2 - A Matter of Trust

·26 min·2 clips

How did Russ Faria get convicted of murder with a solid alibi and no physical evidence?

1. Episode two of Dateline NBC's 'The Thing About Pam' covers the first trial of Russ Faria in Lincoln County, Missouri in November 2013, two years after Betsy Faria's murder. 2. Host Keith Morrison and producer Kathy Singer note that Lincoln County had experienced only two murders in the three years prior to Betsy's death — zero in 2009 — meaning neither the judge nor the prosecutor had ever handled a murder trial before. 3. The prosecution, led by Leah Askey, opened with the 911 call and argued Russ's emotion was 'over the top' and false; Betsy's mother Janet Meyer and sister Mary Rogers both told Morrison the call seemed 'goofy' or staged. 4. Betsy's family members, including daughters Leah and Mariah, took the stand and described Russ as crude, rude, and prone to anger, with one incident where he was removed from the family home and police were called. 5. Pam Hupp testified that Russ was verbally degrading to Betsy, called her 'not smart enough,' made people uncomfortable, and had played the pillow game — 'putting a pillow over her face to see what it would feel like to die.' 6. The prosecution's physical evidence included blood on Russ's slippers, blood on a closet light switch, and a chemical trace of blood in the kitchen, plus the absence of blood on Russ himself — which Askey attributed to a post-murder shower. 7. Joel Schwartz countered that the blood on the slippers was confined to splotches on the sole and side with no footprint imprint on the tile floor, suggesting someone had dipped the slippers in blood and placed them in the closet to stage the scene. 8. The light switch blood pattern, Joel argued, matched the carrying pattern of the slippers — not a killer exiting the scene. 9. Schwartz also pointed out that Russ had four independent alibi witnesses, cell phone data placing him elsewhere, and that rigor mortis confirmed Betsy had been dead for about two hours before Russ arrived home. 10. Askey's closing argument, read aloud by NBC senior producer Barbara Rabb, theorised Russ had planned the murder for years with his game-night friends, secretly drove home, violated Betsy 'one last time,' showered with no evidence of blood in the pipes, and hid his slippers. 11. Only eight sperm were found in Betsy, which Russ explained in his police interview as consistent with consensual intimacy on the Sunday — two days before the Tuesday murder; Askey's theory required no forensic support for the shower claim. 12. Joel described Askey's accusations against the four game-night friends as 'immoral' for a prosecutor to make without evidence. 13. The judge refused to allow Joel to present evidence about Pam Hupp as an alternate suspect — including cell phone tower data that may have placed her elsewhere than she claimed, and the fact that she had received the insurance money. 14. Four days before Betsy's murder, Betsy and Pam visited a local library and had a desk worker sign a form switching a $150,000 life insurance beneficiary from Russ to Pam — despite both women having years of insurance industry experience. 15. When the insurance company called police to verify whether Pam was a suspect, detectives said she was not — clearing her payout without further investigation. 16. Pam's explanation was that Betsy had arranged it voluntarily because she wanted Pam to hold the money responsibly for her daughters, fearing Russ would spend it in grief. 17. After four hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict: first-degree murder, life in prison. Joel Schwartz says he lost sleep over the outcome for a long time. 18. Twenty days after the conviction, Pam drained 99.7% of the trust fund she had set up for Betsy's daughters — the girls received nothing. 19. True-crime listeners interested in prosecutorial overreach, suppressed evidence, and financial motive will find this episode the most substantively dense in the series. 20. Listeners looking for ambiguity or doubt about the alternative suspect will find this episode leans heavily toward the defense's framing.

As heard by us

A skeptical, steady look at the evidence, and why the first story does not quite hold up.

This episode reopens the Betsy Faria case by testing the physical evidence against the first story told about it. What gives it weight is the plain way it handles the blood on the slippers, the light-switch pattern, the alibi witnesses, and the question of staging without losing…

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Why you'd press play

If you want the evidence to do the talking, start here.

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