The Murder of Betsy Faria: Part Three

0:00 Speaker 1: Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening. Now.

0:18 Speaker 2: True crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish, the strange in the darkly comic. A podcast that's about more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just so long as it's kind of Murdery. Hello everyone, and welcome. I'm so glad you're here. As I often say, time is money, and these days everything is so damn expensive. Your time is worth more than ever.

0:51 Speaker 2: And I am grateful, I am humbled. I am thankful that you choose to spend that precious time with me. I am Zevan Odelberg. And this is kind of Murdery, and I'm rare and to go. I want to jump right in to part three of Kind of Murdery's examination of the murder of Betsy Furia. That's right, I said, part three. So if you haven't heard parts one and two yet, go back and listen to them. And then rejoin us. I will save you a seat, I will even keep it warm for you. But if you're ready, and I am ready, let's get it right down to it.

1:24 Speaker 2: Part three of Kind of Murdery's examination of the murder of Betsy Faria starts now. The house in Troy stayed lit long after most of the neighborhood had gone dark again. Patrol cars still line portions of the street, though fewer than earlier in the investigation. The frantic movement from the first night had faded into something quieter and more methodical. Detectives came and went, carrying folders, sealed evidence containers, and cups of coffee that had gone cold before anyone finished them.

2:02 Speaker 2: The front lawn showed the wear of hours of foot traffic, mud pressed into the grass near the walkway, tire tracks along the curb where vehicles had pulled in and out throughout the night. Inside, the living room remained partially sealed off while investigators worked through the last sections of evidence collection. Portions of the carpet had already been removed. The couch still sat in place under the harsh light investigators had brought into the room its familiar shape now surrounded by equipment cases, extension cords, evidence markers, and plastic sheeting spread across the floor.

2:34 Speaker 2: Detectives no longer spoke about the scene like something uncertain. They moved through the house with the confidence of people who believed they were narrowing in on someone. Russ had been moved out of the house by then and brought in to continue interviews elsewhere while investigators finished processing the scene. The room where detectives questioned him felt smaller than the house had, plain walls, table bolted to the floor, fluorescent lighting that flattened everything underneath it. Hours had already passed since Betsy's body had been found, and exhaustion had started settling visibly into Russ's posture.

3:07 Speaker 2: He leaned forward more now when he spoke, elbows near the table, eyes slower to track the detectives moving in and out of the room. The questions themselves had changed, too. Earlier, detectives had asked broad questions meant to establish timelines. Now they re visited details already answered several times before. Where his hands had touched Betsy, whether he noticed anything disturbed in the house, whether he and Betsy had argued recently. Detectives compared his newest answers against handwritten notes collected overnight, occasionally stopping mid question to flip backwards through earlier pages.

3:42 Speaker 2: At one point, a detective left the room carrying a stack of reports, while another remained seated across from Russ, silently reviewing photographs from the crime scene. Elsewhere, detectives continued speaking with people connected to Betsy and Russ, slowly widening the circle around the investigation. Family members, friends, members of Russ's game night group. The same names kept surfacing through nearly every interview, but Pam Hupp's name appeared with increasing frequency as detectives revisited Betsy's final day alive.

4:12 Speaker 2: Pam's account gave investigators structure, the chemotherapy appointment, the ride home, Betsy resting afterward, Russ leaving later that evening. Detectives kept returning to those points while comparing them against phone records and statements collected from everyone else involved. Printed copies of Pam's interviews had already been highlighted, annotated, and clipped into active case folders, moving between detectives throughout the day. One investigator reviewing the file paused that a highlighted section describing Betsy's alleged fear of russ An underlined part of the statement again, even though somebody else already had earlier.

4:46 Speaker 2: The page had started accumulating layers of pen marks from multiple investigators reviewing the same lines. As the day continued, investigators began tightening their focus around motive Conversations inside offices and interview room shifted repeatedly towards Betsy's illness, the condition of the marriage, and financial questions tied to the household. Detectives reviewed notes involving the insurance policy while comparing them against the statements Pam had given about Betsy allegedly worrying about money and expressing distrust toward russ.

