Recently, there has been an uprising of a murder case that initially took place in 2011 in Troy, Missouri. A woman named Pam Hupp drove her friend Betsy Faria home, who was later found stabbed over 50 times. Hupp was the last person to see her alive. However, Betsy’s husband, Russ Faria who found her dead on their living room floor after he arrived home from a friend’s house, was convicted for Betsy’s murder. Three years later he was released after his case was appealed.

During the original trial, there were many decisions based on the relationships within the small town. The entire trial had no factual evidence pointing to Russ Faria, but somehow he was still convicted for the murder of his wife. The defense attorney, Joel Schwartz said, “I had never seen anything like it,” about the occurrences present at the original trial. The prosecuting attorney, Leah Askey, was friends with the judge since high school and was able to easily convince her to withhold any information about Pam’s possible motive since she was “not the one on trial”.

Hupp was able to secure the position of beneficiary of Betsy’s life insurance policy just four days before she was murdered. How could this be considered irrelevant to the case? Swartz argued that since she was the last person to see Betsy alive and became the beneficiary, he should have been able to ask Pam these questions to further clear Russ Faria’s name. The judge ordered the jury to leave the trial while Swartz presented his findings on Betsy’s life insurance, but the judge prevented this from being presented to the jury for consideration. Swartz also pressed the jury that Russ had an alibi that was backed up by four people who did testify. He was at a friend’s house playing board games like they do every Tuesday night. He was there from six to nine pm which GPS confirmed on Russ’s phone and a time stamped receipt from Arby’s at 9:09 p.m. The murder happened around 7 pm making it impossible for Russ to get home and commit the murder. His friends say, “A man cannot be in two places at once”.

Not only were the prosecuting attorney and the judge friends, but many of the police officers who testified were manipulated to testify a certain way. The relationships were not the only thing that was sketchy about the trial.The luminol camera, which is used to detect blood at crime scenes, had a malfunction. These photos could have been used to show whether Russ cleaned up any blood from his clothes. With over 50 stab wounds, there was a plethora of blood stains on the carpet, and it would be very likely that the killer would have had blood all over them. However, Russ did not have a single drop of blood on him and did not clean any blood off of him either. The defense attorney was able to prove this during the second trial, after Russ’s first conviction was appealed, because over 130 luminol photos in perfect condition showed up in his office. How come they were missing for the first trial?

The judge in the first trial was still confident that Russ Faria was guilty especially after Askey made her theory in her closing argument. Askey said that Russ’s four friends were also in on the murder and kept his phone while Russ drove home and killed Betsy. Then, one of his friends ordered Arby’s and placed the receipt in his car. The judge believed this random theory over a factual alibi and evidence finally convicting Russ Faria to life in prison.

Russ was convicted and sent to prison for three years until the trial was appealed. This new trial was in front of a different judge without a jury. Russ was found not guilty. Hupp went on to kill another person and was convicted for that. Today, the case of Betsy Faria has been reopened as Hupp still has not been convicted for her murder.

Fortunately, Russ Faria did receive justice, but he did have to wait in prison for three years while the true murderer lived her life full of lies. The prosecuting attorney, Askey was fired from her elected position. Becasue she was fired, the new prosecuting attorney reopened the case and is currently trying to convict Hupp for Betsy’s murder in edition to the man she murdered in 2016 to point the fingers back on Russ Faria.

The Lincoln county police station clearly based their decision on internal relationships rather than factual information. They were able to persuade Betsy’s family, the jury and the judge without a single piece of factual evidence. No one questioned the missing luminol photos either, which could have clearly helped Russ’s case. If a theory of one attorney can send a man to life in prison, then the criminal justice system, at least in Lincoln County, needs to be further investigated.

The world today is too advanced for these technological mistakes. The system has the opportunity and the means to be able to round up all evidence and convict the right people. You almost never see people get away with murder becasue of all the ways the police and detectives can retrieve information from the crime scenes. It is completely unacceptable for this to happen in such recent years especially in a popular town. For the court system to be based off of friendships and allies is ridiculous especially when it comes to a murder case and life in prison. By withholding certain information because a friend asked the judge to, a man was sent to prison for three years unjustly. This cannot and should not happen ever again. The justice system is based on truth and justice, but sadly in this case it was based on friendship and lies.