BONE DEEP-Charles Bosworth Jr. and Joel J. Schwartz

and New York Times bestselling author Charles Bosworth Junior. On December twenty seventh, twenty eleven, Russell Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri home after his weekly game night with friends to an unthinkable, grisly scene. His wife Betsy lay dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She'd been stabbed fifty five times. First responders concluded that Bessie was dead for

hours when Russ discovered her. No blood was found, implicating Russ, and surveillance, video, receipts, and friends testimony all supported his alibi. Yet incredibly, police in the prosecuting attorney ignored the evidence. In their minds, Russ was guilty, but prominent defense attorney Joel J. Schwartz quickly recognized the real killer. The motive was clear. Days before her murder, the terminally ill Betsy replaced her husband with her friend Pamela Hupp as her

life insurance beneficiary. Still, despite the prosecution's flimsy case and Hupp's transparent lies, Russ was convicted, leaving Hup free to kill again. Bone Deep takes readers through the perfect storm of miscalculations and missteps that led to an innocent man's conviction, and recounts Schwartz's successful battle to have that conviction overturned.

Written with Russ Faria's cooperation, and filled with chilling new revelations and previously undisclothed evidence, This is the story of what can happen when police, prosecutor, judge and jury all fail in their duty to protect the innocent and let a killer get away with murder. The book that we're featuring this evening is Bone Deep Untangling the Betsy Faria Murder Case, with my special guests journalist and author Henry

Bosworth Junior And attorney and author Joel J. Schwartz. Welcome to the program, and thank you so much for this interview, Henry Bosworth Jr. And Joel J. Schwartz.

I just don't think I'm interested. Charlie called and I can't Maybe it was his Deep Morgan Freeman's sounding voice. I don't know, but I said, yeah, I would love to meet you, Charlie, and he came on out. We had lunch, We talked about his vision. He gave me a copy of one of his previous books, which I devoured the next forty eight hours. And I called him back and said, I would be honored to work with

you and write this book. And I think that my instinct has been born out given the final product of Bone Deep, that readers can take a look at and read.

Scott Rosenblom. I had covered some cases that Scott had been involved in, and there was just something about the case. And as I was getting ready to retire, I thought, you know, I haven't heard of a book being prepared for this, and I just decided, almost on a lark, to call Jewel and see if he would be interested in working together. Happily he was, and the story begins on an evening that couldn't be any more average for

the couple, the Russ and Betsy Faria. Every Tuesday night, Russ had a game night in O'Fallon, Missouri, about thirty five forty five minutes away from his home in Troy, Missouri, and he and Betsy corresponded by text several times during the day, discussing their various plans. Betsy, unfortunately was battling a recurrence of cancer and was going to be going to a chemo treatment that day, and Russ was going to pick her up at her mother's apartment after the

chemo and after his game night event. He got a message from Betsy during the afternoon saying that she had a friend of hers had offered to give her a ride home. Russ was not going to have to make the trip and pick her up and take her home, so Russ did ransom errands on the way to game night, spent three hours at Game night with his four friends.

They couldn't actually play the Role Master game that they usually played because one of their members was absent, so they watched a couple of movies and at nine o'clock as usual, he headed home and arrived shortly after nine point thirty and walked in to just the most horrible, unimaginable scene that any of us would would would ever want to find ourselves into.

her neck. And it's almost impossible to imagine walking into that kind of scene with your spouse, but that's what he was confronted with he had the presence of mind once he realized that she was gone, that he ran into the other room and made it called nine to one one to ask ask them to send help immediately. And that's that's the awful beginning to what became, you know, a ten year story of injustice and the failure of

public officials to do their jobs correctly. And the good thing about Joel being dedicated to doing his job correctly.

