Moments after walking through the door of his Troy, Mo., home on Dec. 27, 2011, Russ Faria discovered his wife, Betsy, crumpled on their living room floor in a pool of drying blood, a knife protruding from her neck.
His anguished call to a 911 operator relayed his assumption that she’d killed herself. In moments of recurring depression, she’d threatened to do so before.
But police quickly determined it wasn’t suicide. Betsy, 42, had been stabbed 55 times, and the day after her funeral Russ was arrested and charged with her murder.
Yet the killing and Russ’sinsistence in his innocencewas only the start of a still-unfolding tale of murder, greed and deception.
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Convicted of the crime, Russ served more than three years before the verdict was overturned and he was acquitted in a retrial. By then suspicion had shifted to a woman who portrayed herself as one of Betsy’s best friends,Pamela Hupp. A fellow mom of two, Pam was the last known person to see Betsy alive — and the beneficiary of Betsy’s $150,000 life insurance policy, diverted to Pam just four days before Betsy died.
After Russ was set free, Pam wouldplead guilty to fatally shooting a man, police say, after she staged an attack to make it look like Russ had hired someone to killher. That shooting prompted police to take a second look at the earlier death of Pam’s mother in a three-story fall from a balcony. It had previously been ruled an accident. Now authorities aren’t so sure.
As the plot twists piled up, the story captured national attention.Dateline NBCcovered it in multiple episodes, leading to a 2019 Keith Morrison-hosted podcast that has been downloaded more than 20 million times. Next up, it’s the subject of a six-episode drama series,The Thing About Pam, starring Renée Zellweger, who also serves as executive producer. The series, from NBC News Studios, Blumhouse Television and Big Picture Co., premieres March 8 on NBC, and will be available for streaming on Peacock the next day.
Renée Zellweger as Pam Hupp, far left, with The Thing About Pam castmates Judy Greer at Leah Askey, Josh Duhamel as Joel Schwartz, Katy Mixon as Betsy Faria, Glenn Fleshler as Russ Faria.Frank Ockenfels 3/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
“This show is in a way a horror story,“The Thing About Pamshowrunner Jenny Klein, who grew up about five hours away from Troy, says in this week’s PEOPLE. “And the scariest part is that it could happen to anyone.”
This past July, Lincoln County prosecutor Mike Woodcharged Pamwith killing Betsy, and announced his intent to pursue the death penalty. Pam has pleaded not guilty.
For Zellweger, who plays Pam, the twists offered an excuse to explore potential bias in prosecution — and dig into the secrets of someone who is alleged to have killed more than once.
“When someone like that might not be who they present themselves to be, it’s shocking,” she says. “It makes us renegotiate all the things we thought we knew.”
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Honoring the victims in the case and looking closely at how a case was built against Betsy’s husband Russ Faria, was important toThe Thing About Pamexecutive producers, including NBC News Studios' Liz Cole and Blumhouse Television’s Chris McCumber.
“It’s a hard-to-believe, real-life murder mystery,” says McCumber, whose Blumhouse Television was also involved inThe Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. “We wanted to honor the story and the real people.”
That Russ Faria could be convicted despite having alibi witnesses and documentation supporting his alibi was also shocking, says Cole.
“It was eye opening,” she says. “You can be completely innocent and wind up in jail.”
For ZellwegerThe Thing About Pamwas compelling for multiple reasons, she says.
“From a creative perspective, it seemed like a really interesting story to tell,” Zellweger tells PEOPLE. “As an actress, a really interesting character to play, an unusual person, something that I’d never done before. As a storyteller, it just seemed like a great opportunity to explore the why and how around a case like this.”
source: people.com
