The Murder of Betsy Faria: Part One

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.

0:09 Speaker 2: Now 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. Thank you so much for being here.

0:42 Speaker 3: You know, we are living in wild times, wild times indeed, but wild times require focus and they require more of your time. And that means that I am so thankful that you choose to spend your time with me. I am Zevan Odleberg. And this is kind of and I've got quite a murder story here for you today. So without further ado, let's get right down to it. Part one of Kind of Murdery's examination of the murder of Betsy Faria starts now. Betsy Foraria lived in Troy, Missouri. These days, the population of Troy is about fourteen thousand people still the kind of place where everyone knows your name if you've been there long enough.

1:34 Speaker 3: She worked, she kept in touch with her family and stayed connected to the people around her. Her sister Julie Swainey, said that Betsy wasn't the type to take over a conversation. She would ask questions, let the other person talk, and stay focused on them instead of herself. That's how Julie described her. Betsy was someone who listened first and didn't need attention to feel comfortable. Betsy had two daughters, and people close to her said that that part of her life came first. She stayed in contact with them, kept up with what they were doing, and made time for those conversations even when things got busy.

2:07 Speaker 3: Julie Swainey talked about how Betsy kept those relationships steady, checking in and staying involved instead of pulling back. It wasn't something she made a point of announcing. It just showed up in how she spent her time and who she stayed connected to. Betsy's marriage to Russ Faria looked different depending on who you asked. Rita Wolfe told reporters that Russ was a quote loving and doting husband. Another friend Dana Johnson said Russ had a temper. Those statements both came from people who had spent time around them, and obviously they didn't match up.

2:39 Speaker 3: They just sat there next to each other. Both part of how the relationship was described. Russ had his own routines that people around him recognized. One night a week, he met with the same group of friends. Sometimes they played tabletop games, sometimes they watched movies. It wasn't complicated and it didn't change often. The people in that group describe that is something regular, something that they expected to do with us each week. It was a consistent routine over time at home, Betsy's life followed the same kind of pattern that people tend to settle into work calls with family, time in the house, keeping up with what needed to get done.

3:17 Speaker 3: Nothing about it stands out when it's happening. It's just the same pieces, repeating the same conversations, the same people staying in contact. That's how her life looked before anything changed. So we've talked a little bit about the parias. Let's check in on another character in this story, Pam Hup. Pam spent quite a bit of time dealing with her mother's care. Her mother lived in a facility and was suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia. Pam took care of those parts of her mother's life, handling decisions, finances, the kind of responsibilities that don't wait for a convenient time.

3:52 Speaker 3: She talked about managing her mother's affairs while also trying to keep up with everything else going on in her life. The people who knew Pam didn't describe her all the same way. Rita Wolf, who we've heard from before, said Pam showed up and helped when someone needed it, the kind of person who stepped in without making it complicated. That's one version of her, coming from someone who had seen her around Betsy and others. Another friend described her differently, saying that Pam could say things that made a conversation stop for a second, like something didn't land the way it was meant to.

4:24 Speaker 3: Those two descriptions don't line up, but they both come from people who spend time around her. They sit next to each other without being resolved. This happens with a lot of people when you hear about them from different people from different angles. One person sees someone helpful, another notices moments that feel off. Neither observation replaces the other. Both are just part of how Pam was described by people who knew her. At this point in our story, Pam's life is running on its own track, work, family responsibilities, the routine of dealing with her mother's care.

4:56 Speaker 3: Betsy's part of Pam's world, but she's not the center of it. They know each other, they have a history. They can pick up a conversation when they see each other. Nothing about their connection stands out on its own, It just exists. Betsy's diagnosis came in twenty ten breast cancer. Julie Swainey said it didn't change how Betsy talked to people right away. She still asked about them first, still kept the focus off herself when she could. But then the appointment started to stack up, tests, follow ups, then treatment.

5:27 Speaker 3: It wasn't one big moment, it was a series of smaller moments that kept getting added to the calendar until they were part of the week. Treatment meant driving, sitting, waiting, then driving home. The cycle repeated, and over time it needed someone to handle the transportation. Rita Wolf said Pam Hupp was the one doing a lot of that, picking Betsy up, taking her to chemotherapy, staying there then bringing her back. It wasn't framed as anything unusual. It looked like someone helping out, doing what needed to be done so Betsy didn't have to handle them alone.

6:00 Speaker 3: But those trips put Pam and Betsy together for long stretches. When you spend that kind of time with someone, you talk not one long conversation, more like pieces of a conversation spread across days in the car, in waiting rooms, back at the house. Pam later told investigators that Betsy talked about money during that time and then what would happen later, who would handle things what she wanted done. Betsy's illness progressed. Doctor said it had spread to her liver. Her schedule didn't clear up after that.

6:32 Speaker 3: It stayed full appointments, treatment time at home. In between, Betsy kept in contact with family the same way she always had, checking in staying connected even when she wasn't feeling well. That part of her life didn't change, It didn't fall away. It stayed in place alongside everything else she was dealing with. Her days kept moving in a predictable pattern, and Pam was part of that pattern, now driving, sitting, being in the house, leaving again. Rita Wolf described seeing them together more often during this stretch, usually tied to those treatment days.

7:07 Speaker 3: Russ kept his routine the same, meeting that same group of friends one night each week, sticking to his plan. All of this existed at once. Appointments, drives, calls with family, nights out with friends. Nothing stood out on its own while it was happening at the house. Routines stayed familiar. Betsy spent time in the same rooms, handled what she could, rested when she needed to Meals happened when she felt up to them. Calls came in, calls went out. There wasn't a clear break between one part of the day and another.

