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Pam Hupp – 2019 Mugshot from the Missouri Department of Corrections

LINCOLN COUNTY, Mo. – Pam Hupp, who is already spending life in prison for a 2016 murder, will be investigated for the 2011 murder of her best friend.

On Thursday, Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney Michael Wood requested the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis to review the murder of Betsy Faria.

Faria was murdered on December 27, 2011. Her husband, Russ, found her stabbed approximately 55 times in her Troy, Missouri home. The case gained international attention, with network specials and high-profile podcasts detailing the investigation.

In 2013, Russ Faria was convicted of killing Betsy. But in a new trial two years later, a judge found he was not guilty while raising questions of Hupp’s possible involvement.

Faria served more than three years in prison while Fox 2 revealed evidence of his airtight alibi – his cellphone records, which placed him in Lake St. Louis, far from his wife’s murder. We also showed how Hupp went out of her way to drive Betsy home the night of the murder and also benefitted from Betsy’s $150,000 life insurance policy, which had just been signed over to her.

Betsy was already dying of cancer, with possibly just months to live.

Fox 2 continued its reporting, including investigating the bizarre death of Hupp’s mother—her unexplained fall through the railings of a third-floor balcony—and her life insurance proceeds.

St. Charles County prosecutors said Hupp wanted to escape the heat, so she plotted the murder of a random person in order to frame Russ Faria.

Enter Louis Gumpenberger.

Gumpenberger was shot and killed inside Hupp’s O’Fallon, Missouri home in August 2016. He was 37.

Hupp had claimed Gumpenberger invaded her home and that she killed him in self-defense. An O’Fallon police investigation revealed evidence Hupp plotted the whole thing and picked Gumpenberger as her pawn. She was indicted later that month.

In June 2019, Hupp cut a deal to avoid the death penalty in Gumpenberger’s murder. Hupp entered an Alford plea, acknowledging county prosecutors had enough evidence to convict her of murder and agreed to a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of probation or parole.

The St. Charles Police Department also agreed to house all physical evidence relating to this new investigation regarding Betsy Faria’s murder. This is being done for ease of access and “to preserve investigate integrity.” Earlier this week, it was revealed that every piece of evidence collected by Lincoln County that led to a wrongful arrest is missing. All of the follow-up Pam Hupp interviews, in which she changed her story, were also missing.