5:16 Speaker 2: Stacks of paper were spread across conference tables while detectives worked through timelines one page at a time. Some investigators focused on physical evidence from the house. Others stayed buried in interviews, phone logs, and reports from the night before. The case had become large enough now that different people were handling different parts simultaneously. Still, most roads inside the investigation kept circling back to Russ. A detective reviewing evidence photographs from the living room stopped at one image showing the area beside the couch where Betsy had been found, and left it sitting on top of the pile longer than the others.

5:52 Speaker 2: By evening, the investigation had developed its own momentum, independent of the original shocks surrounding Betsy's death. Detectives moved through offices, carrying folders from one desk to another, while phones rang steadily in the background. Officers returning from interviews added fresh statements to growing stacks of reports already covering tables and filing cabinets. The details of Betsy's final day were being reconstructed repeatedly from different angles by different investigators, all working toward the same question.

6:21 Speaker 2: Russ remained central to nearly every conversation, not just because he found Betsy, not just because he lived in the house, Because the longer detective sat with the scene, the more they believed the violence inside that living room pointed towards somebody who belonged there. Already later that evening, one detective closed a folder, looked across the room toward another investigator, and quietly asked whether prosecutors had been contacted yet. The prosecutor's office had already begun receiving updates from detectives before the house in Troy was even fully cleared.

6:53 Speaker 2: Investigators carried boxes of reports, photographs, and interview summaries into briefing rooms, where the details of the case were starting to be organized into something presentable outside the investigation itself. Legal pads filled with timeline sat beside enlarged crime scene photographs spread across the conference tables under fluorescent light. One photograph from the living room stayed near the center of the table longer than others, the couch, the bloodstained carpet, the area where Betsy's body had been found.

7:22 Speaker 2: Detectives returned from interviews drifted in and out of the room while prosecutors reviewed the growing file piece by piece. The atmosphere inside those meetings felt different from the uncertainty of the first night. Nobody sounded panic anymore. They sounded focused, tired, but focused. One investigator stood near the edge of the room holding a styrophoam cup of coffee that had gone cold hours earlier, while another walked prosecutors through Russ's timeline again. From the beginning, Russ remained under repeated questioning while investigators continued tightening the sequence surrounding Betsy's final hours.

7:58 Speaker 2: Detectives revisited the same details from slightly different angles, each time, checking whether his answers stayed consistent after hours of interviews in exhaustion, the room itself had barely changed since earlier that day, same table, same fluorescent lights overhead, same stack of notes and photographs. Shifting positions in front of detectives. As interviews continued, Russ looked drained, his voice flatter than before, pauses between answers growing longer each hour he remained there. A detective split a photograph across the table showing part of the living room.

8:31 Speaker 2: Tell me where you were standing. Russ studied the image a second before pointing near the edge of the couch area. Another detective wrote down the answer while comparing it against earlier notes from overnight interviews. Every movement Russ described now was being mapped against the physical scene investigators believed they understood increasingly well. Outside the interview room, detectives crossed hallways carrying folders thick with reports gathered during the first forty eight hours of the investigation.

8:58 Speaker 2: Pam Hupp's statements continue need expanding their influence over the case. Detectives revisited them repeatedly while preparing summaries for prosecutors, and organizing the broader narrative they believed explained Betsy's death. Pam's descriptions of Betsy fearing Russ, worrying about money, and discussing the condition of the marriage had begun threading themselves through almost every working version of the case that investigators discussed internally. One detective reviewing the file paused at the insurance policy notes again while another investigator leaned over the table beside him, reading portions of the same report upside down.

9:32 Speaker 2: The numbers tied to the policy had been circled several times already in dark ink. Nearby, another investigator compared Pam's timeline against phone records and the text message that Betsy sent about Pam bringing her home after treatment. That message had become one of the anchor's investigators kept returning to while reconstructing the final hours before Betsy's death. The pages spread across the table showed fingerprints from repeated handling, highlighted sections, and written arrows connecting notes across different reports.