they had arrived. The next is are the police, And the police do what it's called clearing the area, just to make sure whoever did this there's not anybody hiding in the shower or there's not anybody hiding in a closet. They clear the area, and then the detective showed up. And that's what you're talking about, there was saying. Detective on the case. Ryan mccarett was one of the lead detectives, along with a guy named Mike Merkle and a guy

named Patrick Horney. And they show up. Russ had been taken outside the residence, so it's not to disturb the scene, but they immediately presumed that the husband did it. Is that fair? Well, he did find the body and he was the husband, and I think essentially most people assume it is the spouse who was responsible. What had happened on the nine to one one call that Russ had made that Charlie alluded to was when he got home,

he picked up the phone. I think he was going into shock, and he immediately told the nine one one supervisor at least three times that I just got home and my wife committed suicide. Based upon that call and the attempt to say she committed suicide, I think aroused the suspicions of the officers. What they didn't know is that she had attempted suicide in the past and been involuntarily committed by a patrolman for running a stop sign because she felt like killing herself just a couple of

years prior. Just prior to this time, she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had been at times despondent. So that is why that notion popped into Russ's head. These are things that the officers didn't know, nor did they consider when they originally considered us to be a suspect.

What they did is the opposite is not only presuming it was a husband, but they based that presumption on the fact that they thought, Okay, this guy's trying to lie to us, trying to send us in the wrong direction. What they failed to realize, in addition to what I just briefly said, was all of the multitude of the fifty six stab wounds with a few exceptions or throughout. That'si's torso and her legs, and those were covered in dark clothing, so none of those wounds could be seen.

If you want to take a leap of faith, what you have to presume is the person who made the call would not be just so ridiculous as to presume that the examiners would never look at the body and go along with a hypothesis of suicide. So it follows that the person who said this was suicide by calling in would not have been the person who had done this,

because it wasn't made to look like a suicide. The additional factor that I neglected to mention so far is that when Russ came home, not only did he was armed with this information about Betsy and her previous suicide attempts, but there was a large, large gash in her right wrist, there were other crossways gashes on her forearms, and there was a knife berry deep into her neck as we say, it was bone deep, along with the gash and her wrists.

So that's what led to US's conclusion, and I think that's what led to their primary myopia and focus on Russ. The problem with the investigation is Russ. Had he called me when he was arrested, I would have told him, as any prudent attorney, shut your mouth, I'll see you tomorrow morning. I'll want you to talk to these detectives. Fortunately for us, he did not call an attorney, certainly not me. We didn't know each other. He went in

with the officers. He spoke to the first team of officers for about six hours, then he spoke to another team of officers for about six hours, with around lots of time sprinkled in between, and spent approximately thirty six hours recanting where he went the entire evening and who he was risk Fortunately what happened is they were able to go everywhere he went. They were able to confirm

his presence via video and receipt and witness testimony. They also went and talked to before alibi witnesses that he claimed he had been with. They separated them, they talked to them separately, all of the which occurred while Russ was still in police custody, so we know he didn't speak to anybody. They also were able to confirm on video that he was wearing the exact same clothing that he was arrested in earlier that evening. What they in effect did was my job, meaning they proved Russe Maria

could not have done this. However, inexplicably, with that conclusion in mind, at least on my mind, they charged him. I still to this day don't know why there wasn't somebody that stepped back and said, wait a minute, this guy's got an alibi. There's not a speck of blood on them, which would be impossible. There's no evidence whatsoever other than he's the spouse and he does get some

insurance money that he would have done this. The big factor that they neglected was there was a clear alternate suspect served up to them on a silver platter, and that was Pam hop What we knew about Pam at the time was she got for a portion of Betsy's insurance proceeds. One policy for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars have been assigned to her merely four days earlier,

under strangely suspicious circumstances. In addition, when they went to talk to Pam, over the course of about three and a half hours, and I think I counted at one point, there was over twenty lies that she told that were provable. And not only were they lies that ultimately changed or revolved over the course of time. They changed over the course of that initial interview. For example, two quick ones, I didn't go in the house too. I went in

the house, I just went in the floyer. So I went in the foyer, I went in the living room, and I went in to the kitchen, all the way to I went all the way in the back room and went throughout the house. Is that important in and of itself. No, not necessarily. It's suspicious, doesn't mean she was a murderer. But you looked at those lies, and then you look at where evidence was found, and it simply happens to me everywhere Pam Hoak went and finally admitted to over the course of the straight and a

half hours. The other line that I think is just glaring is there was a phone call made from Pam's phone to Betsy's phone approximately twenty minutes after they arrived at Betsy's house. The detectives asked miss Hubb why she called Betsy, and the first answer was to let her

