ST. LOUIS – Convicted murderer Pam Hupp is getting divorced from her husband of 26 years as she sits in prison.
Mark Hupp has seemed like a devoted husband through years of controversy and two murder investigations. FOX 2’s Chris Hayes reached out to Mark and asked him if he wanted to talk about the recent filing. Mark said, “not to you, I don’t.”
In 2016, Mark pushed FOX 2’s camera as we were investigating Pam Hupp’s connection to the murder of Betsy Faria. He walked by her side every day during a civil trial that January, in which Pam Hupp argued successfully to the court that her murdered friend’s life insurance money was hers to spend.
Seven months later, Pam Hupp lured a man with disabilities, Louis Gumpenberger, and shot him to death in her home. Police and prosecutors said Pam Hupp staged it to make it look like she was an innocent victim and to deflect heat she was feeling for the unsolved murder of her friend Betsy Faria.
Last year, Fox 2 obtained Pam Hupp’s phone calls from jail after Gumpenberger’s murder, finding even then, her husband Mark never challenged her and seemed to believe she was innocent.
At one recorded call Mark asked Pam, “So then how is it life in prison then? I don’t, I don’t get that.”
Pam answered, “Well that was just the best offer they offered.”
After 26 years of marriage, the divorce filing says the “marriage is irretrievably broken.”
Pam Hupp remains in the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, serving life for the murder of Louis Gumpenberger. She now also faces an investigation into the unsolved murder of Betsy Faria, a case reopened by Lincoln County Prosecutor Mike Wood last October.
Legal experts FOX 2 spoke to debate whether the divorce will impact the Faria murder investigation. It all depends on Pam Hupp’s soon to be ex-husband Mark. It’s up to Mark if he will now agree to talk to police or testify, because it’s believed “spousal immunity” still applies, even after a divorce.
