Pamela Marie Hupp
Pamela Marie Hupp (née Neumann; born October 10, 1958) is an American murderer serving a life sentence in Missouri's Chillicothe Correctional Center for the 2016 shooting of Louis Gumpenberger in her home in O'Fallon, Missouri. Hupp's claim that she had shot Gumpenberger (who had mental and physical disabilities) in self-defense after he pursued her into her home wielding a knife was not accepted by law enforcement. She ultimately entered an Alford plea before charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action could go to trial.
Testimony from Hupp had played a key role in the 2013 conviction of Russ Faria for the murder of his wife, Betsy Faria, who was stabbed to death in her home in Troy, Missouri, in 2011. After a successful appeal and second trial in 2015, Faria was exonerated after his defense attorney was permitted to introduce evidence that was withheld from the original trial jury, some of which implicated Hupp – the beneficiary of a life insurance policy held by Betsy – as the killer. Law enforcement have theorized that Hupp tricked Gumpenberger into entering her home and then murdered him in a failed attempt to frame Faria. In July 2021, Hupp was charged with the first-degree murder of Betsy Faria.
Hupp has also been investigated in connection with the death of her mother, Shirley Neumann, who died in 2013 from injuries sustained in a fall from the balcony of her third-floor apartment in Fenton, Missouri. A tip-off to police accused Hupp of killing Neumann for financial gain. Neumann's death was initially ruled an accident, but in November 2017 the chief medical examiner for St. Louis County changed the cause of death to "undetermined", referencing the events in O'Fallon and Troy. An investigation into Neumann's death by the St. Louis County Police Department was inconclusive.
The killings of Betsy Faria and Louis Gumpenberger have been the subject of significant media coverage, including extensive reporting from the local Fox affiliate station KTVI in St. Louis and six Dateline NBC episodes airing from 2014 to 2022, as well as a Dateline NBC true crime podcast. A scripted television series featuring actress Renée Zellweger as Hupp, The Thing About Pam, premiered on NBC in March–April 2022.
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