knowme that I made it home safe. Over the course of that interview, it evolved from well, I was almost home when I called her, and the officers for still someone incredulous because she couldn't have been almost home, And she certainly could have been home because she lived over thirty minutes away, and we know that she had spent

time inside Betsy's house. The important factor there is by cell site, I was able to determine that she was still within the what they call the pie slide or the sector by cell side of the house, meaning she was either in the house or near the house at the time. And I would propose that she was in the house at the time she made that phone call merely as what we can call her own alibi call with no knowledge of technical expertise and no knowledge that they could place a cell phone as to where it

was when I made the phone call. So those are just a couple of the glaring lies that changed or the stories had changed in the course of her initial interview. Eventually those stories became well. When I met was, I left her house and I sat around the corner, and I did go everywhere in the house. I can't and I don't want to go into absolutely every lie that

she told. The point of this story is simply, why not take a look at this woman who stood to gain when Betsy died and she got the proceeds of her life insurance policy with Armed with that information, when I first got hired and got the discovery, I knew. I knew it in my gut. I knew it in my brain that I was going to have this case dismissed within a month to two months. And we would have been done with this in early twenty twelve, and we certainly wouldn't be talking about it ten years later,

in twenty twenty two. Suffice to say, I couldn't have been more wrong in either my gut nor my brain.

think is a lie. Actually we know it's a lie, that were lovers and that Russ I'm out about it, and threatened to cut her up and bury her in the backyard. That's the magnitude of how the story changed from I barely know him, I've only met him a couple of times, which was true too. I could feel his spit on my face. He was inches away, threatened to kill me and cut me up and bury me in the backyard. That alone, the change alone, that's one little lie. She told me. Should have clued the police

and to investigat her. But we can go further. In the initial interview, one of the things she kept saying was, and I'm quoting her, Betsy was going to email me everything about Russ that he was doing to her. That made her so uncomfortable. She didn't want to go home because she was scared of us. If she'd just find the email, I mean, the document that she was going

to send to me. And she said it that way about five times during the course of the interview, meaning she would always say she was going to email I mean she created document. Ultimately, which we found out four years later, almost to the day, was that Betsy there was a document found in Betsy's computer. Everything that Pam had indicated would be in the document in that initial interview was in the document. It was essentially a dying

declaration from Betsy. It was a letter to the police that if something or to Pam that if something happens to me, you need to show this to the police. Russ has been threatening to kill me by putting a pillow over my face and saying this is what it's going to feel like when you're dead. He continues to talk about the insurance proceeds he's going to get and then he's going to be free. All these things were contained within that document, in addition to some other things.

What was so noteworthy about the document that Pam continued to direct these police student that they didn't find for four years and I might at ten days prior to the second trial. Was that it was authored in Betsy's computer, and a document that couldn't have been created by Betsy's computer because that program didn't exist. It was created at a time that Pam was with Betsy at the tennis club. We know that when Pam was sitting there watching and

Betsy was playing tennis with several other people. It was the only document of all the hundreds in Betsy's computer that read author unknown, So we know it was created a time that that Pam would have had access to the computer. It was uploaded to the computer from a different computer. It contained dying declarations. It contained all the

information regarding the insurance and threats about Russ. However, no family member nor anybody else could corroborate the information, with the exception of Pam, who knew everything that was in the letter. That in of itself should include the police into Maybe not to presume that Pam was the one who did it, but she's been lying about everybody, and we need to take a look at this woman. The most important factor was she had always said on that

Friday before the Tuesday, that Betsy was brutally murdered. Betsy surprised her saying, Hey, I want to change my insurance proceeds to you, which I've never believed and I don't think is true as far as being surprised. But what we know was the day before that, in the supposed email that Betsy was going to send, which I believe is a document creative by Pam, she again talked about I want to transfer my insurance proceeds to you. In effect,

Pam knew exactly what she was going to do. She knew the day and time she was going to do it because everybody knew Russ was gone for four hours the following Tuesday, and she knew that she was getting

the insurance proceeds. All of those facts put together, combined with Russ's provable alibi, would Lee want to believe that this was the worst example of an investigation that, certainly in thirty three years I have ever seen, and I think that has led to the fascination of the public with this case, in petition to everything that Pam had done.

