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Russ Faria might be getting a re-trial

Here's a link to part 3 of a 4-parter that the local fox news affiliate did:
http://fox2now.com/2014/03/10/the-faria-murder-fox-files-special-report-part-3/

Anyone who watches this video, notice at 1 minute 55 seconds when the detective starts interviewing Pam Hupp. 2 questions spring to mind:

1.) Does he not seem to be acting more like counsel than a detective?
2.) If the question he's posing is going to be a huge problem for a jury as he admits, why then is it not a concern for him who's a detective?

During this 3 parter (not sure which part), the investigative reporter goes to the door of Pam Hupp and she actually talks to him. I was really surprised she didn't refuse to speak. However she said something interesting. While being interviewed she speculates she maybe was in Betsy's bedroom, as someone pointed out in one of the comments here:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...94e-5b88-b53f-097fc10033c8.html?mode=comments

So it's gone from she never went inside, to went inside briefly and left Betsy on the couch, to perhaps she was in the bedroom.

edit: should be noted that Pam Hupp (or someone claiming to be Pam Hupp) commented many times in that stltoday comments thread.
 
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You know that she kept the money for herself and never gave it to the daughters. . . .They are currently suing?
 
News:
New judge assigned to the motion for a new trial after the previous judge, Chris Kunza Mennemeyer, recused herself citing a conflict of interest. The nature of that conflict was not disclosed.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_011b9aa5-cc30-545b-a821-e1cb852a246c.html

Other thoughts:
After hearing the prosecution argument that Russell Faria went out of his way to be seen on gas station security cameras while the murder occurred, I later thought this was to set up a hitman theory. One has to presume, given the convoluted story the prosecution ran with without evidence, that if there had been the tiniest shred of evidence of a hitman, they would've clearly run with that instead.

I'm just thinking out loud of some other possibilities if we don't believe the state's theory. If we believe that Russ Faria physically didn't do it, who did?

-hitman? no one has argued this at all, doesn't seem supported by evidence

-pam hupp? from the dateline episode and fox news reports, that's the question i feel they want people to ask. you would think the police would at least have investigated that avenue. she had motive (life insurance) and opportunity (last person to see her alive). but she can rightly argue no physical evidence ties her to the crime. in comments on the st. louis today website, there's conflicting reports from people who claim to be close to the case (eg. alternate jurors, friends, relatives of those involved, but I haven't looked in to if these people truly are who they say they are) on whether or not police ever actually took a dna sample of pam and/or whether that sample was ever actually tested against profiles. others argue her back was too bad for her to have done such a brutal crime. others argue a bad back doesn't really matter when a knife was the weapon and the victim just had her chemotherapy treatment. I have a friend who recently finished two years of chemotherapy. Could always ask her for anecdotal information on her state in the hours after taking a dose (I know anecdotal isn't good evidence, people react all kinds of different to chemo). At the very least, one would have figured the police to have done their due diligence regarding all people to have seen Betsy who saw her near/around her time of death.

-an unknown accomplice of pam hupp?

-insane coincidence where a random stranger killed betsy between the time pam saw her and russell came home?

-also why didn't the state charge the 4 friends if they truly believed they were accomplices? if they have enough evidence to claim this in court, surely they have enough evidence to arrest them? and if they don't have enough evidence to arrest them, how is the prosecution allowed to make this claim in court without a huge objection from the defense? is the defense not allowed to object during closing arguments? perhaps they objected and it was overruled? any way to view the court records?
 
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Other interesting tidbits from articles (I think they were all st. louis today articles, you can go to stltoday.com and search russell faria):

-the reason the defence wasn't allowed to argue pam hupp as an alternative suspect in court was because she said she was putting the insurance money in a trust fund for betsy's kids. no money=no motive. ergo the defense was handcuffed (and hearing this reasoning, i can see why the court ruled this way).

-the reason russell faria has a motion for a new trial: the new evidence in the case is that pam hupp never gave the money to the kids. motive back on.
 
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I think just about everybody who looks at this case thinks it is Pam Hupp or somebody did it for her.

I think that the idea was that they had a brief window before Betsy realized that turning over her insurance to Pam was a bad idea.

All Russ would have to have done if he wanted the money was simply wait for her to die on her own of cancer.
 
Sounds like things are happening for this new trial - I hope so! Regardless of whether they find the killer (clue: it's probably Pam Hupp or someone she arranged it with), Russ needs to be released asap.
 
I don't think that this was committed by someone who didn't know the victim or have a motive to commit the murder themselves.
55 stab wounds is personal.

Hupp's continually changing story and obvious motive reflect very badly on the prosecution.
The fact that they went after someone with a very strong alibi instead of her makes them look either incompetent or corrupt.

I thought I'd run a quick check on the original judge, who seems keen to distance herself from the case and I think that I may have found out why:
http://fox2now.com/2014/05/07/appeals-court-overturns-3-recent-cases-involving-faria-judge/

That doesn't look very good, does it?
 
As per this link:
http://fox2now.com/2015/03/12/lincoln-county-judge-has-90-days-to-hold-hearing-for-faria-retrial/

"His lawyers today filed a motion seeking a new trial, saying prosecutor, Leah Askey pressured a witness in the trial and did not disclose a relationship with another witness who testified in the case."

