When Russ Faria found his wife Betsy covered in blood on Dec. 27, 2011, he assumed she had taken her life.
Russ wailed as he spoke to a 911 operator, describing the grisly scene he'd come home to. To him, it was obvious that his wife, who had been battling cancer and depression, had given up hope that she'd be cured.
But when police arrived at the home in Troy, Mo., they knew there was something sinister was afoot. As Jeannette Cooperman wrote in St. Louis Magazine, investigators found that in addition to having her wrists slashed, Betsy had been nearly decapitated.
Investigators struggled to believe that Russ really thought Betsy had committed suicide when the crime scene was so horrific, and when they brought him in for questioning, they were surprised to find that the man who was just sobbing on the phone was now calm and composed.
Even Betsy's friend Pam Hupp had her suspicions about Russ. In her conversations with police, Pam claimed that Russ was abusive to Betsy, saying that she'd been worried something would happen when she dropped her off at home that fateful day. And like anyone who has lost a loved one, Pam regretted that she didn't do more to save her friend.
But the real story, as told in Keith Morrison's Dateline podcast The Thing About Pam, is far different from the one that emerged in those early days of the investigation.
Despite a strong alibi and lack for forensic evidence, Russ was arrested on Jan. 4, 2012, and charged with first degree murder and armed criminal action. He hired St. Louis defense attorney Joel Schwartz.
During the trial, Pam detailed Russ' allegedly abusive behavior and claimed that Betsy was considering leaving him; her testimony played a key role in the jury's decision to convict Russ of both counts on Nov. 21, 2013. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Russ and his attorney appealed, and after the discovery of new evidence, Russ was granted a retrial in 2015 and was ultimately acquitted on both charges.
And while Russ had gotten justice for himself, he wanted the same for Betsy, whose murder was still considered unsolved—at least, officially.
Russ had long suspected that Pam was the person who'd slayed his wife. Not only was she the last person to see Betsy alive, she had also been named the sole beneficiary of Betsy's life insurance policy four days before Betsy's death.
On Aug. 16, 2016, police were called to Pam's home, where Louis Gumpenberger had been shot multiple times. Pam alleged that Louis had assaulted her and ordered that she hand over "Russ' money," so she shot him in self-defense, she said.
Prosecutors didn't believe her story, so Hupp was arrested—she stabbed herself in the neck while in police custody—and charged her with Louis' murder. She went on to enter an Alford plea (meaning a defendant pleads her innocence but understands there's enough evidence to be convicted) in June 2019, and was sentenced to life in prison.
Nearly 10 years after Betsy was found dead, Pam was charged with first degree murder, to which she plead not guilty in July. According to NBC News, prosecutors believe that Pam had manipulated Betsy into signing over her life insurance policy before murdering the ailing woman and framing Russ.
In light of the allegations, Lincoln County prosecutor Mike Wood said they intend to seek the death penalty. "We have a person who not only murdered her friend, then mutilated the body, staged the scene, testified against an innocent man," he said in a July news conference, "and then once he was acquitted, went and murdered someone in St. Charles County to prevent herself from being considered as a suspect. I can't pick a case more depraved than that."
And while articles and podcasts are only able to brush the surface of these events, NBC intends to tell the story in all its vivid detail in the upcoming series The Thing About Pam, starring Renée Zellweger as the titular character.
But don't expect a straightforward re-creation of these crimes. Renée told E! News they are putting a twist on this true crime tragedy, saying, "We are doing a deep dive into the absurdity of Pam's interpretation of events."
The Thing About Pam premieres March 8 on NBC.
(E! and NBC are both members of the NBCUniversal family.)