on the side of each slipper. Had Russ been wearing the slippers, his slippers when Bessie was stabbed and he did this, there would have been blood covered spatter all over the tops of these slippers. Had he been wearing them and gotten it on the bottom, there would have been a footprint in the blood. And the pool of blood was contained within a carpet in their living room, so there would have been bloody footprints, or at least a bloody footprint on the carpet outside the pool of blood.

in the deep recesses of Russ's closet. And additionally, there is what there is a crosshatch pattern similar to the shoes or the socks that Betsy was wearing on the light switched plates, so whoever went back into that closet to plant the shoes could see what they were doing. The most important fact in what I had just previously described as there was no footprint in the blood. It was a large pool of blood, there was no footprint on the carpet, and the pattern on the blood on

the shoes was indicative if somebody swiping it. There is no reason whatsoever that Russ have taken his own slippers and swipe them in blood. There's also no logic behind the fact that he would have hit the slippers but somehow been able to stash the rest of his clothing. I have forgotten about the slippers. Again, it's just a shoddy investigation, and it still defies logic, and it's inexplictable

to me. Give it. Everything that I'm describing here and there's much much deeper evidence that's gone into in detail inbone deeds that the police didn't at least step back. There wasn't one same head in the room or cool head to step back and say, okay, folks, wait a minute. You know what, Maybe we won't want to charge this guy, maybe we want to presumly did it, but don't you think we ought to take a look at this smit that never happened, and nobody ever did.

case was set to be tried in front of. And unfortunately for myself, but more so for Russ is the inexperience of this judge became evident as we furthered ourselves into this case all up to the point of trial.

But there is a rule in Missouri called the direct connection rule that, for lack of a better term, if you can't make some sort of direct connection of an individual to the scene or to the individual, you can't just throw red hearing at the jury. For example, let's say let's take it out of context here and say there's a rape that happens on Maple Street. Well, four streets over is Elm Street, and you can show that there is a prior sex offender who got out of

prison recently for committing rape. You can't simply toss it in the trial if you can't show some sort of link, either there is a fingerprint or a witness can place him at on the other scene of the crime, or he has some sort of motive, some connection to give you an opportunity to use that. So the jury is you're just not throwing a red hearing and creating something

out of nothing. In this particular case, it's not a motion that I raised because it was clear to me that Pam Huff was intimately and integrally involved in the case. What we had is a state filing emotion that I could not get into Pam Huff's lies or what they call politely enough, her prior and consistent statements. Nor could I get into the fact that she had gotten the insurance pro seats from Betsy assigned to her four days earlier,

and then actually received the proceeds upon Betsy's death. And the reason the state argued is because I cannot demonstrate a direct connection to Pam Hup, given the scene, given the timing, I didn't take it seriously because there was no judge on earth that was going to preclude me from getting into that information. Well, couldn't have been wrong. Again, couldn't have been more wrong the judge. The judge ruled in Leah Askey's favor, precluding me from getting into those things.

So I took and I found the motion for reconsideration. And during the motion, the state showed up with a case that said that the court has the authority to limit the scope of cross examination, which is true. I can't get into the fact that a witness got suspended when they were in high school, or that they were got grounded when they were in third grade, because that's

irrelevant in that you can limit the scope. But what I can get into our elements surrounding the case, and certainly witnesses reasons for testifying, their bias, their motive, things of that nature. I can get into their lives, which the prior and consistent statements. So what I did was gave the court one hundred cases and I continued to stick and five by five until they piled up to a point where the judge could no longer even see me.

It was basically to stress the point because I knew she wasn't going to change her mind, but I didn't need to do that, and I needed to preserve it for the corner of appeals. And lo and behold, the judge did not allow me to cross examin and panel hop. I couldn't get into her inconsistent statements, many of which

I just previously talked to you about. I couldn't show my expert by cell site through my expert that she was still at the scene of the crime at the time of the homicide, nor could I get into the shur insurance process. So the jury got to hear absolutely none of that information.