10:02 Speaker 2: The case was beginning to organize itself around a single theory. Outside the investigation rooms, word about the case had already started spreading through Troy and surrounding communities. News crews appeared near the neighborhood. Reporters began contacting family members, neighbors and friends connected to Betsy and Russ. Patrol officers assigned to scene security watched cameras gathering near the street while detectives continued working behind closed doors Elsewhere. Inside those rooms, investigators kept returning to the same central contradiction sitting at the heart of the case.

10:36 Speaker 2: Russ claimed he came home and found Betsy dead. Detectives increasingly believed that the scene suggested something else. Crime scene photographs circulated from hand to hand across desks, while investigators debated details quietly amongst themselves, blood evidence positioning inside the room, the violence involved in the attack itself, the length of time detectives believed the assault must have taken. One investigator reviewing photographs finally set them down and leaned back in his chair without saying anything.

11:06 Speaker 2: For several seconds, nobody in the room seemed interested any more in the possibility of suicide. By later that evening, conversations between detectives and prosecutors had shifted toward what steps would come next. If the investigation continued moving in the direction they believed it was heading. Investigators organized timelines on whiteboards while prosecutors reviewed witness statements and early forensic summaries spread across long conference tables. The physical evidence from the house remained central to almost every discussion, the blood stains, the knife, Russ's clothing, the positioning inside the living room.

11:43 Speaker 2: At the end of the room, a detective walked another prosecutor through the sequence of events that detectives believed occurred inside the house, while someone else updated notes involving Russ's movements before and after game night. Across the table, one investigator quietly re read portions of Pam Hub's statements again, while another organized crime scene photographs into separate stacks for review. To the people working it, the case no longer felt like a question waiting to be solved. It felt like something they were preparing to prove.

12:13 Speaker 2: Russ started noticing the shift before anybody set it directly to him. It showed up in smaller ways, first, detectives leaving him alone longer between conversations, while conversations continued quietly outside the room. Officers who had been conversational earlier becoming shorter with him doors staying partially open so somebody could watch him from the hallway, while investigators moved back and forth carrying reports and photographs past the room where he sat. The questions had changed too, less confusion, less searching, more confirmation.

12:47 Speaker 2: Detectives no longer sounded like people asking him to help them understand what happened inside the house. They sounded like people testing details against conclusions they were already starting to settle on. Privately, Russ sat under the fluorescent lights with his forearms resting against the table, while a detective re read portions of his earlier statement allowed from a notebook. Every so often, the detective stopped and asked Russ to clarify a detail involving timing or movement inside the living room.

13:16 Speaker 2: After he found Betsy outside the room, Another detective passed by, carrying enlarged crime scene photographs toward an office farther down the hall. The investigation had also started reaching outward into people closest to Russ and Betsy. Detectives revisited family members and friends they had already interviewed once before, this time pressing harder on the condition of the marriage arguments inside the house and whether anyone had seen signs of escalating tension before Betsy's death. That change in tone unsettled some people immediately.

13:49 Speaker 2: The first interviews felt like police trying to understand a tragedy. The newer interviews felt more accusatory, even when Russ himself wasn't present. Friends from Russ's game night group noticed to two detectives began narrowing in on precise arrival and departure times instead of broader descriptions of the evening itself. Investigators compared small details from one interview against another, looking for inconsistencies. Who remembered Russ leaving the room? Who checked the clock? Who remembered what movie had been playing at certain points in the night.

14:20 Speaker 2: Legal pads and timelines spread wider across desks while detectives worked through the sequence minute by minute instead of hour by hour. Pam Hupp remained cooperative with investigators throughout that period, speaking with detectives repeatedly while the case tightened around Russ. By then, investigators had started viewing her less like a peripheral witness and more like somebody who gave them emotional context for the marriage itself. Her descriptions of Betsy's fears and frustrations continued appearing throughout reports and prosecutor briefings as detectives shaped the broader story they believed explained the killing.

