met her husband a couple of times. I forget his name. We weren't that close. Like, we never really went on double dates or socialized or anything like that. Pam and Betsy were pretty close, I think they were trying to, I don't know, maybe start a non-profit together for people with health issues. So would you say Betsy was making plans for her inevitable death? No, I mean, we have life insurance if that's what you're asking, but we've always had

life insurance, it's not like she got more life insurance or anything like that. She hasn't done anything differently than she normally does. The police perked up in their seats. This was the first time in the conversation that life insurance was mentioned. Okay, well how much life insurance? The police learned that Betsy had $300,000 in life insurance with Russ as the primary beneficiary. There was a $50,000 policy through Russ's job and another two policies, $1,000 for $100,000 and another for $150,000. But what's interesting and what Russ didn't know is that Betsy had removed him as the beneficiary of the $150,000 policy just four days before her death. Or maybe Russ claims not to know.

So now Russ has the ultimate motive. The police will at Pam Hub, the last one to see Betsy alive, the one that dropped her off at home. And Russ was the one with the motive they knew it. Betsy wanted to move closer with her parents, their marriage issues, her life insurance policy. Maybe he needed her to be dead

before she changed the rest of the policies to be someone other than him. And maybe it wasn't the most well thought out plan, but when is it ever when you kill your spouse? He spiraled into a fit of rage and he violently stabbed Betsy to death, that's what happened. Russ was in over his head. He's begging the police, you have to believe me, I would never hurt my wife. Okay, then take this polygraph, Russ. Did you kill Betsy Faria? Did you kill Betsy Faria with a knife?

To each question Russ answered no, but when the police came back in the room after analyzing his results they let him know he failed. And they started grilling him harder. Russ, it's obvious you did it. You failed the polygraph you lied to us. No please I love my wife, I have no reason to kill her I have no reason to kill her Then at the end Russ finally had enough and he said I want a lawyer and a detective leaned over to a junior detective in training and said as soon as they want a lawyer

That means they're guilty No way That's crazy That's crazy. I don't even know what to say to that That's crazy. That's crazy, I don't even know what to say to that. But it wasn't just Russ that convinced the police that he was guilty. You know how they say, like I said, if you want to get to know a relationship, the true nature of a relationship, do you ask the people involved or the outside onlookers?

But onlookers also bias, so... Right, so the police go. And they ask everyone around the couple. Because remember, Russ said it was rough But it was getting better, you know, of course, it's not sunshine and rainbows. They've been together for over a decade Well, that's not what Betsy's friends and family would say Pam Hup one of Betsy's closest friends was interviewed She spoke with the police for three straight hours Blessing them with every intimate detail of the Faria marriage listen

She's a bored Midwestern housewife with a hobby of gossiping, there is no stopping her. She had also known Betsy for almost 11 years and saw her like every day. She called them best friends. She would chuckle at the memories of how they met working together at State Farm, all their wonderful little breaks that they would spend giggling like little girls.

She said, I saw her almost every day, every other day maybe. Pam, do you mind telling us about the Faria marriage? Well, they had been separated gosh, I don't know, six seven times through the years I've known Betsy. I don't really know Russ that well. I've met him three times in ten years maybe. He doesn't like to come to functions and stuff. It's just her. He's not the most. He's kind of not nice verbally to her, you know, and he makes us feel uncomfortable sometimes Have you heard him not being nice verbally to her? Oh, yeah, he's kind of pompous. I mean he seems nice enough I just don't know him that well the last time I saw him was at her 40th birthday party that he had for her I think that was the last time I ever really talked to him. No, I take that back

I was at her house last week. She wanted to make lunch and he was working in the house, so I went down to say hi to him. And he's like, oh, did you get lost? Because, you know, I called and he gave me directions to the house. I'm like, yeah, I got lost. I'm not really familiar with the area. And he said, oh, you women are such asses. So yeah, I went back upstairs, I just wanted to say hi. Okay, well, what else? Betsy talked about leaving Russ a lot. I think she was talking about a cousin. Linda, I think her name?

She said that she and Linda were both going to leave their husbands, move in together and start working at a local college. Just didn't really like to go home on the weekends, you know? Sometimes Russ was in a good mood and they would do things together and other times he was just very degrading to her. He'd make a lot of comments about how much money he'll have after she's gone. And that's what she said. I don't know for sure.

I don't know. I haven't even seen the financials, but I know that she has life insurance and I know he's got life insurance on her artwork. Okay, has he ever been physically mean to her that you know of? I don't know, I've never really gotten into that conversation because I don't know the guy. I know him enough, you know, a couple times I've seen him, like I said, he thinks women are all like, and he's just, he's just a no at all.

But I know a lot of guys like that, you know, he smokes in the house, even though she's sick. He doesn't care. Okay, so sort of disrespectful. Yeah, very disrespectful. He'll say disrespectful things. She gets her feelings hurt a lot, and she doesn't care to be around him. She's tired of the talk about what he's gonna do

and what he's gonna have when she's gone, and she's tired of it. She was afraid to be with him on the weekends. He just gets so nasty, especially when he has some drinks. I didn't want to say this because it's not my place, but the other day, we were at the tennis club playing tennis. And I guess Betsy didn't want to voice it. She said she was going to send me something on her computer,

like a dog, a word document. She was never able to send it to me and I don't really know what it says. She said she couldn't email it because Russ goes through the email. She couldn't print it because Russ isn't controlled with the printer. Do you know anything about what it might have said or what it might have pertained to? Later the investigators would find the said document. But Pam says, I'm...

Betsy said the last weekend she was with him. He started playing this game. He would put a pillow over her face to see what it would feel like. And he would tell her, this is what it's going to feel like when you die. But then he would just laugh and off. She was really upset. What? So she said he was actually putting a pillow on her face.

Yes. Did she sound scared? Did Betsy sound scared when she told you this? Yeah, very scared. But then she would laugh, and that's why she didn't really... That's why toward the end, she didn't really want to go home. She had been sleeping on the couch for months anyways. So Betsy was talking about divorcing her husband. Yeah, a lot.

She was desperately talking yesterday about how she wanted to go back in live with her parents. She wanted to talk to him about it that night. And do you think Russ would have gotten angry? Absolutely. She said he would not leave his house. He always said, it's my house, my house. So Pam is dropping bombshell after bombshell. She tells the police that Betsy is also having an affair with her ex-husband, Ron Carter. Betsy would sleep with him whenever she's fighting with Russ or when Russ doesn't give her sex. Yeah, that's what she said. She says, but that's how Betsy is. Pam was basically saying the only reason Betsy was with Russ was because she couldn't support herself financially now that she couldn't work anymore, but at the same time she was terrified

of him. I mean, listen to how fucked up he is. According to Pam, Betsy was stressed because the chemo wasn't working. She knew it wasn't working. She was wetting the bed all the time. And Russ would get straight up pissed because you don't want the mattress to smell like piss. And that reminded Pam of an incident. How could she forget?

A week or two before Christmas, I went to the gym with Betsy. And Betsy had brought a bottle of Gatorade. That's like our thing. I bring one to every time. Anyways, Betsy takes a big sip of her gatorade and she starts gagging. She's like, oh, this is horrible. Try it. I'm like, no way, you just said it's horrible. Why am I going to try it? I did smell it and it smelled okay, but we compared our bottles and it looked cloutier than mine. It was weird. Russ always bought her gatorade because he wanted her to get electrolytes in her system. So Betsy poured the gatorade down the toilet because it tasted so bad.