I asked for a mistrial. And the court looked at her rulings and said, no, no, no, that's not right, mister Schwartz. I ruled that you can't get into the insurance. I did not rule that the state couldn't. I've never heard anything as ludicrous as that was. So what I ultimately did was I asked the court that I said, to the court, where the door has been opened by her arguing this and opening statement, so I can get into the insurance. The judge again, I said, I stand

by my earlier ruling. You cannot get into that. Again ridiculous. One of the other things that the state had gotten there too is when my alibi witnesses were testifying, Lea asked, He asked them, isn't it true that you refuse to take a polygraph test? Well as anybody who has any knowledgeable one those that that is inadmissible in court number one, that's important, not as important as the fact that that

was a complete total mischaracterization of the truth. The alibi witnesses all would have volunteered had they been asked to take a polygraph. Nobody ever asked them, So she created the impression with the jury that with this inadmissible evidence, these guys were lying. The fact. Couldn't have been further to the from the truth that they were telling the truth, and it could have been further from the truth that

they had turned down taking a polygony. Those were two of the major major issues that we had gotten into. And then there were some other areas that I asked for a mistrial and that those were more of the norm, with the exception of the prosecutor's closing argument, which was a taialept out of Hollywood that I never had heard, and it was a mischaracterization of the evidence that we

had heard. And it was also in direct conflict with some of the factors that we were aware of that didn't come into evidence, and so essentially she stood in front of the jury and lied.

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and start the journey to happier, healthier relationships. Just visit talkspace dot com and get one hundred dollars off your first month when you use promo code true Murder at sign up. That's one hundred dollars off at talkspace dot com promo code true Murder. Now, Joel, we were talking about this trial, the outlandish statements by as you say, the prosecutor ask you what happens at this trial in terms of verdict?

eligible to be released. The uh. The judge sent, why don't the schedule a date for sentencing right now, to which I rather rudely replied, why don't we go ahead and schedule the date for the new trial right now too, because I guarantee we'll be back here with this case. The judge looked at me and didn't say a word. I kept thinking at some point, just because based upon my attitude, she was going to hold me in contempt, which thankfully I guess she did not do in any way.

That he was convicted Ultimately, he was sentenced to life without parole. Essentially he would die in prison.

a wonderful, wonderful job beating the appeal. Together. We filed the appeal fully expecting to win, and in the course of while the appeal was pending, we got some new information during the course of a lawsuit that had been filed by Bench's daughters against Pam Hubb for the proceeds

of the insurance. It's a friend of mine who was an attorney night by the name of David Bush, called me and said he had just conducted the depositions of Pam and came across the information that Pam Hup opened up a trust before a trial in order to look good to injury even though it was coming in and that was at the suggestion of the police. However, one week after the verdict, Pam Hupp had defunded the trust that him be created for me.

thing called the Mooney motion. Frankly, I had never heard of it at the time, and I've never heard of any other attorney using it, and it is so rare that I did find out after the fact that it had been the third time in the two hundred plus year history of the state that anybody had ever been

successful in a Mooney motion. And what that motion contains is the allegation that the evidence you, had you known it and it has been turned over to you, would have been so agracious that it would more than likely have cause a jury to return a different verdict, thankfully,

and that's an emergency motion. So thankfully, the Court of Appeals, through the Chief Justice Rody's scathing opinion, sending this case back to the trial court, and this judge, who was an experience, for whatever reason and I still don't know why, recused herself and we ended up getting a very very experienced judge in the name of Steve Homer, And I was thrilled. On's that occurred to me?

you know, I've known this judge a long time. We're not friends, but he's a fair man. He's a great judge. And I thought to myself, I still can't believe that this jury convicted yet what if I just let the judge this side. Frankly, there's no fact that needs to be decided as to what witness is telling the truth. Because there was no one who could do anything to put Russ there, Everything indicated and pointed towards Pam. Nothing

pointed towards Russ. So rather than put the hand in my Russ's life in the hands of twelve citizens, I made the incredibly risky decision simply doing what they call a bench try or a judge try trial right. I talked to my wife, Mary Ann, who was also a seasoned attorney, and she thought it was a good idea. I talked to some others and I heard after the fact that while this was a hundergoing, people thought, what

the hell is Schwarts doing? This is crazy? But as we not know, also ends of Russ was acquitted.