14:55 Speaker 2: One prosecutor reviewing interview summaries paused over a highlighted set from Pam's statements and re read it before setting the file aside. The growing stack connected to Russ across the room, detectives continued organizing evidence photographs from the living room into presentation boards and folders intended for formal review. The image of the couch and bloodstained carpet appeared repeatedly throughout those materials, becoming almost symbolic inside the investigation itself. The room detectives believed told the clearest version of what had happened.

15:28 Speaker 2: The more investigators looked at that room, the less ambiguity they believed remained inside the case. Outside law enforcement, the social gravities surrounding the case had started changing around Russ in quieter ways. Reporters remained active around the investigation, and people connected to the case began hearing fragments of police suspicion through the conversations, news coverage, and repeated follow up contact from detectives. Some people stayed firmly supportive of Russ, Others became less certain after hearing more about the violence inside the house and the direction investigators appeared to be moving.

16:05 Speaker 2: The brutality of Betsy's death weighed heavily over nearly every discussion connected to the case. Detectives spoke about the number of stab wounds and low voices during meetings with prosecutors and investigators. Crime scene photographs remained spread across briefing tables for hours at a time, while people studied the details silently before speaking. One detective reviewing the file finally leaned back in his chair and rubbed both hands across his face before quietly saying the scene inside the house felt personal to him.

16:37 Speaker 2: Nobody in the room challenged that observation. By the end of the week, prosecutors and detectives had begun discussing the investigation less like an open question and more like a case moving toward a charging decision. The conversations inside briefing rooms shifted toward preparation, organizing reports, tightening timelines, identifying weaknesses that defayans attorneys might challenge later. Detectives continued filling gaps where they could, but the overall direction of the investigation no longer appeared to be drifting.

17:09 Speaker 2: Russ felt that shift too. The pauses and interviews lasted longer now because detectives increasingly spent those breaks meeting privately with prosecutors elsewhere, instead of returning immediately with new questions. Officers escorting Russ from room to room no longer made small talk. The atmosphere surrounding him had cooled into something procedural and distant. Late one evening, Russ sat alone at the interview table while voices carried faintly from an office farther down the hallway. He couldn't make out most of the conversation, only fragments drifting through partially closed doors enough for probable cause, jury's gonna see timeline works.

17:50 Speaker 2: The voices faded again as somebody closed the office door. The arrest discussion started quietly, almost cautiously at first. Detectives and prosecutors get gathered in small rooms with stacks of reports spread across tables, revisiting the same evidence they had been reviewing for days, while debating what still needed to be tightened before charges could move forward. The atmosphere inside those meetings felt different from the earlier investigative scramble, less speculation, more organization.

18:19 Speaker 2: Detectives spoke in shorter sentences, now moving through witness statements and photographs with the familiarity of people who had already spent long hours living inside the same material. One prosecutor stood near a whiteboard covered in timelines while flipping through photographs from the living room, the couch, the bloodstained carpet, the knife. Russ's statements from the night of the murder sat in organized interview summaries beside photographs from the scene. Detectives cross referenced those statements repeatedly, while prosecutors marked sections of reports with yellow tabs and handwritten notes.

18:55 Speaker 2: The conversation inside the room had shifted away from what had happened, becas now was on whether they could prove it. At the same time, detectives continued revisiting the people closest to Betsy and Russ, filling in details around the edges of the case while preparing for the possibility of formal charges. Friends and family members found themselves answering familiar questions again, though the tone had changed noticeably from the early days of the investigation, Investigators pressed harder now on specifics involving arguments, finances, and the condition of the marriage.

19:29 Speaker 2: Interviews that once felt conversational began sounding more structured and deliver it. Detectives interrupted more often when timelines drifted or descriptions stayed too vague. Members of Russ's Game Night group continued emphasizing the same thing they had from the beginning, Russ had been there with them. Detectives reviewed those accounts repeatedly while comparing them against phone records and the evolving timelines surrounding Betsy's death. Notes from the interviews spread across tables alongside maps, call logs, and enlarge crime scene photographs.

