ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis area is no stranger to the long saga surrounding Pamela Hupp and the 2011 stabbing death of Elizabeth “Betsy” Faria and the 2016 shooting death of Louis Gumpenberger.
Neither is the rest of the country — or at least it won’t be for long.
The case has spawned two books so far, as well as true-crime TV shows. NBC’s “Dateline” has done five episodes, with another new one coming next month.
On Tuesday, NBC debuts “The Thing About Pam,” a six-episode miniseries starring Renee Zellweger as Hupp.
The project stems from “Dateline” reporting and interviews, but the series also warns that it is only “based on a true story,” and “characters, events, locations, dialogue and names have been changed for dramatic purposes.”
Russell Faria said last week that he’d heard good things about the miniseries but had only seen a preview. He said he’s had several long conversations with Glenn Fleshler, the actor who portrays him, and said Fleshler seemed intent “to portray me as best as he could.”
At a panel discussion Feb. 26 at the St. Louis County Library about “Bone Deep,” the book he co-wrote, Clayton lawyer Joel Schwartz said that, based on hours of interviews he did with writers and what he’s seen of the series, “they painstakingly got it right.”
Schwartz, portrayed by Josh Duhamel, called the series a “‘Fargo’-like dark comedy” that was “entertaining yet true to the legacy of the situation,” when asked whether it respectfully handled the deaths and their effect on relatives left behind.
Here is the true story, or at least one based on court hearings, documents and transcripts, as well as interviews done before and after a Post-Dispatch and KTVI investigation of the case in 2014.
Betsy Faria was fatally stabbed Dec. 27, 2011, in her home outside Troy, Missouri.
Police initially suspected her husband, Russell Faria, because he called 911 and said he thought his wife had died by suicide. She had terminal cancer, had battled depression and threatened suicide before — but she’d also been stabbed 55 times, and there was a knife sticking out of her neck.
Their suspicions only increased after they spoke to Hupp, who initially said she barely knew Russell Faria. As she talked to police, however, she began painting a darker picture of him.
Emergency responders said Betsy Faria’s body was cold and stiff when they arrived, shortly after the 911 call. Russell Faria’s trip to and from a friend’s house was also documented with store surveillance cameras and receipts, placing him miles away, watching a movie at his wife’s likely time of death.
Jurors had doubts but convicted Faria of his wife’s murder in November 2013, despite Schwartz’s efforts to introduce Hupp as the most likely suspect.
Schwartz was hamstrung by rulings from then-Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer that there was no “direct connection” between Hupp and the murder of her friend, despite the lawyer’s arguments that Hupp was the last known person to see Faria alive, stood to benefit from a $150,000 insurance policy (which Faria signed over to Hupp four days before the murder) and changed her story multiple times. Under Missouri law, a direct connection is necessary to put forth an alternate suspect as a defense.
Mennemeyer also refused Schwartz’s request that Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney Leah Askey offer a specific theory about the crime and when and how it was convicted. Askey instead told jurors it could have happened in the few minutes before Faria called 911, or his alibi witnesses could be lying and conspiring with Faria to cover up the crime. The four alibi witnesses have denied that. Faria’s lawyers also said Askey presented “imaginary facts” in her closing arguments.
Askey, now Leah Wommack Chaney, declined to answer questions about the case and her portrayal in the books and the TV series.
Faria was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Schwartz then filed a rare legal motion arguing that evidence had surfaced that would likely lead jurors to a different verdict, including police pressure on Hupp to set up a trust fund for Faria’s daughters with some of the insurance money. Hupp later dissolved the trust and balked at giving any money to the girls, despite what she told jurors at the trial.
An appeals court agreed, ordering a judge to hold a hearing within 90 days. The appeal said the court had the “inherent power to prevent a miscarriage of justice or manifest injustice.”
Mennemeyer recused herself. St. Louis Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer held the hearing and ordered a new trial.
Before the trial, Hupp’s claims about Faria and the night of the murder continued to change. She claimed for the first time that Russell Faria found out about an affair she had with Betsy Faria and threatened her. She then claimed to have seen a car possibly containing Russell Faria outside his home just before she dropped off Betsy Faria.
Prosecutors did not call Hupp to testify at the second trial in November 2015, which ended with Ohmer’s acquittal of Faria.
Ohmer called the investigation “rather disturbing” and said it “raised more questions than answers.” Schwartz then asked federal prosecutors to investigate Faria’s murder.
Faria sued the insurance company that gave Hupp the $150,000, later settling the case. He also sued police over their investigation, later settling the case with an insurance company for the police officers for $2 million.
Faria’s daughters, Leah and Mariah Day, unsuccessfully sued Hupp to get some of the money that she claimed she was keeping for them.
Gumpenberger’s mother eventually won a $3 million judgment against Hupp.
In 2016, St. Charles County police and prosecutors say Hupp became alarmed about the investigation and began driving around the county, looking for someone gullible enough to use in her plot to divert attention from herself.
She approached several people before finding Louis Gumpenberger outside the St. Charles apartment he shared with his mother and son.
Gumpenberger had significant mental and physical disabilities that resulted from a car crash, but after Hupp fatally shot him in her O’Fallon, Missouri, home, she told police that Gumpenberger had chased her and tried to kidnap her.
Police were immediately skeptical of her 911 call, however, and quickly discovered evidence that suggested she’d lured Gumpenberger to her home by claiming to be a “Dateline” producer who needed help reenacting a 911 call. Hupp used the real name of a producer, Cathy Singer, who had worked on the Faria shows for “Dateline.”
St. Charles County prosecutors charged Hupp with murder and said they’d seek the death penalty if she was convicted.
In 2017, the cause of death of Hupp’s mother was changed from “accidental” to “undetermined.” Shirley Neumann, 77, was found dead below the balcony of her senior apartment near Fenton in 2013. Two police investigations have called Neumann’s death an accident.
In June 2019, Hupp entered a so-called Alford plea instead, admitting that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict her without admitting the crime.
She is now serving her own sentence of life in prison without parole.
Chaney was defeated in the 2018 primary by Mike Wood, who campaigned in part by vowing to reopen the Faria investigation. Mennemeyer was defeated in the same election.
Wood kept his promise and in July charged Hupp with Faria’s murder, criticizing the original investigation as deeply flawed and saying he was investigating whether any misconduct by prosecutors or investigators was a crime.
Wood also said he would seek the death penalty. That case is pending.
Chaney denied the allegations of misconduct in an interview with KSDK after Hupp was charged, saying police only brought her evidence pointing to Faria. She is now a lawyer in private practice.
Hupp has refused multiple requests for comment in recent years. When asked in a 2014 phone interview whether she killed Faria, she said: “Anybody can say it, but there’s no evidence at the scene that I did,” adding, “I don’t care what Joel Schwartz says.”
She also denied leading police to suspect Russell Faria.
Today, Faria is the bookkeeper and runs the office at All Lubed Up Cycles, a motorcycle shop in St. Charles. He lives with Carol Alford, whom he met through the first criminal case against Hupp. Alford is one of the people approached by Hupp before she shot Gumpenberger.
The couple became engaged in October, on the third anniversary of their first date.
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'THE THING ABOUT PAM'
Where to watch: 10 p.m. ET Tuesdays on NBC
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