likely had something to do with us. Raising, as the judge ultimately said in his verdict, this investigation and trial his reasonable questions and answers. The biggest cross examination came with the detective Mike Merkle, who was one of the main officers on the case. There had been a search of Russ's house, Russe and Betsy's house about a week or several I think it was five days after the

murder had occurred. The scene wasn't preserved and had been contaminated. Anyway, they did what's called a luminol tests, where you turn off the lights and you spread this illuminating substance that will glow isn't when there is blood evidence. So they claimed that they had done this search and they had taken these photographs. However, the camera malfunction and nothing showed up on the on the film, and there were no

pictures that they could show. That Pool was testified into the during the first trial by Officer Markel somehow, and I kept insisting, if it didn't work, I want what did did you use? Films? The digital? I want more information. Every time we would meet, I found motion upon motion. I had support the order to turn it over. Inexplicably, I got a package during the course of the summer. It contained a DVD and that had one hundred and

thirty two pictures of that search of the house. Every picture developed, no pictures showed with this officer testified too, that they showed nothing contrary to what he testified to. They showed the exact opposite, as there was no dominating, there was no trail of blood like they testified to all of them, and in a fact they were lying.

a witness. And thankfully the judge saw through her lives, saw through the stories that the police were supporting, and found that there was no effort evidence to support the allegations against us.

he called deliberating, he was viewing the evidence. So during the course of that time, my associate was working with me, Nathan Swampson called me and said, they asked the prosecutor wants to know if we're interested in the deal. I was concerned, and I frankly knew that she was going to offer him a deal for time served on an involuntary manslaughter. I asked Russ, and that would be no risk of person. He would go home. I asked Russ, she wants to know for interested in the deal? What

do you want me to tell her? And it's worse for choice. She could give me a parking ticket and I would tell her where she should sink that. And he went a little further. So I told Nathan to tell the prosecutor weren't interested in the deal. However, prior to that, I said, find out what deal she's offering. Again, I cannot assess this woman to save my life, because she was offering soft life, meaning he would be forced to serve thirty years and be elisibi per after fifteen.

I knew at that point in time how wonderful our case had gone, and I was very, very confident that the judge was going to put him. I think she just had no handle whatsoever on the weaknesses of her case, which is astounding to me again to this day.

But what a great job he did. And then Dateline got behind it and ran with it and They both, along with Robert Patrick from the Post Dispatch here did a wonderful job investigating and coming up with the truth about the thing about Pam. All of these media agencies were wonderful in their investigations, and I was able to use their assistance sometimes in finding out different areas that I hadn't been aware of.

Would would you like to know why it took me so long to create the trust? Because remember she had created that trust for the kids one week before trial, two years after the death of Betscene, and I said, yeah, sure, what took you so long? Her response was, I've been taking care of my mother who has Alzheimer's, who just recently died of Alzheimer's. And I said, my condolence, says,

I'm sorry to hear that Resultum. Well, I certainly didn't know it at the time, but the day after the trial concluded, I think I received about five or six calls from various individuals who were in the courtroom who said her mother did not die of Alzheimer's. Her mother fell from the third floor about and he have a retirement community, So I called the retirement community. They didn't

have an Alzheimer's wing. And I talked to an Alzheimer's expert who said nobody with Alzheimer's would ever be placed on the third floor. So she clearly lied under oath

about that. The two Chris Hayes at Fox and Dateline both engineering experiments extensively to show that what Pam had claimed had occurred couldn't have happened, meaning her mother was found on this concrete slab at the base of her apartments with two of the value strads beneath her and several of them bent out for her body to have

fit through them, not over the balcony. Well. The woman was found with fourteen times the recommended nose of ambient in her system, and she was somewhat immobile because she used a walker, so she certainly couldn't have ran through those bars and fallen over the valty. As to what did occur and who did it, I don't know. What I can't tell you is Pam did receive some insurance benefit from her mother, which she had talked about earlier

with receiving with Brian mccarrot. In addition, she was the last one with her and she went downstairs and it's been reported that she told the people working at the home, Mom won't be down for dinner and probably not breakfast either. She's tired. It wasn't until when she didn't show up for lunch the next day that they went into her room and they saw her body at the base of