So Pam had just insulated that Russ had already tried to murder Betsy once before her death, but it wasn't even just Pam that felt this way about their marriage. Betsy's own family didn't like Russ. Betsy's own sister would later testify to tell the jury that their marriage was on the verge of collapse. And even six years prior, Russ and Betsy had gotten into a fight, Russ turns to Betsy's sister, Mary, and says, I'm going to cut her up into pieces and bury her. Mary was so scared she called the police. Even at Betsy's funeral, Russ went up to the casket, fell to his knees and started talking to Betsy. And one of Betsy's aunts angrily approached Russ,

hit him in the chest and screamed, how could you? How could you? After these testimonies and these reports, Russ was arrested again a week later in his parents' home. The police barged in with the warrant and aimed their guns at Russ. Get on the floor! You're under arrest for the murder of your wife. Get on your knees! Russ did as he was told and while he's being handcuffed and officer tells him, you forgot to check the drains. There was blood in the drains and on the mop. hand cuffed and officer tells him you forgot to check the drains there was blood in the drains and on the mop. What Russ was thrown into the back of a police car where an officer got in next to him held the pistol up against the back of his head the whole time and said if you say anything

if you even breathe the wrong way I'm gonna paint the windshield with your brains. Um they can do that. I guess so. It's crazy. I mean they can't but they're doing it. Russ's bond was set out $1 million. It was later reduced to 25,000. Still a figure that his family could not pay.

So he would remain in prison till his trial, which would start two years later. And well, you know how the trial goes. He was found guilty, sentenced to life in prison, but he would eventually get out. And a series of even more bizarre events would take place when he did. Carol McCaffey was someone who could be described as suspicious by nature, but curious at heart, and a very interesting thing happened to Carol on her driveway. And she just couldn't not get involved.

Carol was hanging out on her porch with her dog. When this blonde woman in a dark gray SUV drove by and waved She'd stop at the end of Carol's driveway. So Carol approaches the car. She's not smiling. She's rather straightforward She says can I help you? The woman rolled down her window and smiled. Do you babysit? No, I don't babysit. What a ridiculous question. Get off my driveway. Well, do you know what a sound bite is? Yeah, I know what a sound bite is. I'm not stupid. Carol's getting a little irked.

Well, I'm a producer for NBC's Dateline, you know, The True Crime Show, and I can offer you $1,000 to help reenact a 911 call for the show. It'll be cash under the table. No paper trail for Uncle Sam. Carol looked at her suspiciously. I might be able to help. OK, well, if you do, you can't bring keys to your wallet, your cell phone, or any cigarettes.

The producers hate clutter. Even sketchier. So what does Carol do? The most reckless, but also at the same time, Loki bad-ass thing I've ever read. She takes her dog into the house, slips a pocket knife up the sleeve of her jacket, puts a steak knife in her hoodie pocket, punches 911 into her cell phone ready to be called. She just had to press the green button and gets in this lady's car.

What? Listen, kill is scary, but also a woman I'd like to meet. So she is kind of suspicious, but she's like, I'm gonna go make that $1,000. No, it's more like, I'm too curious. I know it's not for date line. Oh, she knows it. Yeah, she's like I mean if it is for date line great. I just made a thousand dollars and I'm like a crazy suspicious paranoid person But I don't think it's for date line and I need to know what it's for so let me risk risk my life

Yeah, she had no strangers car. Maybe she sized up this stranger and was like yeah, I could take her. I don't know Wow, she's Maybe she sized up this stranger and was like, yeah, I could take her. I don't know. Wow. She has a brain. That's great. Yeah. So she gets in the car and she's like, where are we going? Oh, I rented this house behind some shops nearby. It's, what is it?

Lake St. Louis. By the way, my name's Kathy. I'm from Chicago. I'm here for a date line, so I don't really know the area that well. Carol's red flags were going off. The SUV license plates were Missouri plates, and there was no indication at all that this was a rental,

because you can kind of see when it's a rental inside. So Carol decides, okay, you know what, this is reckless. And she says, oh shoot, sorry, Kathy, I forgot to put on my shoes. I never wear shoes, and when it's time to put them on, I forget, silly me, I also forgot to lock my house. Can you just, we just made it around the corner, so can you just drive me back?

Carol drives Carol back home, and when Carol gets out the car, she says, hey, Kathy, I just remembered my son needs to write home from work so I can help you. Kathy physically gets out of the car and says, can I come back in an hour? Can I come pick you up in an hour? And suddenly, Kathy notices Carol's home security cameras. She says, oh, you have cameras?

And she jumps into her car. Carol smirked and said, yeah, and I have a steak knife in my pocket. I'm calling 911. No way, she say that. Yeah. The woman immediately drove up. Kathy immediately drove up.

He was so bizarre. So Carol, she calls 911, gives them the whole description and even the security footage. She also posts warnings on the neighborhood online bulletins about a suspicious woman in a gray SUV trying to pick people up. It seemed like Kathy was trying to recruit people for a 911 call for date line. I mean, it's just so weird. So let me explain.

Kathy had been trolling the area for at least a week looking for a victim. She unsuccessfully tried to recruit at least two other people, and finally she found someone named Louis, and there's even a CCTV picture that caught Carol and Louis in the car, driving in the direction of Kathy's house. And then the faithful 911 call came. Kathy picked up the phone. 911, what's your emergency? Help! Help! Someone's busted in my house!

There's a man's voice in the background, but the dispatch couldn't really understand what you're saying. Cathy Eld. No, I'm not getting in the car with you. Get out! Go away! Get out! Man, what's the address? No, no, please help me! Man, can you hear me? Seconds later, there were five gunshots fired in rapid succession.

Seven seconds of silence and a woman's screams, help! Help! Hello? Hello? I just shot the intruder in my house I don't know who I just shot it's the intruder. I don't know this man. Yes, he's still in my house This is my address. I'm going outside. Please hurry Are there any weapons in the house? Yes, there's my gun on my bed. I shot him Okay, they're on the way, ma'am. Are you injured? No, he didn't get me. He didn't get me Okay, ma'am. What's your name? My name is Pam Pam Hup Wait Pam is Kathy. Yes. I know what you're thinking

But it gets even weirder just bear with me. It's I tell you this case is literally a shit show But it somehow comes together in the end, okay? So when the police get there, they realize it's Pam Hup. They know her from the Betsy Faria case. The police saw the pistol on her bed. All five rounds were fired. And Pam had quite the story to tell. She said she was backing out of her driveway when two men, like I said, screeched to a stop, blocked her.

One of them gets into the passenger side of her car and now he's dead in the hallway. It's so confused. They're like, okay, like why did you shoot him? Well, I was trying to prevent him from following me into the bedroom, but it was too late. I knew that he was coming and something's wrong with my bedroom lock. So I grabbed the pistol from the nightstand, and I faced the door while I'm on the phone with 911, and as he opened it, I fired five times.

Until I heard the gun click, there were he opened it, I fired five times. Until I heard the gun click, there were no more bullets. I watched the man fall backward into the hallway, I dropped the gun on the bed, ran in the hall to get my dog and I fled out into the driveway waiting for you guys. Well Pam, we found this note in his pocket, and as you mentioned, he kept talking about Russ. Do you know where Russ? No, I don't know anyone named Russ, I have no idea what he's talking about.

What's shocking is that Pam seemed remarkably composed for the average housewife in Middle America who had just pumped five live rounds, point blank into the chest of a man outside her bedroom, and killed him. Like, she was acting like it was another fucking Tuesday and she's gonna make tuna casserole when she gets home. It was weird.

