Renée Zellweger Stars In The NBC Docudrama The Thing About Pam. Here’s the True Story Behind the Series 

Pam Hupp is a good friend, a helper, a star witness, a loving daughter—and a killer? The NBC drama Pam: The Truth About Pam The premiered March 8th, tells the story of true storyLearn more about Hupp (Renée Zellweger in her first network TV role) allegedly got away with the 2011 murder of her best friend Betsy Faria (Katy Mixon)—until it all caught up to her.

Inspired by The Six-Episode Limited Series, the series consists of six episodes. 2019 Dateline podcast of the same name, offers a tongue-in-cheek look at a stranger-than-fiction story of murder, greed, and deception that inspired five episodes of Dateline Over the period of five year. It was the only one. O.J. Simpson JonBenét RamsayInvestigative Series has given them more attention, It is an indication of the complexity of this story. This is a quick example of how stunt casting can be used to illustrate the complexity of this story. DatelineKeith Morrison is the correspondent Pam’s Best Thing’s omniscient narrator.)
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The show This is a hilarious true-crime thriller that also serves as a comedy and social satire. It examines how a flawed criminal investigation sent an innocent man to prison. Zellweger is an executive producer and was keen to preserve as many of the strange, often frustrating, details of this case as they could. “The idea is accuracy,” she told Entertainment Tonight before the show’s premiere. It’s why she You opted to use prosthetics and a “fat suit” for the role, a decision that has led to Some controversy online. Zellweger, however, said she felt that “in the case of telling this story, it was really important to as closely resemble Pam Hupp as we possibly could, because she seems so familiar. She seems like someone that we recognize and we know.”

The thing about Pam is that she’s not who you think she is and too many people learned that the hard way.

Pam Hupp is who?

Hupp (née Neumann) was born in Dellwood, Missouri, in 1958 to a strict Catholic family. The third of four children, Hupp was described by friends as a “boy crazy” cheerleader with a big personality and an even bigger laugh, according to St. Louis Magazine. At the close of her senior year she was pregnant, then got married. Friends who spoke with the magazine said that this made Hupp resentful about college students who continued on. Hupp was divorced 6 years later. She then married Mark Hupp who was a minor league player and a carpenter. After living briefly in Florida, Hupp returned to Missouri and took a State Farm clerical position. She also flipped houses with her husband.

Hupp’s former State Farm manager Mike Boschert Submitted St. Louis Magazine In 2017 described her as “a positive person, very level-headed—I never saw her mad. She could see the bigger picture. And she was very adept at office politics.” But he also said that there were some “weird things” that happened during her tenure at the company. “She always told me she was involved somewhere like the FBI, something with security clearance, kind of in the past but maybe still,” he said. “It was like she was just letting it dribble out, and then it was ‘I can’t say anything.’”

Boschert claimed that a customer called him to say that they received a signed note from Boschert with details that only Hupp and one other employee knew about. Boschert claimed he didn’t send the note. It was on his official stationary. While it is unclear who mailed the letter, Pam had previously been fired twice for forging signatures—a detail she didn’t disclose on her State Farm job application.

Comment did Pam Hupp meet Betsy Faria, and how did they become best friends?

Betsy Faria met Hupp in 2001, when she worked as a State Farm employee. Faria, who was 11 years Hupp’s junior, was known for being sweet and bubbly, with a reputation for being scatterbrained and often short on cash. Faria, a former colleague, lost touch over the years. However, Hupp offered his support when Faria was first diagnosed with breast carcinoma in 2010. Hupp drove Faria around to her treatments.

Hupp quickly became Faria’s trusted advisor and confidante. Faria was concerned that the financial well-being of her children would be compromised after Faria’s death. Faria’s father, Ken Meyer, told St. Louis Magazine that Faria had “been worrying about her two teenage daughters’ spending the [inheritance] money foolishly, and she was afraid that her husband, too, would ‘piss it away.’” On Dec. 22, 2011, Faria named Hupp the sole beneficiary of her $150,000 life insurance policy. Faria was suddenly gone five days later.

Betsy Faria: What’s the matter?

Faria, who was only two days old, was killed in Troy, Missouri. When her husband Russell “Russ” Faria found her on the floor he believed his terminally ill wife, whoseAfter breast cancer spread to her liver, she took her own life. Police reported Betsy’s 55-year-old stabbing and the fact that she was not self inflicted.

The night Betsy died, Russ had originally planned to pick up his wife from her mother’s house following his weekly Tuesday game night. Betsy texted Russ to inform him that Hupp was taking her home after her chemotherapy session. When she dropped Betsy off at home at approximately 7 p.m. the two called Pam’s husband, Mark Hupp, to check in. “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!” Betsy said excitedly on the voicemail message. Pam Hupp was her last contact.

Why was Betsy Faria’s husband, Russ, found guilty of her murder?