the balcony. Finally, to continue on about Pam about you know, I can't give his set a time frame, but I got a call from Russ after he'd been acquitted after I had contacted the US attorney and said this woman needs to be investigated, and the call was, Joe, You're

never going to believe this. Pam Huff shot somebody. What she had done is she found an individual named Lewis Gumpenberger, and Lewis's history seemed to indicate he was had the education or he had the brain level or thinking level of I think they said a seventh grader due to a car accident he had had. He was thirty three years old at the time. She enticed him to come back to her house through a dateline who was saying that she was filming something and taking something for a

new dateline episode. She ultimately got him back there. She called nine to one one and which is what she said she was taking for dateline, and in the course of doing so, she shot him point blank and emptied her gun into him, killing him. When the police arrived, they final found a note on him indicating that it was from Russkorea to take Pam, get my money, bring it back to me. As it turns out Russ police. I talked to police. We immediately responded with Russ. He

gave them his phone. He cooperated with them, he gave him handwriting examplers. It was clear that Russ had absolutely nothing to do with this, and then Pampa had killed who was two, which he has ultimately been convicted and sent to life in prison without parole. So in effect she set up Russ. Once she was effected, at least initially with that, she then attempted to set him up a second time. And god knows what would have happened had this occurred in the same county where he was first church.

title of the mini series. But she began dealing directly with them and even made on camera comments about their producer on the Dayline series, and I think that's kind of what piqued their interest as well as as Joel has explained, Keith Morrison was in town and did five episodes I think now six, and they just saw through the entire veil of injustice and incompetence that that cost Rush free of four years in prison, and realized that in the character of Pam Huffed, that they had this

extraordinary woman who had just bamboosled the police and the prosecutor completely, and they decided to build this mini series around the character of Pam Hup. And I think there's going to be as Joel has described it, there's kind of a it looks like there's a bit of a Fargo approach to the story with a little bit of dark humor, because Pam Hup can be an extraordinary and

beguiling character. But they opened their season, Joel, I can't remember which year it was, Was it twenty one, twenty or twenty one when they opened the season with a two hour special episode that they caught the thing about Pam and they showed the many interviews that she did with the police and with the prosecutor. She and Leea ask He sat down a couple of times to talk

about the case. And I think they really really went into the character of Pam Hup and that's what led them to the mini series and Renee Zelweger immediately signed on as a Star and the trailers that are appearing now for the show that premieers March eighth. I mean Sprene Zell Worker is unrecognizable and look so much like Pam Hupp. It's extraordinary, It's really amazing.

criminal cases. I was a reporter for twenty seven years twenty years with the Saint Louis Post Dispatch and was a crime and court specialist, and have covered hundreds of cases, including a number of capital cases, death penalty cases, and that albi struck me as so extraordinary that I could not believe that that Russ was convicted with that albi. And I didn't attend the trial, so I was relying on reports, you know, from Chris Hayes and Robert Patrick

and the other reporters who were covering it. But as it went on, and there was the Lewis Gumpenberger murder, which was a plot twist that no one could have foreseen right and just launched this story into an entirely different level of atmosphere. That's when I decided to call Joel to see about working on a book with him.

It was beyond anything that I had ever encountered. And I've seen some incredible cases here in the Saint Louis area, and one of the books I wrote was about the Jean Benet Ramsey case, and you know, you think that that case is extraordinary, but this case, just the Alby alone and the involvement in Kumpenberger, made me think that

there was a tremendous book here. When I got involved with Joel and I went in and saw all of the video recordings of the interviews with Russ and all of the police officers, and then the contemporary interviews with Pam Hup. Again, this took the story to a whole new level for me, and it just put together an example of missed opportunities for the justice system to operate correctly.

There were so many mistakes made along the way in so many cases of what appeared to be incompetence that this was a story that just had to be told and it just complemented Joel's dedication in the case. And one of the episodes that he didn't mention was he was trying to get the judge to listen to him during one of the motions hearings, and the judge was just not understanding Joel's point, and he said, he said,

I don't know what else to do. Am I going to have to strip down to my shorts and bang my head against the bench to get you to listen to me? Yeah, And for a lawyer to take that that kind of comment to the judge is extraordinary.