20:01 Speaker 2: One investigator studying the Game Night timeline circled a narrow portion of the evening in red pen before sliding the paperwork toward another detective beside him. Pam Hupp's involvement in the investigation deepened further as prosecutors prepared the developing case theory. By then, detectives viewed her not only as one of the last people to see Betsy alive, but also as somebody who gave emotional framing to the marriage. Investigators believed jurors would eventually hear about her statements about Betsy Fearing Russ appeared repeatedly throughout briefing materials, so did the discussions involving money, the insurance policy, the alleged tension inside the marriage.

20:40 Speaker 2: Prosecutors reviewed those portions carefully while organizing witness lists and potential lines of testimony. One prosecutor sat for several minutes rereading highlighted sections from Pam's interviews, while another investigator nearby organized crime scene photographs into separate folders labeled for evidence review. The pages connected to Pam showed the heaviest wear inside the growing case file corners, bent notes layered over earlier notes, highlighted passages, almost bleeding through the paper from repeated handling.

21:12 Speaker 2: Across the office, Detectives continued quietly discussing timelines near the whiteboard. Russ, meanwhile, remained caught in the strange limbo that exists before charges arrived, but after suspicion hardens. Detectives continued interviewing him periodically while withholding more and more of what they believed internally about the case. The atmosphere surrounding those interviews had become colder over time, Less rapport less casual conversation between questions. Russ noticed it in small details, Detectives entering the room already carrying prepared notes instead of blank legal pads, longer pauses before answering his questions, Investigators exchanging looks with each other after certain responses before moving on without explanation.

21:58 Speaker 2: One afternoon, Russ sat waiting alone at an interview table for nearly twenty minutes while detectives met elsewhere in the building. The room stayed silent except for fluorescent lights humming overhead and muffled movement carrying faintly through the hallway outside. When detectives finally returned, one of them carried a thicker folder than before and set it down at the table without opening it immediately. Russ watched the folder longer than he watched the detective outside the investigation itself, the case continued, building public attention around Betsy's death.

22:31 Speaker 2: News coverage increasingly focused on the brutality of the crime scene and the growing police suspicions surrounding Russ. Detectives monitored portions of that coverage while preparing for what they believed would eventually become a very public prosecution. Inside briefing rooms, investigators rehearsed portions of the timeline allowed, while prosecutors challenged gaps and weak points in the developing case. Crime scene photographs remained spread across conference tables almost continuously.

22:58 Speaker 2: Detectives reatur turned repeatedly to the same central argument, The violence inside the living room suggested somebody close to Betsy. Late one evening, a prosecutor closed a folder and looked across the room toward the detectives gathered near the evidence boards. If we're doing this, he said, quietly, we need to move. Nobody in the room argued with him. Russ started hearing pieces of the investigation second hand before detectives ever told him directly. How serious things had become. Friends called less often, Conversations that did happen felt strained in ways that they hadn't a week earlier.

23:34 Speaker 2: Some people still sounded firmly convinced the police were wrong. Others sounded careful, now, choosing words more slowly, avoiding direct statements altogether. That change followed him everywhere. The case had spread far beyond the house in Troy. By then, reporters repeated details from the scene across local broadcasts. Betsy's photograph appeared constantly beside descriptions of the violent attack. Inside the living room, Russ's name started appearing alongside hers more frequently, too, especially whenever coverage shifted toward the investigation itself instead of Betsy's death.

24:08 Speaker 2: Alone. Inside restaurants, gas stations, and grocery stores, people recognized him before they spoke to him. Sometimes they didn't speak at all, They just watched. One evening, Russ sat with a friend who had been at Game Night the evening Betsy died, while the television above the bar replayed another report about the investigation. Neither man looked at the screen much while it played. The pressure building around Russ started affecting the people closest to him too. Friends from Game Night continued standing by the timeline they had given investigators, but detectives kept revisiting them anyway, pressing harder each time for smaller details, exact arrival times, breaks in conversation, who had looked at clocks, who remembered Russ leaving.

