Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Here's a dateline episode here that covered the case recently
https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/c...miere/63-246ba499-e106-4f9b-a7c6-b9cdfee7fd41
I'm going to do my best to summarize the case.
Betsy Faria was a woman who lived in Troy, Missouri with her husband, Russell "Russ" Scott Faria, and two daughters from a previous relationship.
Betsy and Russ
She had been diagnosed with breast cancer and recently found out that the cancer had metastasized to her liver and was terminal. On December 27, 2011, Betsy Faria underwent a chemotherapy session and then visited her mother's house, after which she was driven home by a friend named Pam Hupp, making Hupp the last confirmed person to have seen her alive.
Pam Hupp
Betsy's husband came home and found his wife dead in a gruesome crime scene.
Investigators charged the husband with murder after a ridiculously long interrogation where they tried to convince Russ that he killed his wife.
On December 22, 2011, unbeknownst to her family, Betsy Faria had changed the sole beneficiary of her $150,000 State Farm life insurance policy from her husband to Pam Hupp. Pam stated that Betsy wanted her to have the money to then give to the daughters. The prosecutions motive for the murder was a benificiary change that he wasn't even aware of. It's very likely that Pam bullied Betsy into changing the policy. It would make more sense for Betsy to just leave her own daughters as the beneficiary.
The case went to court. Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer didn't allow for any mention of the life insurance policy or for Russ' lawyer to bring up that Pam was the likely murderer. The prosecution team were surprised that Pam hadn't given the money to Betsy's daughters still years later and requested that she put the money into a trust for the daughters before the case started 'or it would look bad'.
Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer
So here's where things get extra fucky. Russ Faria had a rock solid alibi. Betsy Faria's time of death was around 7 PM. He had been at a friends house watching movies and playing board games with 4 other friends all night until 9 PM. Stopped off at an Arby's on his way home. Then found his wife dead at 9:40 PM.
The dumb jury somehow found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to a life sentence + 30 years.
In 2014 (Russ had been in prison since January 2, 2012, the day after his wife's funeral) an expose by a local newspaper found that Pam Hupp had still not given the money to Betsy's daughters and had taken the money out of the trusts setup before the court case. A judge, Steven Ohmer, that isn't as dumb as Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer allowed for a retrial because of this new information.
Stupid as fuck lead prosecutor Leah Askey is recorded on video talking to Pam Hupp, the fucking murderer, complaining about Russ requesting a retrial and how it was "wasting tax payer money" and that he was a sore loser.
Lead prosecutor Leah Askey
The retrial commenced and Russ asked for Trial by Judge. The judge found in favor of Russ and overturned the conviction.
Yet somehow they still didn't charge Pam Hupp.
The story doesn't end here.
In 2016 Pam Hupp was back in the news. She was supposedly a "victim" of an "attempted robbery" and house break in. She shot a man she claims accosted her at her parked car in the driveway demanding her to drive to the bank to retrieve "Russ' money". She claimed she batted away the knife he was holding and fled into her house. She claimed that the man followed her into her house and she then shot him dead. The dead man had scribbled notes with planned out steps on getting "Russ' money".
The man she killed had been mentally and physically disabled since a car accident years earlier. Cameras and witness testimony also found that Pam Hupp tried to lure two other people into her car, stating she worked for "Dateline" and that she'd give them $1,000 to make a quote for the program. She likely enticed the victim, Louis Gumpenberger, with an offer of money and shot him when they went into her house.
Because of the incompetence of Prosecutor Leah Askey and Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer a murderer had gone free and then that murderer went and killed a mentally disabled man.
On June 19, 2019, Hupp entered an Alford guilty plea to the charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action, waiving her right to a jury trial. She only did this to prevent herself from getting the death penalty. Besides trying to lure in other people before the victim, cell phone triangulation found her having been at Gumpenberger's apartment's location before the murder occurred. She also did really dumb things like putting a carpet swatch at the spot where she murdered him, which the prosecution team obviously figured she did this so blood didn't stain her carpet.
But the story doesn't even stop there.
It's very very highly likely Pam Hupp killed her own mother in 2013. Pam's mother Shirley Neumann had died from falling off her balconey. An anonymous tip at the time implicated Pam as the murderer with a motive of life insurance money, but she was never charged for the murder. An autopsy found that she had .84 micrograms of the sedative Zolpidem in her blood; over eight times the expected concentration for someone having taken a normal dose. Dateline reexamined the scene of Shirley's death. Instead of falling over the balcony, Shirley had fallen through the banister. For her to have fallen this way she would have had to have fallen forward, slid, and then exerted a force several times her own body weight in order to bend the banister railings found bent on the ground.
Because of the sheer incompetence of Prosecutor Leah Askey and Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer a murderer had gone free. That murderer went and killed a mentally disabled man and elderly woman.