So when Pam is in the police interrogation room, it finally dawned on her. Oh my god. Ross, I haven't thought about him in years. I mean, I thought about him when the news got out that he was released from prison. Oh my god. Guys, I think it's Russ Faria. Russ Faria set this up. The driver kind of looked like Russ. He had this dark hair. He was Hispanic. He had Hispanic complexion, whatever that means, that's the wording she used. Pam's story was out there, confusing, puzzling, but it wasn't completely unbelievable. That is, until she continued talking. She claimed she could fire the gun while she was still on the phone,

but then when she showed the police how she fired it, she used two hands. So now they're like, wait, did you just drop the phone or is it levitating in space? Did you change it to speak your phone? Like, just, you forgot to mention that part. Another odd detail is that Pam said she advanced on the attacker as she shot him, getting closer and closer with each shot. The police thought that this was strange. Most people would retreat, especially people who,

I don't know, aren't part of the police force or some government agency, defense department or a criminal organization. Like, you spend your time at Trader Joe's. Why the fuck are you suddenly James Bond? The police took some time to listen to Pam's 911 call. Sure, she sounded panicked, hysterical, don't get me wrong, but she almost had this flat tone to it.

It was super weird, it sounded scripted. The note that they find in the kidnappers pocket. Remember, the overly detailed plot and directions to kidnap Pam Hup, get money out of her, and then kill her the way Betsy was killed, and then the $900 and $100 bills in the bag. I mean, really, is this a $900 hitman job? Like, who carries that in a Ziploc bag like you're going to school or something? It's just so strange. It feels juvenile and almost doesn't make sense. And on top of that, in Pam's bedroom, police

found some cash. You know, because some people have cash at home One of the one hundred dollar bills bore a serial number ending in 712b Five of the one hundred dollar bills in the man's pocket also had consecutive serial numbers ending in 713b 717b That's insane. How do you explain that? Yeah, I mean what are the chances of two total strangers coming together in a fateful, deadly meeting, and they would just have bills with consecutive serial numbers? The probability of that is just out of this world.

And that's just the beginning of the weird stuff. The knife found in Pam's car, the one she claimed the attacker had tried to use on her, had been purchased at a dollar store. Pam's cell phone records put her at the nearest dollar tree store two times the morning of the shooting. The manager of the dollar store was able to get Pam's receipt. She bought a knife, six other items in cash. When detectives searched Pam's house,

they found the other five items. Ziploc bags, like the one in the pocket of the attacker, a gel air freshener, cotton balls, and two different flavors of crust toothpaste. A handwriting expert concluded that Pam had written the note found in the attacker's pocket. To add to all of that, none of Pam's neighbors heard anything. Some of them had been outside in the yards at the time that all of this took place. They heard the loud bangs that were later identified to be gunshots,

but that was it. They never saw a car. They never saw a Pam in the car. Then it's the end of that. So who's the attacker? How did he get there? Well, the attacker was not an attacker at all, but a victim. His name was Lewis Gumpenberger. He was IDed through fingerprints, and when his mom found out she broke down into sub-scrimming, not Lewis, not my Lewis. Lewis was 33 years old but had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car crash in 2005. And as a result of this brain injury, he had severe mental and physical side effects. He was operating on the mental level of a 12 year old. No.

He had trouble walking on his own. He was completely unable to run. He couldn't drive a car, use a computer. He was described to be friendly, gullible, and oftentimes people took advantage of him. Doctors and friends confirmed that Louise was a kind of man that yes, had the mental and physical limitations, but he had no violent tendencies. He was incapable, medically speaking, of doing the things Pam claimed he did when he quote,t her.

Margaret, his mom, was his legal guardian, and watched not over just Louise, but over Louise's 11-year-old son. And that day, Margaret noticed that Louise had left the house, but without a note. He always left a note if he went somewhere. He even left behind his wallet and a cigarette, and... Well, it seems that Kathy the producer told him that date line doesn't like clutter. He genuinely thought they were recreating a fake 911 call and Pam was calling just recording it. Oh my gosh. He didn't know it was a

real 911 call and he was gonna die on the line. Pam had picked him up from his apartment complex and drove him to her house and shot him to death in all about 40 minutes. So now that Pam is in the police station being interviewed, in the middle of her interview she asks to use the restroom because she has explosive diarrhea. Fine, they'll allow it, but after a while, still no Pam. She hasn't come out in a suspiciously long time. So they knock on the door. Pam yells back, almost done! Still taking too long. So they knock on the door, Pam yells back almost done. Still taking too long. So they just bust open the door, they're over it. The police find Pam on her knees, leaning forward, her face touching the dirty floor in front of the sink. And she looks up. There's blood dripping down her arms, her wrists, blood dripping onto the floor, blood splutter

on the walls, and a ballpoint pen sticking out of her neck. She had apparently attempted suicide. Pam was taken to the hospital and when released she was arrested for first-degree murder and armed criminal activity. The same charges that Russ had faced. Her bond was set at $2 million cash only. When the police searched Pam's car, they found a ton of documents. Betsy Faria's death certificate, a federal tax form, a 1099 for Betsy, transcripts of Pam's testimony and Russ Faria's first trial that happened years ago, various records for her mother, and a letter from someone who had an affair with Pam's husband. Like imagine you see her SUV in a parking lot, this

is the last thing I would imagine as in her car. And in 2019, Pam would enter into an Alfred plea in exchange for the prosecutor's not seeking the death penalty. I don't know, I hate that. A huge crowd came to see Pam hot plead guilty over a hundred spectators showed up. And in the front row was Russ Faria and his new girlfriend, Carol McCaffey, the one that got in the car with the steak knife. What? And Carol leans over, gets Pam's attention, because she's front row. And before the hearing starts, she says, Pam, I want you to know that I'm the one that puts you here, bitch.

What is happening? Okay, so the whole thing is getting wild, right? So many fucking questions. Why is Russ there? Is he supporting his new girlfriend, Carol? What are the odds of them dating? Also, is he guilty for murdering his wife? How did he get out?

And why does he hate Pam so much? Why did Pam kill Louise? Let me take you back to the first murder trial of Russ Faria because it's always the husband Till it's not Russ's initial arrest was very telling about what the police were doing. Russ was thrown into a jail cell He had spent 18 hours on her interrogation. He wasn't allowed to contact his family, Betsy's family No one. He didn't slept in more than 31 hours at this point. In the past 20 hours of this guy's life, he discovered the brutalized body of his wife. He was isolated from all

his friends and family in this time of just pure grief. He underwent the most prying examination of his personal life, his marriage, his religious faith, his integrity, and honestly he was tag-teamed by homicide detectives who he believed were trying to help him. Russ complied with everything. He took a polygraph. He didn't ask for a lawyer for the majority part of it. He allowed them to search his home without a warrant, whatever the police wanted, he did it.

The weirdest part of all of this, and it's crazy that cops do this. But you know that long proven myth, were you asking undercover cop if they're a cop and they can't lie to you? Yeah, of course that's a myth, right? But cops really do lie a lot. And Russ' polygraph that he failed to amissably? Well, it's hard to say what the real results of the polygraph were, but they lied and said it was 100% deceptive. All of this is legal. What's not legal though, is that the police later told the courts, sorry, the record of the polygraph we can't find a copy of the test, and the camera that we usually used to film the polygraph was broken.

So we know that he took one, and yeah, we told him he failed, but we're not sure if he failed. We don't know what the truth of that polygraph was. We don't know if he told the truth, we don't know, we don't remember. The police were dead set that Russ was guilty, to the point where they completely ignored the other potential suspect. The last one to see Betsy Fariya live. Pam Hup.

Even when Pam Hup was interviewed by the police, there were like a bunch of kids gossiping. The police were eager to learn more about the so-called abusive relationship between Betsy and Russ. And Pam was eager to talk about anything other than the night of the murder. So they spent three hours just talking Russ. Even when the police asked her about the night in question, Pam contradicted herself so many times, but nobody seemed to care. Like, listen to this and tell me how the police thought

that she wasn't suspicious at all and just took her word for everything. That's what I want to know. Pam said that the day Betsy was originally going to get a ride home from another friend of hers. Bobby. So Bobby and Betsy were friends way longer than Pam, like they were childhood friends.