They didn't come out and say it explicitly in the article, but you'd think that'd be regarding the alleged affair between Askey and the lead detective, no?

Pam Hupp's the obvious suspect. Of course the pre-requisite innocent until proven guilty in a court of law applies. Will be interesting to see where this goes. Hope the wheels of justice turn quickly for Russ.
 
I will make a bet that they will never try Pam once Russ is exonerated.
I want to see Betsy's children get at least a little of the money however.
 
This case is outrageously bad. How can you have an alibi which consists of four witnesses, CCTV footage, time stamped receipts and mobile phone pings and STILL get convicted? Who was on the jury, a bunch of raving lunatics?

And what was with the prosecutor being allowed to spin a big conspiracy theory in her summing up without even attempting to show evidence of conspiracy during the trial?
 
Strawberry said:
This case is outrageously bad. How can you have an alibi which consists of four witnesses, CCTV footage, time stamped receipts and mobile phone pings and STILL get convicted? Who was on the jury, a bunch of raving lunatics?

And what was with the prosecutor being allowed to spin a big conspiracy theory in her summing up without even attempting to show evidence of conspiracy during the trial?
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It's one of the more clear cut cases of wrongful conviction that I've seen. Really astonishing.
 
Strawberry said:
This case is outrageously bad. How can you have an alibi which consists of four witnesses, CCTV footage, time stamped receipts and mobile phone pings and STILL get convicted? Who was on the jury, a bunch of raving lunatics?

And what was with the prosecutor being allowed to spin a big conspiracy theory in her summing up without even attempting to show evidence of conspiracy during the trial?
Click to expand...


I agree. The prosecutor raising those conspiracy allegations only in closing would not have been permitted here. (If you are going to make allegations against a witness, you have to put those allegations to the witness when he or she is on the stand and give the witness the opportunity to respond to them; you are not permitted to just make the allegation in closing argument when neither the witness nor the other lawyer can refute them via sworn testimony.)

That should have resulted in a mistrial right then and there.
 
LashL said:
I agree. The prosecutor raising those conspiracy allegations only in closing would not have been permitted here. (If you are going to make allegations against a witness, you have to put those allegations to the witness when he or she is on the stand and give the witness the opportunity to respond to them; you are not permitted to just make the allegation in closing argument when neither the witness nor the other lawyer can refute them via sworn testimony.)

That should have resulted in a mistrial right then and there.
Click to expand...

With David Camm, the prosecution alleged that he molested his daughter in the closing part of the trial without any evidence. His convicted was successfully appealed because of it.
 
LashL said:
I agree. The prosecutor raising those conspiracy allegations only in closing would not have been permitted here. (If you are going to make allegations against a witness, you have to put those allegations to the witness when he or she is on the stand and give the witness the opportunity to respond to them; you are not permitted to just make the allegation in closing argument when neither the witness nor the other lawyer can refute them via sworn testimony.)

That should have resulted in a mistrial right then and there.
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I don't think it is acceptable in the US either, but an appellate court has to acknowledge the problem instead of sweeping it under a rug. What they often do is say, "yeah, it was an error, but it wouldn't have changed the verdict," and they reject the petition.

But this case is so far out in the ozone that I think it will eventually get fixed.
 
The more I read about this case, the more bizarre it seems and the more insane the finding of guilt appears.

I would still like to know more, though. Obviously, transcripts are available since the case has gone to appeal (thankfully, at least partially successfully), so both the prosecution and the defence have the trial transcripts, but I have not been able to find them online as yet.

Any idea where the transcripts can be located?
 
LashL said:
The more I read about this case, the more bizarre it seems and the more insane the finding of guilt appears.

I would still like to know more, though. Obviously, transcripts are available since the case has gone to appeal (thankfully, at least partially successfully), so both the prosecution and the defence have the trial transcripts, but I have not been able to find them online as yet.

Any idea where the transcripts can be located?
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Bumpedy.

Anyone?
 
The more I read about this case, the less sense the whole thing makes.
I'm mystified as to how it even got to trial, as there doesn't even appear to be a coherent prosecution case as to what happened and very little in the way of motive.
A case against Pam Hupp is very easy to put together, on the other hand.
Means, motive, opportunity, no alibi... not good.
 
Dissolution said:
The more I read about this case, the less sense the whole thing makes.
I'm mystified as to how it even got to trial, as there doesn't even appear to be a coherent prosecution case as to what happened and very little in the way of motive.
A case against Pam Hupp is very easy to put together, on the other hand.
Means, motive, opportunity, no alibi... not good.
Click to expand...

Do you think you would convict Pam Hupp if on a jury?
 
Desert Fox said:
Do you think you would convict Pam Hupp if on a jury?
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I don't know. If I had to choose between her and Russ Faria though, then it wouldn't take too long.

The problem is that she was never properly looked into for the crime.
The police appear to have fixated on the husband and ignored any other possibility.
She may have done it or she may have had someone else do it, but neither of those options were explored.

I simply don't see how the husband was found guilty and there's only one other credible choice with the current evidence.
The guy had a very, very good alibi and there's not been any inconsistencies found in it, as far as I can see.
I can't even work out how the prosecution thinks that he did it, to be honest.
What's their timeline? They don't even seem to have established a TOD.
 
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