They were both voted out in August 2018 by county voters.
https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/c...miere/63-246ba499-e106-4f9b-a7c6-b9cdfee7fd41
I'm going to do my best to summarize the case.
Betsy Faria was a woman who lived in Troy, Missouri with her husband, Russell "Russ" Scott Faria, and two daughters from a previous relationship.
Betsy and Russ
She had been diagnosed with breast cancer and recently found out that the cancer had metastasized to her liver and was terminal. On December 27, 2011, Betsy Faria underwent a chemotherapy session and then visited her mother's house, after which she was driven home by a friend named Pam Hupp, making Hupp the last confirmed person to have seen her alive.
Pam Hupp
Betsy's husband came home and found his wife dead in a gruesome crime scene.
Investigators charged the husband with murder after a ridiculously long interrogation where they tried to convince Russ that he killed his wife.
On December 22, 2011, unbeknownst to her family, Betsy Faria had changed the sole beneficiary of her $150,000 State Farm life insurance policy from her husband to Pam Hupp. Pam stated that Betsy wanted her to have the money to then give to the daughters. The prosecutions motive for the murder was a benificiary change that he wasn't even aware of. It's very likely that Pam bullied Betsy into changing the policy. It would make more sense for Betsy to just leave her own daughters as the beneficiary.
The case went to court. Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer didn't allow for any mention of the life insurance policy or for Russ' lawyer to bring up that Pam was the likely murderer. The prosecution team were surprised that Pam hadn't given the money to Betsy's daughters still years later and requested that she put the money into a trust for the daughters before the case started 'or it would look bad'.
Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer
So here's where things get extra fucky. Russ Faria had a rock solid alibi. Betsy Faria's time of death was around 7 PM. He had been at a friends house watching movies and playing board games with 4 other friends all night until 9 PM. Stopped off at an Arby's on his way home. Then found his wife dead at 9:40 PM.
The dumb jury somehow found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to a life sentence + 30 years.
In 2014 (Russ had been in prison since January 2, 2012, the day after his wife's funeral) an expose by a local newspaper found that Pam Hupp had still not given the money to Betsy's daughters and had taken the money out of the trusts setup before the court case. A judge, Steven Ohmer, that isn't as dumb as Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer allowed for a retrial because of this new information.
Stupid as fuck lead prosecutor Leah Askey is recorded on video talking to Pam Hupp, the fucking murderer, complaining about Russ requesting a retrial and how it was "wasting tax payer money" and that he was a sore loser.
Lead prosecutor Leah Askey
The retrial commenced and Russ asked for Trial by Judge. The judge found in favor of Russ and overturned the conviction.
Yet somehow they still didn't charge Pam Hupp.
The story doesn't end here.
In 2016 Pam Hupp was back in the news. She was supposedly a "victim" of an "attempted robbery" and house break in. She shot a man she claims accosted her at her parked car in the driveway demanding her to drive to the bank to retrieve "Russ' money". She claimed she batted away the knife he was holding and fled into her house. She claimed that the man followed her into her house and she then shot him dead. The dead man had scribbled notes with planned out steps on getting "Russ' money".
The man she killed had been mentally and physically disabled since a car accident years earlier. Cameras and witness testimony also found that Pam Hupp tried to lure two other people into her car, stating she worked for "Dateline" and that she'd give them $1,000 to make a quote for the program. She likely enticed the victim, Louis Gumpenberger, with an offer of money and shot him when they went into her house.
Because of the incompetence of Prosecutor Leah Askey and Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer a murderer had gone free and then that murderer went and killed a mentally disabled man.
On June 19, 2019, Hupp entered an Alford guilty plea to the charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action, waiving her right to a jury trial. She only did this to prevent herself from getting the death penalty. Besides trying to lure in other people before the victim, cell phone triangulation found her having been at Gumpenberger's apartment's location before the murder occurred. She also did really dumb things like putting a carpet swatch at the spot where she murdered him, which the prosecution team obviously figured she did this so blood didn't stain her carpet.
But the story doesn't even stop there.
It's very very highly likely Pam Hupp killed her own mother in 2013. Pam's mother Shirley Neumann had died from falling off her balconey. An anonymous tip at the time implicated Pam as the murderer with a motive of life insurance money, but she was never charged for the murder. An autopsy found that she had .84 micrograms of the sedative Zolpidem in her blood; over eight times the expected concentration for someone having taken a normal dose. Dateline reexamined the scene of Shirley's death. Instead of falling over the balcony, Shirley had fallen through the banister. For her to have fallen this way she would have had to have fallen forward, slid, and then exerted a force several times her own body weight in order to bend the banister railings found bent on the ground.
Because of the sheer incompetence of Prosecutor Leah Askey and Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer a murderer had gone free. That murderer went and killed a mentally disabled man and elderly woman.
They were both voted out in August 2018 by county voters.
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