24:52 Speaker 2: The repeated interviews wore people down. One friend later sat at a kitchen table, flipping through notes he had written after another long conversation with investigators, Frustrated by how often detectives circled back over the same stretch of the evening. Another described the feeling that the investigators already believed Russ was guilty and were now searching for details to reinforce that conclusion rather than challenge it. Still, the pressure worked differently on different people. Some friends grew louder in defending Russ, others became quiet Altogether.

25:24 Speaker 2: The uncertainty surrounding the investigation started pulling at relationships that had once felt uncomplicated before Betsy's death, turned every conversation into something heavier. Pam Hupp, meanwhile, appeared increasingly comfortable speaking with investigators and discussing Betsy publicly. Detectives remained in regular contact with her as prosecutors continued shaping the case theory around Russ. Her descriptions of Betsy's fears and frustrations continued surfacing throughout interviews, reports, and conversations connected to the case.

25:56 Speaker 2: At the same time, Pam also occupied a strange emotion position around the investigation itself. She was grieving publicly, helping investigators, discussing Betsy's marriage, talking about Betsy's illness and final months, and because she had been one of the last people to see Betsy alive. Reporters and investigators kept returning to her repeatedly for information and perspective. Her voice started carrying unusual weight inside the broader public story developing around the murder. One local news segment referred to her as Betsy's close friend while showing footage connected to the investigation.

26:31 Speaker 2: Across town, detectives continued meeting privately with prosecutors while organizing the next stage of the case against Russ. Inside those meetings, the conversations had started shifting toward timing rather than theory. Detectives no longer spent much time debating whether they believed Russ killed Betsy. The focus now centered on when they would move and whether the case felt strong enough to survive the scrutiny waiting beyond the investigation itself. One prosecutor remained concerned about the game night time timeline and continued pressing detectives about it.

27:02 Speaker 2: During strategy meetings. Investigators spread maps, driving estimates, and witness statements across conference tables while debating whether the timeline still allowed enough room for the murder to occur the way they believed it had. The discussions sometimes stretched late into the evening, voices, low coffee gone cold. Crime scene photographs pushed aside temporarily while prosecutors focused instead on logistics, timing, and jury perception. One detective eventually stood near the whiteboard, staring at the timeline for several seconds before quietly saying they either trusted the totality of the evidence or they didn't.

27:41 Speaker 2: Nobody in the room challenged him. Russ felt the isolation settling around him long before any formal announcement came. Detectives had become colder, reporters had become aggressive. People who once spoke freely around him now measured their words carefully or avoided him altogether. Even ordinary errands carried tension because he could feel people recognizing him from television coverage tied to Betsy's murder. At the same time, the investigation itself continued moving steadily toward a decision.

28:09 Speaker 2: Prosecutors organized final briefing materials, detectives finalized reports, witness summaries were reviewed one last time. Late one night, after most of the building had emptied out, several detectives remained inside a conference room reviewing the final arrest paperwork spread across the table between them, nobody spoke much anymore. The room carried the exhausted silence of people who believed the case had already crossed the line from investigation into prosecution. One detective finally signed the last page and slid the paperwork across the table toward the prosecutor waiting beside him.

28:48 Speaker 2: All Right, we're going to stop there. Please join me in a week on Wednesday, May twentieth, or part four of kind of Murdery's investigation of the murder of Betsy Faria. Once again, thank you so much for being here. If you know anybody who likes a true crime podcast, friends, family, strangers, you happen to run into it at the grocery store. Hey, if you can tell them about the show, I sure would appreciate it. I am Zevan Odelberg and this has been kind of Murdery.

29:19 Speaker 1: If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell your friends. You can find us on social media at kinda Murdery or email at Kindamurdery at gmail dot com.