But Bobby moved to Texas, she was in town. Betsy even explicitly said in her text messages to Pam, she wanted a loan time with her friend, Bobby. But Pam decides to go ahead and drive to the chemo center anyway. So the police ask her why, and she gets a little shy, and she says, well, I just wanted to spend some time with my dying friend, okay? So Pam comes to chemo, unannounced, and since Betsy and Bobby are going to lunch afterward, it's, it's weird

to not invite Pam. But Pam's like, sorry, I'm going to go home and have dinner with my husband, but you guys enjoy your alone time, and Betsy, I'll pick you up to drive you home later. Oh, okay, thanks, I guess. Pam said it was probably around 6 p.m. when she and Betsy left Betsy's mom's house and headed for Troy. Pam says, when I pull into Betsy's driveway,

I call my husband Mark to let him know that I got there safe. You know, I don't really drive too much at night, so I just, I wanted my husband to know that I got there. Now, I guess my husband left his phone in his truck because he didn't answer, so I left him a voicemail. Okay, Pam, did you go into the house? No, I helped her.

We thought Russ was home because, you know, his car was there, but no lights were on. And I said, do you want me to walk you to the door? And Betsy said, yes. So I walked her to the door, and I walked her inside until she could get the light on. And she got the front light on, and she walked in and turned on the living room lights,

and she's like, Russ, and he wasn't there. Nobody answered. So did you ever actually go inside the house? Side note, she just contradicted herself. You know, she literally said, no, I didn't go in. And now she's saying, I went in to let her in through the door. So she changes her tune and says, I did. I took her in. By all accounts, Pam had just placed herself in Betsy's house around the time that Betsy was murdered. But she continued. We just went in and she turned on the hall light and Betsy doesn't like to be alone.

So I went in and turned on her living room light and then she walked around turned on her kitchen live so she got her lights on. She was calling for Russ and nobody was answering. Now Betsy had to chain up the dog in the backyard because he was just jumping all over us, driving us nuts. We're just standing there trying to talk and oh jump in all over me Okay, Pam how long would you say that you were there for like 10 20 minutes? Yeah, it could be like 10 20. I wasn't really paying attention. I was just trying to get out of there

You know Betsy wanted me to stay and watch movies with her until Russ got home He has some like weekly game night every Tuesday But I just wanted to go home and go to bed. I was so tired. So Betsy's sitting on the couch. I get a blanket for her and I turn on the TV and I left. Anyway, when I get out, I think I called Betsy when I got home or on the way home.

Like I was almost home when I called Betsy to tell her, hey, like I'm gonna be home safe because she told me, come here when you get home. Did she answer? No, no, she didn't but it's not unusual because Sometimes she's just on the other line and you left a message. I think so. Yeah That I was home or almost home. The police went through Pam's phone now remember she called her husband to tell her She got to Betsy's that was 704 p.m

She claimed she stayed for 10 to 20 minutes, but the call placed to Betsy was around 7.27 p.m. She lives 40 miles away. Ah, there's no way she will be home. There's no way she's even almost home in five minutes. 40 miles in five minutes. You know, it's what are you saying? The police asked her, do you remember where on the road you were when you called to tell her you were almost home? She backtracked and she said, oh, I actually don't know if I was almost home. I think I actually called her to tell her that I was almost home, but I wasn't home because

I was scared. I always get lost in Betsy's neighborhood and it's like really dark. They don't have a lot of street lights. So I was still in Troy. I remember when I called her and I was not almost home, but I was trying to tell her, like, you know, I'm on the way home. Pam called Betsy again later and got no response. And Pam said she was so worried about her friend. She even called Betsy's mom to tell her, hey, I'm so worried, Betsy's not calling me back. Now, any officer would look at this quote unquote evidence and go, what the hell are you saying,

lady? Like, none of this makes sense. What are you saying? But in between her account of what happened that night, Pam was sprinkling in some juicy gossip of the faria marriage. And the police were too busy gabbling that shit up. It was too good. They did not care about what happened that night. Even though Pam was the last one to see Betsy alive and was actually around Betsy at the time of her death versus Russ who had a clear cut alibi, they just believed Pam.

And let's just say, Pam took a lot of liberty, a lot of creative imagination when they came to talking about their troubled marriage. Now here's where it gets wild. The police should have already been suspicious of Pam, but they weren't, but this, this is where it's ridiculous. Pam said in the middle of this interview, oh by the way, Betsy wanted me to be the beneficiary of her life insurance instead of Russ. Wow.

Betsy was worried that Russ was gonna blow all the insurance money after she died and there would be nothing left for her daughters. So, Betsy looked at me and said, hey, would you be my beneficiary on my life policies and make sure my kids get it when they need it? They said, I mean, I could, but I don't really feel comfortable with that.

Betsy allegedly said, well, I can't trust my mom because she'll just hand it over to the kids and the kids are still young and reckless and they're not, they're just gonna blow it. I don't know Betsy. I mean I guess, you know me, to me it's like no big deal or whatever. Yeah, or whatever. Whatever is how Pam accepted Betsy's request to transfer $150,000 life insurance policy to Pam. Pam now claims Betsy said,

and if you could, when my daughters are older, give them some money. Some money? I thought Betsy wanted to make sure the money went to her kids, and now it's just some money, what's some money? A dollar? Two dollars? 90% of it? 150,000? Like, what's some money? A dollar? $2? 90% of it? $150,000? Like, what's some money? So anyways, just four days before Betsy's death, Pam files out a form with Betsy to make herself the beneficiary. Pam claims that she has no idea if Betsy filed the form with the insurance company before she died, or if they just filled it out. Pam claims the other $100,000 policy was going to go to a relative named Linda. So instead of the policing, this has a motive for Pam to kill Betsy. They're like, okay, Pam, will do you need the money or something?

We just need to make sure you don't have a motive. And Pam said, oh God, no, no way. Like me and my husband were set. We have $20,000 saved in a checking account. More money in a tree... It's so dumb. This is so dumb. More money in a traditional retirement account and a Roth IRA. I have never met someone who's like, oh, $150,000, that's nothing to me.

You know, it's so ridiculous. She literally puts down the money and the interrogation. She's like, where is it? I don't even need a dime of it. I think everyone could use $150,000 extra dollars. But just be extra diligent and I'm being sarcastic here. The police asked Pam if they could check her for injuries. There were no scratches or bruises on her. Nothing to suggest that she had been in a physical altercation in the past 24 hours. Now it's good enough for the police. They hated rest anyway, so this was good, real good.

Even when the police questioned markup, Pam's husband, they for some reason let Pam sit on the interview the whole time and Pam would not let her husband answer anything. Pam actually took this time to accuse Russ of more heinous abuse. She said Russ would wake up Betsy's daughters by throwing water on their faces. He would physically drag them out of bed. So basically all the cops got out of Mark's interview with some more hearsay from Pam. They didn't even ask Mark the easy questions like, hey, what was your wife wearing when you left for work? What did she come home wearing? Did she seem strange to you?

Did she say anything to you? What did she tell you about the life insurance? They didn't ask any of that. I mean, it's crazy. The cops were not even considering Pam, the last person to see Betsy alive. I suspect not even for shits and giggles. They didn't even attempt to back up

a single one of her claims. Well, I guess that's not entirely true. They did ask her to take a polygraph, which you know how I feel about those, unlike him. But they asked and Pam gave them a letter from her doctor. It said, Pam can't take a polygraph due to medical reasons. Yeah, you're like, what? So Pam had a head injury a couple years ago.

She was on a variety of medications for a bunch of symptoms. The meds left her prone to seizures and coincidentally, the meds in the head injury also meant that she couldn't take a polygraph. I don't know how that works because it's not like they're doing flash photography. They're, it's's like nothing is happening.