As Pam’s Best Thing points out, local law enforcement believed Betsy’s murder was an open-and-shut case: the husband did it. The cops pointed to Russ’ 911 call, which they said sounded performatively distraught. His behavior in the hours after discovering his wife’s body was also deemed “suspicious” by authorities. The first cop who arrived at the scene of the crime said Russ seemed visibly upset, but “had limited tears coming from his eyes,” according to St. Louis Magazine.

Authorities also found Russ’s blood-stained slipper at the scene. Betsy wrote a note detailing her fear that her husband might hurt her. Pam Hupp, the woman who reported the suspicious note to authorities was Pam Hupp. She was also the one who pushed the narrative that Russ was an abusive husband who was out to get Betsy’s life insurance money when she died. The prosecution built their case against Russ using this image of him as an abusive spouse. Hupp became the prosecution’s star witness in the 2013 murder trial despite pleas from Russ’ attorney Joel SchwartzThat she be taken into police custody as a potential suspect.

Schwartz stated that Russ had at least four witnesses to his whereabouts on that evening, along with receipts, surveillance footage and receipts, that would have confirmed Betsy’s location. There was no evidence of Betsy’s blood on his client’s body, under his fingernails, or clothing. Schwartz claims that the slippers were found in Betsy’s closet back, to frame him. On the other hand, Hupp didn’t have an alibi, wouldn’t take a lie detector test, and had continued to change key details of her story including what car, if any, she saw in Betsy’s driveway the night she died. “Whatever car she thought Russ was driving, she’d say she saw in the drive,” Schwartz told St. Louis Magazine.

When Schwartz deposed Hupp in March 2013, she joked that her husband’s life insurance policy was much bigger than Betsy’s. “I mean, I guess, if I wanted a lot of money, I could kill him instead of her,” she said, which struck the lawyer as an odd thing to say—especially when no one had accused her of killing her friend. During the trial, Schwartz wasn’t allowed to talk about Hupp’s possible motives in Betsy’s murder because the prosecution had successfully argued that she had “no direct connection” to the case.

Russ Faria, a first-degree murder conviction was handed down in November 2013. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with parole. Faria received a second trial two years later. The defense had the right to present evidence and information that wasn’t allowed at the original trial. Hupp was not called to the stand by either side during the retrial. Strangely, during the trial it became clear that Hupp was now a detective. Betsy was her lover.. Faria was alleged to have discovered their affair, and had killed his wife.

Despite Hupp’s new claims, Faria was acquitted in November 2015 with the judge calling Lincoln County’s investigation into the case “rather disturbing.” In 2020, Lincoln County Russ Faria and I settled a civil caseHis wrongful conviction of more than 2 million dollars. Lincoln County Prosecutor Mike Wood declared that his office would be closed in the next year. Investigation of possible police misconduct and prosecution misconductThe original Betsy Faria crime investigation. “This is one of the poorest examples of investigative work that I as well as my team have ever encountered,” Wood said then. “Driven largely by ego; driven toward an agenda rather than truth.”

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How did Pam Hupp get arrested for Betsy Faria’s murder?

Oddly enough, it wasn’t Betsy Faria’s murder that landed Pam Hupp in jail. She was fatally shot in August 2016. Louis GumpenbergerIn her home, Gumpenberger was a man with mental and physical disabilities. She claimed to police that Gumpenberger had tried to kidnap her at knifepoint to get “Russ’ money,” a reference to Betsy’s husband that was believed to be Hupp’s attempt to frame Faria. Her search for Faria may also have been to Do not pay attention to her role in the murder. There had been renewed interest in Hupp’s possible role in Betsy’s murder following a civil suit that Betsy’s daughters had brought against HuppThe same year, Hupp had also stolen their mom’s $150,000 life insurance payout. They alleged that Hupp stole their mom’s $150,000 life insurance payout, despite telling the police that she would give the money to the girls. (The Hupp wins the verdict of the juryKeep the money.

Following Gumpenberger’s death, Hupp told authorities that she killed the man in self-defense, but The police thought it was staged murder-for hire plot to indict Russ for the death of his wife. Pam was sentenced in August 2019 to life imprisonment without parole.

After the shooting, police decided to take another look at it. 2013 death of Hupp’s mother, Shirley NeumannNeumann, who was on her balcony at the third-floor of her apartment when she fell. Neumann’s death had previously been ruled an accident, but, in 2017, the St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s Office officially changed the manner of death to “undetermined.” Neumann had eight times the typical dose of Ambien in her system at the time of her death. Hupp was the beneficiary of her mom’s life insurance.

The date is July 20, 2021 Hupp was indicted in Betsy’s killing. Prosecutors in Lincoln County decided to revisit Betsy’s case following Hupp’s conviction in the Gumpenberger murder. Mike Wood is Lincoln County’s Prosecuting Lawyer He said that he would look for Hupp is subject to the death penalty. “I do not take lightly the decision to pursue the death penalty,” Wood said in a press conference. “But this case stands alone in its heinousness and depravity such that it shocks the conscience.”

Hupp denied ever being involved in the death of her friend and has repeatedly denied it.Remains in Prison.