On December 27, 2011, Russ Faria was at his usual Tuesday evening game night, where he and his friends enjoyed role-playing board games and watching movies. On the way back to his house in Troy, Missouri, Russ had two sandwiches from Arby's and texted his wife Betsy that he was on his way back. Russ received no response and assumed his wife had gone to sleep after a tiring chemotherapy session for her cancer.
Russ Faria
Betsy Faria
Russ and Betsy Faria
Instead of finding Betsy peacefully asleep Russ found her dead in the living room, with multiple stab wounds and a knife sticking out of her neck. Knowing that Betsy had been depressed about her health, Russ called 911 and cried, "I just got home from a friend's house and my wife killed herself."
Police detectives soon determined that Betsy was murdered, and in fact, the stiffness of the body indicated Betsy had been dead for some time. Nevertheless, the cops immediately dubbed Russ Faria the killer despite the fact he had a rock solid alibi for the time of death. The events that followed, with willfully blind cops, an obstinate district attorney, and an inexperienced judge are tragic.
Russ Faria was immediately Prime Suspect #1
If you're unfamiliar with the Russ Faria case, there are spoilers ahead.
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
Russ should have called a lawyer before speaking to the police, but hindsight is 20/20 and Russ allowed himself to be questioned by detectives for hours and hours, not realizing that every word he said was twisted to 'prove' his guilt.
When Russ finally got a defense attorney, Armani-clad Joel Schwartz, the lawyer immediately saw the obvious.
Attorney Joel Schwartz
In Schwartz's view, the major suspect for Betsy's murder should be Betsy's 'friend' Pamela Hupp. On the day of Betsy's death Pam maneuvered to drive Betsy home; Pam was the last person to see Betsy alive; Pam made a series of suspicious phone calls; Pam stood to gain $150,000 as the new beneficiary of Pam's life insurance policy; and Pam's story about what happened that night changed from minute to minute. Moreover, Pam went out of her way to badmouth Russ and to point the police in his direction.
Pamela Hupp
In this book, Schwartz and his co-author Charles Bosworth, Jr. give a step-by-step account of Russ's activities on the night of Betsy's murder; the police questioning of witnesses; the police/district attorney manipulation of witnesses; the lies that were told; and the trials and re-trials that followed. In the midst of the hubbub, the NBC program 'Dateline' became interested in Betsy's story: "A popular, outgoing woman already stricken with terminal cancer stabbed fifty-five times in her home in a quiet Midwest town....A husband arrested despite a seemingly ironclad alibi that put him thirty miles away....A good friend who became the life insurance beneficiary days before the murder and was the last one to see the victim alive." Dateline may well have been instrumental in inflaming public opinion and securing Russ a second trial.
This is a fascinating tale of justice subverted, a debacle that left Pam Hupp free to commit additional crimes. If this was fiction, you'd say it stretched believability to the breaking point. In any case, this is now a HULU mini-series called "The Thing About Pam", starring Renée Zellweger as Pam Hupp and Josh Duhamel as Joel Schwartz.
Renée Zellweger as Pamela Hupp
Josh Duhamel as Joel Schwartz
The book is highly recommended to true crime fans.
Thanks to Netgalley, Joel Schwartz and Charles Bosworth, Jr., and Kensington Books for a copy of the book.
Rating: 4 stars
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