But the police ate it up. Pam was going to be the prosecutor's star witness against Rousfaria, which side note, not everybody believed Pam. A lot of Betsy's family was confused. Some of them blamed Rous, some of them blamed Pam. And at Betsy's funeral, Pam and Mark got into an altercation with one of Betsy's sisters. Mark straight up got in front of Betsy's sister's face, challenging her to hit him. It was just gross.

I'm just going to be honest with you, the hubs are gross humans. They're caked out of the funeral and you're like, wait, but the family are also accusing Russ of being the killer and even testified at his trial. Here's the thing, they don't like Russ and I'm not going to sugarcoat it. He wasn't the best husband to Betsy the past 11 years. They didn't have consistently a great loving relationship. They cheated on each other a lot. I mean, just less than a year before Betsy's murder, Russ had cheated on her.

Russ had been verbally abusive in the past, to the point where, yeah, Betsy's sister did call the cops on them. And I'm not excusing that. But it was six years ago, and I'm not trying to downplay it. But there have been no additional reports of rust being verbally abusive that has been substantiated. They were trying to fix their marriage. They saw a counselor.

They were working on things. I'm not saying Russ is a good guy. I'm definitely not saying he's a great husband. In fact, I'm not even going to say he's a good, in fact, I'm not even going to say he's a normal husband. I would say that he's more on the toxic side. If this were my girlfriend, I might tell her to leave him. But none of that makes him a murderer. Now back to the family hating Russ. It's all of these things, and there were so many small tensions such as added to their fights. For

example, Betsy wanted to be cremated when she died, but her family was Roman Catholic like super strict. They did not believe in cremation. When Russ honored Betsy's wishes and had her cremated, the family felt like he was doing it to spite them. But in reality, it was his wife's wishes. On top of that, Russ wanted to keep Betsy's ashes because he wanted to join her when he died in the same, like, earn. They thought, again, he's doing this to spite us.

So anyway, Russ is in prison for the murder of his wife. And prison is rough. He was told by a fellow prisoner that had connections, that another inmate was ordered by the police to beat up Russ. And then Russ is shockingly moved in to sell with the supposed guy he's supposed to get into a fight with. He confesses to Russ and is like, hey, the police are telling me to do this,

and I don't want to do this. Like, I'm not about this life. So the- Who is telling, we what? Apparently the police are telling me to do this. And I don't want to do this. Like, I'm not about this life. So the who is telling, we what? Apparently, the police were telling this inmate to get into a fight with Ross. Why? To put him in solitary confinement. Why?

What did they? To break him. But you can't just put him in because then it looks like you're trying to break him to get a confession. You have to have a reason. Wow. So the two of them start faking a massive fight just like tearing off their shirts throwing things around screaming to convince

the guards that the guy tried to beat him up because Russ doesn't want this guy to get in trouble for not beating him up. Russ is thrown into solitary confinement for starting fights and causing trouble and genuinely I think it's to try and break him. Russ managed to stay sane. He said that his main hope, oh, this is given a man to knocks. He said his main hope in life was that the justice system would prevail. It would, of course, it would clear his name. This is the worst case scenario.

But the nightmare, it's going to be temporary. That's how the justice system works. He has this amazing attorney, Joel, who's one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the area. He's gonna get out after the trial. He's gonna get out. The only reason he's in prison he thought was because he stupidly told 911 that he thought his wife committed suicide, which now he knows clearly she didn't. He just jumped to the conclusion because she was depressed. The same way the cops jumped to the conclusion that he was the killer. He was gonna get out.

Based on the evidence, Russ simply could not be Betsy's killer. He had an iron clad alibi unless his all four of his friends were in on it and they were gonna stick to the story and risk their own lives for him. There was no way Russ left Mike's house that night. The only other way he could have killed Betsy was to get home at 9.30, based on the time that he left his friends house. Kill Betsy, clean himself up, discard the evidence, change all in the span of 10 to 15 minutes before he calls 911. But this theory doesn't work,

because Betsy was estimated to have been dead for around two to three hours before the time he called 911. You're like, what? That doesn't make sense. How do the prosecutors even have a case then? Well, the prosecutors will argue that rigor mortis is not proof that Betsy was dead for hours. So, there's this super controversial theory in the medical world,

called cadaveric spasms, essentially saying that rigor mortis can happen instantly if the body underwent extreme levels of pain or stress before death. How many cases have we talked about? How many of them have ever experienced cadaveryxpasms? So the prosecutors argued, since her body suffered an enormous amount of stress, this might have happened. Now, this phenomenon is super rare, and there's no way to even determine whether a body went into cadaveryxpasms or just regular, rigor mortis, I guess. A lot of experts can't even agree whether cadaveryxpasms are even a thing. But even if this were the rare case where it happened, Betsy bled out and her blood was cold and started coagulating.

There is no medical phenomenon in which that would happen in like 10 minutes. So then the other evidence, the bloody slipper in the bedroom closet, remember how they argued that he threw it in there because you forgot to discard it while he was on the phone with 911? The slipper honestly made Russ look more innocent. The blood was on the side of the slipper. Like, not like someone was wearing the slipper and then stepped on blood. It's almost like someone grabbed a slipper and then dipped the side of it in blood to make it look like, hey, I'm just going to grab the slipper and put some blood on here.

I just can't imagine unless you're literally walking on the sides of your feet in slippers. Why? Also, if he was wearing the slippers while murdering Betsy, they would be drenched in blood. Some could argue that he put them on after he killed his wife, but in the words of his defense attorney, you don't just murder somebody and then decide to put on slippers. And then the paw print that the prosecutors argued proved that the dog was in the house and then changed up, changed up later. No one could even argue there was a paw print.

It just kind of looked like one. It could have easily been a regular blood stain. There was no way to prove it was a paw print. The prosecutor's just played up the fact that it kind of looks like a paw print. Betsy's murder was beginning to look a lot more complex. It went from simply being the husband did it to, it doesn't even seem like the husband did it at all.

So who did it? And why was Russ in prison for Betsy's murder then? You're thinking, well, it's gotta be Pam. It's gotta be Pam! The last person you see Betsy alive, the person who went out of her way to not get a polygraph. Well, she was a prosecutor's star witness, and they wanted to prep her for trial to go up against Russ. The one thing that they were worried about is not that Pam had something to do with Betsy's

murder, but the fact that Pam had gotten Betsy's life insurance payout. They told her, neither of Betsy's daughters have seen a dime from the payout. The defense is going to try to use that against you. This is infuriating. The detectives don't even care that Pam had the money, because it gives her a motive. They didn't give a sh** about that or justice. They care that Pam would look bad in front of a jury, and they wouldn't get a conviction on their records as prosecutors. Side note, that's another dark thing. You have to be elected to become a prosecutor,

and the only way you really advance in your political career is to get as many convictions as possible, even sometimes when you know that they're not guilty. So the way that it's incentivized for prosecutors is just fucked up. It's not really a fair trial. So what do they do? They can tell Pam you should probably consider giving some of the money to the girls so you don't look bad.

They said, this is crazy. Listen, I'm not telling you you've got to do that. I'm just telling you it's going to be a huge issue in court because by your own volition Betsy has told you she wants you to hold on to this money to make sure the family the girls are taking care of yet they haven't seen a dime of that money you still have it and Pam interrupted she said I think if you really look at my wording it wasn't exactly that she wanted me to make sure the girls were taking care of yet we love Pam shamelessly rewriting history.

