ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – The St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s Office has changed the manner of death of Pam Hupp’s mom; a major development after a series of Fox Files reports.
A housekeeper found Pam Hupp’s mom, Shirley Neumann, dead on Halloween 2013. She mysteriously fell from a third-floor balcony. At the time, the medical examiner ruled Neumann’s death an accident. No police officer or prosecutor ever interviewed Pam Hupp about the incident, but Fox 2/KPLR 11 did in January 2014.
Hupp was the last person reported to see her mother alive after bringing her to a Fenton independent living center in October 2013. Hupp was also the last person known to see her friend Betsy Faria alive after driving her home the night she was found stabbed to death in 2011.
Then last year, Hupp shot and killed a man with disabilities, claiming he attacked her. O’Fallon, Missouri police arrested her for murder after an extensive investigation.
“The evidence seems to indicate she hatched a plot to find an innocent victim and to murder this innocent victim in an apparent effort to frame someone else,” St. Charles County Prosecutor Tim Lohmar said at a news conference following the arrest.
St. Louis County Medical Examiner Dr. Mary Case said the Pam Hupp story, as uncovered in the Fox Files, has led her to change her office’s original ruling on the manner of death of Hupp’s mother.
Case has now signed an “affidavit for correction” in order to change the death certificate from saying it was an “accident.” Her official ruling now calls Neumann’s manner of death “undetermined.”
As part of Dr. Case’s change, she reviewed evidence, such as Fox 2’s engineering test of a railing like the one on Neumann’s third-floor balcony.
Dr. Case’s office looked at the engineer’s report as part of her review. However, she said it wasn’t one thing that led her to make a change in Neumann’s death, but rather “the great deal of information we now know.”
“When all of that came out, it aroused the need to review everything again,” Case said.
The medical examiner also said it’s not often that she makes a change like this, but it does happen because she said Medical Examiner cases never close. She said she could make another change in this case if there were more developments. St. Louis County police also worked with an engineer after the test we conducted in February. They concluded that the only way to get enough evidence that might lead to criminal charges would be to test one of the railings from the independent living center, but attorneys for Lakeview Park reportedly said they would not be willing to provide a railing due to possible litigation. In the meantime, officers continue to ask for more information from anyone who might have information about Neumann’s death.
