The Frame-up

Betsy Faria lived in Troy, Missouri, and was being treated for terminal cancer. Her friend Pamela Hupp was close to her, and just days before Betsy died, Betsy made Hupp the sole beneficiary of a $150,000 life insurance policy. Hupp’s mother, Shirley Neumann, died after a fall from a balcony in 2013; the ruling on that death was later changed to undetermined, and no one has been charged.

On December 27, 2011, Hupp drove Betsy home from chemotherapy and was the last person known to have seen her alive. That night Betsy’s husband, Russ Faria, found her dead, stabbed more than 50 times. Hupp’s statements helped prosecutors build a case against Russ, and in November 2013 a jury convicted him and he received life plus 30 years. At his retrial, his lawyers pointed to Hupp’s phone records and the insurance money, and a judge acquitted him on November 7, 2015.

In August 2016, Hupp shot and killed Louis Gumpenberger, a 33-year-old disabled man, inside her O’Fallon home and claimed he had tried to kidnap her. Prosecutors said she staged the encounter to steer suspicion back toward Russ. She entered an Alford plea and was sentenced in 2019 to life without parole. Hupp was charged with Betsy’s murder in July 2021, and in April 2026 prosecutors dropped the death penalty after she agreed to a bench trial, now expected in 2028.