Pam starts rattling off all the daughters alleged problems and she declares, honestly, they were never that nice to Betsy. They had never been nice to her. I know all the problems with them and all that crap. Betsy didn't want them to have their hands on the money. Not that she didn't want me to help her do whatever I wanted to do with it, she said, do not let them get their hands on it, or the family because the family would just give it to them. That was her major concern that they would just piss it away. So now Pam is arguing that Betsy didn't want her daughters to have

the money. Okay, what? You went from being Russ is going to spend all the money I need you to take it, to I took it and I'm going to give the girls some money and then to Betsy never wanted the girls to have money. Pam also added that this amount never wanted the girls to have money. Eh. Payum also added that this amount of money meant nothing to her. Which like, I don't know, maybe in some weird world, like if you're Jeff Bezos, you could care less about 150K, but Payum admitted that her life savings and her savings account so far is like 20,000.

I don't know, $150,000 is a ton of money to anyone. And she's definitely not Jeff Bezos. Are you seeing what I'm saying? Like she's really downplaying this money, but what? Yeah, yeah. Pam even added, and I really hate to say this guys.

I really hate to say this. If I wanted money, my mom's worth half a million dollars that I get when she dies. My mom has dementia, doesn't even know half the time who we are. I know it sounds morbid and stuff, but I used to work in life insurance. So if I really wanted the money, there's an easier way for me to get it than combat somebody who's

physically stronger than me. Like Betsy, I'm just saying. What? What was she just saying? What the hell was she just saying? Well, don't worry. If Pam ever changed her story, contradicted herself, or even made up some bullshit, the police excused that behavior because in 2009, Pam was working for United Health Care. She was carrying a box of files, tripped over another box, and hit her head on a file cabinet. She said that she had documented memory loss due to the incident as well as balance and coordination issues. Which like fine, but really begs the question, should she be a star witness for any case? Anyway, the police said, well, this

gives us more reason to trust Pam. She, physically, with her balance in coordination issues, can't overpower Betsy. She loses her balance a lot. And remember, like Pam said, if she wanted the money, she could have just killed her mom instead. Her frail, dementia, written mother. She could have just killed her.

That's what she told us. Or her own husband? Yeah, Pam threw that one in there for good measure. Everyone around Pam seemed to have life insurance. Except Pam, when they asked her about it, she's like, oh, I don't even have health insurance for myself. I just don't believe in it.

But she works for safe harm. Yeah. So Russ's defense attorney was convinced Pam was suspicious. Pam's story was not adding up. She said she had no money problems, but she doesn't have health care. She also mentioned at one point, she couldn't afford health care. so which one is it you

not need money? What's going on? Joelle also learned that Pam was fired from multiple jobs in the past for allegedly forging documents. So this defense attorney knew the only way to exonerate Raspharya, his client, was to simply present evidence to the jury that somebody else killed Betsy, and that somebody else was Pam. But before Russ's first trial, for some reason, the judge approved a motion that Pam was not a suspect in the case, and Joelle could not treat her like a suspect during the trial. So Joelle couldn't put any doubt on Pam's story, or even put some of the suspicion on her.

He was to only treat her like an unrelated character testimony. He couldn't even tell the jury that Pam was the beneficiary to Betsy's life insurance. He was so shocked. He asked the judge, Judge, I don't know what to do to get you to listen that Pam has motive. Would it help if I stripped down and bang my head against the bench? He believed he was within his rights to treat Pam like a suspect, but they would not allow it. And it just got worse. The judge, the prosecutors, the police all acted like they had a personal vendetta against us.

They didn't even know the guy. Judge Christina kept ruling in favor of the prosecutor, even when she was making out ragesely suggestive, blatantly untrue suggestions, like in her closing statement. Even a further example, the prosecutor talked about the guy's game night. She said, no, this isn't a game like you guys are probably thinking about. I'm not talking about poker, or blackjack, not three card stuff. This is a role-playing game where this band of merry men dress up like hobbits and act like monks and sorcerers, all sorts of things that I don't really understand.

They do this every Tuesday night while they smoke pot and drink beer. Who's saying this? The prosecutor. It's literally hearsay. Objection hearsay. Not sustained. Nobody dressed up. It's a freaking dice game using imagination.

They had no sip of alcohol. The prosecutor is literally lying, but the judge didn't care. The prosecutor continued to paint a picture of an abusive husband who plays strange fantasy roleplay games, which she almost insinuated, of course, means they're enacting the perfect fantasy murder scenario. They focused heavily on the fact that nobody saw a single tear in Russ's eyes, allegedly, and that his 911 calls sounded fake and over the top. Pam wasted no time making Russ out to be an abusive husband.

She said, that's he told me and everyone that he was very degrading. Talked down on her, made her feel like she was simple and not smart. My husband and myself and our group of friends never even socialized with him because he made people feel uncomfortable, just the way he talked. During cross examinations, Joel Russ' attorney was so annoyed because Pam contradicted herself so many times,

but he had to be careful to not implicate her on anything. Whenever Pam realized she had been caught in a lie or a contradiction, she would defensively say, I have a little bit of a memory problem. I'm 55, going through menopause, it's been two years. I can't tell you every single minute of what I've said about anything honestly. Pam had also set up a trust for Betsy's daughters, where she deposited $100,000, but she was still

in control of the money. She could move it to her personal account at any moment, let's say, right after the trial. When asked about that, and why she opened up this trust literally right before the trial, instead of, I don't know, any time in the past two years she had the money? She's like, I pledged it. I don't know, any time in the past two years, she had the money? She's like, I pledged it. No, I'm kidding, sorry. Amber heard reference. Pam's excuse for the really weird timing was,

I got it done when I could get it done. I have a sandwich cerebral palsy. My mother just died on the 31st of Alzheimer's. I was taken care of her. So it's, I know, my fiance's jaw just dropped. Just you wait. There's another twist. So it's taken me a bit of time to get around to it.

So many suspicious things. Even if Joelle couldn't accuse Pam or say anything out right, the jury must have picked up on these weird things during the cross examination, right? Wrong. The judge didn't want the jury to hear the cross. They said it might somehow implicate her as a suspect. So no jury were present during the cross examination. said it might somehow implicate her as a suspect, so no jury were present

during the cross examination. So what does that mean? That means the jury had no idea that Pam even received Betsy's life insurance money, and that her story was full of holes. They had no idea that. Thankfully, there were a few people that helped Russ's case. Linda, a relative of Betsy's testified that Betsy told her, you know Linda, do you know why I'm okay with passing? I'm okay with passing because I can leave something for everyone. I'm gonna leave life insurance for a rest in the girls. It's 300K split into three, so they all have something to fall back on. That doesn't really sound like someone trying to get money away from rest in the girls.

Linda also testified that Betsy had a meeting with Pam Hopp on December 23rd, the day the life insurance beneficiary form was filed, and Linda said Betsy really was dreading going. Not wanting to speculate, but yeah, I do feel like Pam coerced Betsy to sign the life insurance papers. And on top of that, experts analyzed the cell tower data, and the two calls that Pam made, one to her husband the night of the murder, remember in the driveway, and then one to Betsy, they were all from the same cell tower, meaning Pam could have very well been inside Betsy's house at the estimated time of Betsy's death around 730. But the judge said, thank you next, Linda's testimony, the phone records, and the

cross-examination of Pam Hup, the jury never heard it. So like, what's the point is it for show? I mean, how can the jury make an educated decision of guilt? We're talking about two human lives. One that's gone that deserves justice, and one that has the right to a fair trial. So obviously, the jury found Russ guilty because they're literally looking at only curated evidence that's basically set up to make Russ look guilty. He was given life in prison with no parole.

Thankfully, the courtroom was still open to the public during these cross-examinations. And reporters. Now this isn't a Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard case. There weren't a lot of reporters. There was only one. It wasn't the crime of the century. Too many husbands killed their wives.

Nobody cares anymore. What does that say about the world? A reporter named Chris was there, and he witnessed all the testimonies that the jury didn't get to hear. Linda, the phone records, everything. And he knew something wasn't right, so he decides to bring awareness to this wrongful conviction. He told the public all the evidence that the jury didn't get to see. The case starts gaining traction. Soon, other media outlets are reporting on the case. Russ' family used this

momentum to reach out to NBC Dateline. They would make multiple hour-long episodes covering the case. Now, this is where things get wild. I don't know if it had to do with the media, but Joelle the attorney gets a few anonymous phone calls, telling him, look into Pam's mom's death. Remember she passed from Alzheimer's during the trial? Well Joelle shorts looked into it and he found an article, women 77 dies after falling from the third four balcony off fentanylary retirement home. Surely, Pam's mom had broken through a metal railing on her

kitchen balcony and fell three floors to her death. Her body was found around 2.30 pm, and the last person to see her live was her daughter, Pam Hupp. This was the second time Pam Hupp was the last person to see someone who died under suspicious circumstances. And it wouldn't be the last. Pam Hup, the same person that sat there and told the detectives, why would I kill Betsy when I can just kill my mom and get half a million dollars? Maybe Pam realized she could do both. So the defense attorney, Doug Deeper, he found that Shirley allegedly ran into the metal railing off the balcony

which caused severe damage to the vertical spindles of the railing. An expert would later determine it would take an NFL linebacker, charging full speed at the railing to cause the damage the way Shirley allegedly had. An autopsy showed that Shirley Newman's system, for some reason, the St. Louis County Medical Examiner's office agreed with the police investigation and listed her death as an accident, but in her system, she was pumped full with sedatives, sedatives that were prescribed to Pam. Well, I don't know because a lot of people could have this prescription, it's ambient. A lot of people have an ambient prescription, but you get it. How does an elderly ill woman pumped full with sedatives managed to break through an iron railing? I mean, I don't want to speculate too hard, but it kind of sounds like it's not an accident. Now, I'm assuming since her death was ruled an accident, until death, Pam Hubb got the half-million-dollar payout from the insurance companies.

Which, like I know it's getting laid into the story, but who the fuck is Pam? Let me tell you. Pam was born third or four children in a middle-class family in Missouri. Her mom was an elementary school teacher and her dad worked for Union Electric. It's said that both of her parents were functioning alcoholics. They were sometimes verbally and physically abusive.

And Pam, she was kind of a loose cannon from the get-go. She just had no boundaries, no filter, nothing. She hated when people told her what to do. She would do the exact opposite of what people told her to do. She loved to do things that she wasn't supposed to. She would ride her bike across a busy road without waiting to break traffic.

Cars would be screeching to a stolt just honking their horns. But if she saw somebody else do it, she would pull them aside and yell at them to be more careful. It's weird. She was sporty, she was on the softball team, she was a cheerleader, smart. It said that she hated school, though, because she was easily bored. Her mom called her catfish, all mouth, no brains.

Which sounds mean. But Pam is mean, so who cares? After graduating high school, Pam got pregnant with her high school sweetheart. They had a daughter, but they were young and broken. The marriage fell apart. At the time of their divorce, Pam was already seeing Mark Hup. They get married, have a son, and Pam starts working for state farm insurance, where she meets Betsy, which at this point,

it's that that Pam was already a manipulative evil person, but she could hide it really well. She could be so sweet and caring one second, and then another second, she would try to ruin your life. For example, her daughter was trying to bin on a house that was on floor closure. And Pam's like, no, you shouldn't, that's so expensive. And like floor closures, you just don't know what's the problem with the house says. She's trying to talk her daughter out of it. How much are you trying to bid anyway? I don't know, maybe a hundred K? No, I don't think you should do it. Pam knew her daughter's bid and she bid exactly $1,000 over it. What's wrong with this person?

Her own daughter. What are you doing with your daughter? Like what? Yeah, bid $101,000, let's say. She wanted flip the house for a profit and flaunted it in her daughter's face. Her daughter was trying to live there and like make it a forever home.

That's all she could have afforded. Speechless. So it's bad, right? But it got worse when Pam had her head injury. She started suffering from depression, anxiety, confusion, pain, fear, memory loss, right? You know, she had some issues with her meds at one point. Now, I don't want to say that Pam is mentally stable. She's not, but she's in a state where she could decipher right from wrong. That's very important. So Pam's mom dies suspiciously, but as we know, Pam helps shady business doesn't end there. So Joelle takes all this information from the first trial about Pam and all of

that takes it to the courts to get Russ a second trial. This retrial was scheduled for 2015. He had been in prison for four years now. He finally secured a bond he could pay, and for the first time in years, Russ was a free man. He said his greatest joy in life was getting up in the morning and frying an egg. He said in prison, you learn to appreciate all the little things. Meanwhile, Schwartz was hard at work trying to make everything go smoothly for Russ. Now, this is the crazy part. Strap up because you're not ready for this. But Before the second trial, all the witnesses had to give their depositions again.

Pam decided, why not make it more flavorful? Why not spice it up? It's not giving what it needs to give. Let's just go overboard. I'm serious. Pam in 2015 for Russ' retrial set. I feel weird saying this, but I think you guys should know. Betsy depended on me on an intimate level.

For emotional support, she wasn't getting from russ or anyone. Betsy had a mad crush on me. She really, really, really loved me. And as her marriage was deteriorating, I would help and step in and help her even more. I was kind of like, I guess in her mind, a boyfriend, a caretaker. At one point, she started indicating to me that she wanted more from me than just, you know, a friend. At first, I resisted a more physical turn

in the relationship, but eventually, I entered in a sexual affair with Betsy. It was a progression more on her part. I loved Betsy, but I'm not in love with her. Never was I in love with her. She was in love with me. And at that point, when I knew what was happening, I just let it go because, you know, she has cancer and it's such a

small, small thing to give her. Betsy was still sleeping with Ross and her ex-husband, but with me and her, it was more than sex. It was in about sex. It was emotional. It's not a huge thing for me, though, like I said, I'm not attracted to women women So it's not like I've ever been with anybody, but Betsy it's not the same like we'll never probably it's it's just a weird circumstance It's honestly a relationship with two women who really aren't attracted to women. I don't know how to explain that It's not that you know, I'm attracted to men. I love everything about them Like I can't wait for magic Mike ex-self to come out the movie She said that yeah, this is her. Betsy was the same way. It's not like she was a lesbian or anything. It wasn't like that. It was just such an evolution of emotional trauma for her.

That was all Pam, okay? Pam went on to say that Russ was so furious when he found out that Pam and Betsy were having sex that he killed Betsy. Listen, this sounds like an excuse of why Betsy would give her the life insurance and why Russ would kill Betsy. It's a two in one ticket to freedom. So you're like, okay, how stupid are the police on this? Now with the retrial, the police are gonna be like, wait a minute, we need to second guess ourselves.

This girl is crazy. No, instead they start coaching her. This is what a detective told Pam. Pam, detective Merkel and I, you know, we were the first detectives on the house. We spoke in theory about what we believe might have happened. And what we believe may have happened is that Russ was not there when you and Betsy got home. And that prior to you leaving, somehow or another, you found out that Russ was there, Either by a phone call or just

sheer presence, you know, maybe he walked into the house and saw you were there. And that particular moment was a motivating factor for you to leave with his coming home. That's what we've discussed amongst ourselves. So now I'm gonna hand that to you and ask, is any part of that correct? And it is in fact that did you see Russ that night in the house? They're literally trying to get Russ at the time of death with the victim with an eyewitness. It's an all-in-big lie. Thankfully Pam was too dumb to pick up their hands and she goes, no, I didn't see Russ there, I didn't see a soul, didn't see anybody.

Later, she would realize, oh sh- That's what the detectives meant. And she would change her story to say when I was leaving I saw a parked car in the neighborhood on my way out. Look like Russ. When I drove by the car somebody ducked It's like they weren't trying to be seen by me convenient very convenient. So the retrial is gonna start and Schwartz did something super risky this time. He didn't want a jury trial He wanted the judge a new judge judge Omer to hear the evidence and return the verdict on his own.

Schwartz, like the new judge, seemed fair and a fresh pair of eyes and ears would help. I think it would have been embarrassing for the police and prosecutors to have Russ' conviction overturned. A conviction that they worked so hard to get and did incredibly questionable things. So they really wanted to pull out all the cards on this. Suddenly the police find a document. The alleged document Betsy wrote Pam about her abuse. They found it on Betsy's computer, the one that they found nothing on for the past four years. But conveniently right before the retrial, they found it. The letter reads, and it's typed into like a word document,

Pam. 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. Last night, he asked me why I came home instead of staying at my mom's. I told him I had things to do, and he was very angry with me for being in the house. I couldn't figure out why. Then I caught him with my laptop. He was reading my emails, and when I asked him about it, he said he could do what he wants. He said I wouldn't be around much longer, so what did I care? He's been

talking like this for months. He wants me to stay with my mom and he likes the house to himself. He tells me it's his house and I'm just a guess. So right now I'm staying at my moms or lindas or friends most of the week. I was home last week and I have to go back Friday for the last week, hadn hunt. Last night was the worst. I fell asleep on the couch watching TV and I woke up to Ross holding a pillow over my face. I didn't know what was going on. He said he wanted me to know what dying feels like. I need to change my life insurance policy out of his name, but I can't let him know that I've taken him off as beneficiary. I need your help with this. I can't give it to my girls because they'll blow it.

Do you think I could put your name and you could help my daughters when they need it? I really need to talk to you about this. I'm just so tired from the cancer. I'm so afraid of staying alone, all alone with Russ. If something happens to me, would you show this to the police? Love Betsy. So it was found on Betsy's computer.

At first glance, it's bad. But when Russ' defense team hired experts to look at it, they saw that someone was on Betsy's computer. At first glance, it's bad. But when Russ' defense team hired experts to look at it, they saw that someone was on Betsy's computer looking up stationary templates before writing the letter, and even typed out love Betsy and three different fonts. That matched with the fact that this letter was written in 15 minutes, which is sus, because this sounds like a very heartfelt, scary letter.

Wouldn't you take a little bit longer? It feels like someone was copying an already written script and just typing it up. Also, why would you test out your signature three times in three different fonts for something so serious and severe as physical abuse? Are you really worrying about what your love Betsy signature looks like?

Or maybe you're pretending to be Betsy and testing out which signature was more Betsy's vibe. Also when the document was typed, the computer was hooked up to the tennis club Wi-Fi. So it's not like the computer was home where only Betsy and Russ had it. Pam goes to the tennis club a lot with Betsy. Listen, I don't want to jump to conclusions. But it seems like Pam wrote it, allegedly. So, during the retrial, Russ was finally found not guilty for the murder of his wife Betsy

Faria. I can't even imagine the hell that this man went through. I'm glad that Russ is doing better today, but it's going to get worse before it gets better. As for Pam, nothing happened. Betsy's daughter sued her for the insurance money, but the court's ruled in favor of Pam. They said there was no evidence for legal certainty to say that Betsy had told

PAM to give the money to the kids. They had to go with the legal route. There was no way to prove anything. Wow. This woman's about to get away with everything. Yeah. It's crazy. So PAM was entitled to keep the money, which is infuriating and she was free.

So what was PAM going to do now that she's gotten away with her lies a second time She's gotten the money from her mom's murder. I'm assuming. Okay, I just murder oops. Sorry alleged murder She starts what is she gonna do? She starts role-playing as a date line producer and she kills Lewis Oh, yeah, what was that about so she this is when she finally gets caught. This is after Russ Faria is already out Now a lot of people question, why would she do that? I question that too. So it's either she genuinely thought, now that Russ is out, the police are going to look for Betsy's killer. And, you know, it's her.

So she had to frame Russ again, because remember that it was framed to make it look like Russ was trying to kill her for the insurance money. And she's the victim. Or the second thing is, Pam doesn't like to lose. It's hard to say which one. The second one sounds crazy, but she's crazy. So she kills another person, gets sentenced to life in prison. Lewis's mom has sued Pam in 2020 for $3 million that Pam does not have. Ross actually met Carol through the whole situation. Remember Carol was the witness that came

up and they started dating, they fell in love. And Carol vowed that she would spend the rest of her life making Ross happy every single day. She even lets him, and I'm sure this is hard for Carol too, but she lets him keep Betsy's ashes on their bedstand because she's very like understanding. So Russ has joined the Missouri chapter of the Innocence Project an organization that works for the exoneration of people wrongly convicted. He's helped raise funds, he bought himself a home, he also got some justice of his own. But not a lot, but some. The detectives that lied to him about the polygraph, Ryan McCarrick, Mike Merkel,

and Patrick Harney, they had to pay through their officer's coverage to Russ $2 million. So as usual in settlements like this with the police, the detectives keep their jobs, they do not admit wrongdoing and all parties are prohibited from talking about the details. But it is something. Side note, the judge that presided over the first trial of Russ was suspended based on allegations that included mishandling cases as a private attorney and as a sitting judge. None of the allegations included the Faria case, but the Supreme Court did find errors of misconduct, such as delayed trials of eight different people,

and those delays caused defendants to be stuck in jail for longer than they needed to be. This judge was just overall a power-tripping heartless, unfair person. Then they should go to jail. Yeah, because more people died. Exactly, like, you should go to jail. Yeah, it's not even like an oopsie-my mistake.

This guy spent some time in jail when this person should have spent some time in jail. Somebody died. There were more victims because you couldn't do your job. The prosecutor, Leia Ascii received a ton of bad press which resulted in the backlash of her political career, but she still has a very successful private practice and she insists she has nothing, no wrongdoing. She doesn't feel guilty, she doesn't feel responsible for the death of Lewis. So why did Pam do what she did? I don't think it has to do with her head injury. I'm sure it's bad, I'm sure it's traumatic, but a lot of people have head injuries.

They don't go around killing people. There's also videos of Pam running away from TV reporters with no perfect balance, no coordination issues, which is really odd because that's the reason the police claim that they believe she didn't kill Betsy because, look at her, she's so uncoordinated. I do think that she killed Betsy for the money and potentially her mom. The real puzzling thing is why did she kill Lewis? I mean, did she just hate Russ to the point where she needed to be right? Was this a way for her to save face?

She sounds like a narcissist? Maybe she felt like the police were going to look into her. I definitely don't think that she's okay. I don't think that she's legally insane. No, no way do I think that. I think she knows what she's doing, but I don't think she's okay. She reminds me of one of those people that bulldoves into your life and they try to convince you that everybody else in your life is bad, but they're here to take care of you. Do you know those people? Yeah.

She gives me that vibe. I feel like that's how she bulldozed into Betsy's life. I wouldn't even be surprised if she sat there and was like, Betsy, your husband is evil to you. Pam Hoppe is currently serving a life sentence and authorities are working on gathering enough evidence against Pam to charge her for the murder of Betsy Faria. She was scheduled to have a preliminary hearing February of this year, but the hearing was delayed because her attorney died of a heart attack.

Which I don't know, anytime someone around Pam dies, I think we should just look into it. Now, it's not known whether or not Pam will stand trial for Betsy's murder, and if she does, it will probably take years, but hopefully justice will be served. What are your thoughts on this case? I know that this is a really well-known case that has been talked about a lot, because I think it's one of those cases

where in hindsight, everyone's like, ah, the justice system is so dumb, right? But even the jurors get blamed, but I think when, hopefully, if you heard it this way, maybe it shows you just how crazy everything was, and it wasn't just, oh hindsight is 2020 type of case. But I hope you guys enjoyed, let me know your thoughts and I'll see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode.

Bye!