7:40 Speaker 3: It was just a series of things that needed to get done, and those priorities adjusted according to how Betsy was feeling, and Pam was a regular part of that rhythm, coming and going and coming and going. Nothing in those days gets marked as different when people talk about them later. No single moment stands out. It's the same pieces. Repeating appointments, drives, time at home, conversations with family, nights out with friends. Each part fits next to the others without drawing attention to itself.

8:12 Speaker 3: Conversations about Betsy and Russ's marriage came from the people around them, and those conversations didn't line up. Some friends said Russ was the epitome of a loving and doting husband. Others said he had a temper and could get really angry. Pam talked about what she saw during that period in interviews with investigators. She said Betsy had expressed fear of us and described him as verbally abusive. Pam also said that money came up often during those drives and appointments with Betsy. In interviews with investigators, she said that Betsy asked her to handle a life insurance policy and told her she didn't trust Russ with money.

8:52 Speaker 3: Alongside worrying about her health and her finances both now and in the future, Betsy kept her focus on her daughter during this period. Julie Swainey said her sister stayed involved in their lives, checking in and asking about what was going on with them, even while she was dealing with treatment. Meanwhile, Pam was helping with logistics around Betsy's appointments. She was the one driving Betsy to chemotherapy and bringing her home afterward, getting her there, waiting through treatment, and then taking her home when the treatment was finished.

9:25 Speaker 3: They were often seen together managing Betsy's medical care, and it would be hard to say that Pam wasn't a godsend. At some point, Betsy changed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars life insurance policy so that Pam Hupp would receive it. Meanwhile, Russ kept his weekly routine at the same time that same group of friends. One night a week, his friends expected him to be there. The day started the same way a lot of Betsy's days did. She had a chemotherapy appointment scheduled. Getting to it meant arranging a ride, and her friend Pam Hupp was handling that.

10:00 Speaker 3: Everyone knew that Pam had been driving Betsy to treatments, picking her up, taking her in, bringing her home. That morning followed the same pattern, getting ready, heading out, going where Betsy needed to be at the treatment center. The process didn't change, check in waiting, then the treatment itself, time spent sitting, then more waiting before it was time to leave. Those appointments took hours, not minutes. Pam stayed with Betsy during the appointment and handled the ride back home once it was finished.

10:32 Speaker 3: That's how Rita Wolf and other friends described it. Pam taking care of the driving so Betsy didn't have to. When they left the treatment center, they went back to the house in Troy, following the same route they'd taken before other appointment days. They arrived back home together later that day. Betsy sent a message to Russ. The message read quote, Pam hop wants to bring me home to bed, She offered, and I accepted. That message places Pam with Betsy at the house after the appointment, part of the same pattern of helping her get home and settled after the treatment.

11:07 Speaker 3: Russ kept his routine that night, friends said he met with that same group of friends and was with the group later that night. That afternoon, the house in Troy settled back into its usual rhythm. After Betsy's appointment. She came home with Pam and moved through the same room she always did, the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom. The treatments left her tired, and the routine after her treatments usually meant getting her settled and letting her rest. Pam was still there, part of that same pattern, having brought her home and stayed long enough to make sure she was in and comfortable.

11:40 Speaker 3: While Pam was still in the house, Betsy used her phone to text Russ. It's the message I mentioned a moment ago. She texted Pam, hup, wants to bring me home to bed? She offered, and I accepted that message. Placed Pam inside her house after the appointment, Consistent with what Rito Wolf had said about Pam handling the driving and being present on treatment days, Pam left the house after dropping Betsy off. She told investigators later that she'd taken Betsy home and then gone on with her own evening.

12:11 Speaker 3: Russ, meanwhile, was out gaming with his friends. Inside the house, nothing outwardly marked the rest of the evening as different from any other day. Betsy had been brought home, sent her text message, and was in the same space she had been in earlier, same room, same furniture, same quiet that settled in after the day's activity had passed the house. Betsy, the routine. Everything about that night was the same as it always was. Russ turned into the driveway and let the head lights wash over the garage door before he killed the engine.

12:45 Speaker 3: For a second, he stayed where he was, both hands on the wheel, looking at the house the way you do when you're finishing an ordinary day and expect the next few minutes to be ordinary too. The porch light was on, lights showed through a couple of windows. Nothing outside looked wrong. No open door, no movement, no shadows where they shouldn't be. He took the keys from the ignition, pushed the driver's door open, and stepped out into the cold. The card door shut behind him with a solid, familiar sound.

13:15 Speaker 3: He walked up the short path, keys in one hand, shoulders hunched a little against the night air, and he let himself in. Betsy, he called as soon as he crossed the threshold. His voice moved ahead of him into the house and disappeared there. He pulled the door mostly shut behind him, not all the way, just enough for the latch to catch. The house answered him with silence. He stood in the jury a moment, listening, no television, no footsteps, no voice from the kitchen, no water running, nothing coming from the back of the house.

13:48 Speaker 3: He called her name again, louder this time. Betsy Russ started forward. The living room opened up in front of him, exactly the way it always did, the couch in place, the table where it belonged, the room lit, but still like whoever had been there last had gotten up and stepped away. He took another few steps, in his eyes, moving from the couch to the hallway and back again. Betsy, The word came out sharper. Now he stopped near the edge of the living room and tilted his head, listening for anything, a cough, a shift, the sound of someone answering from another room.

14:22 Speaker 3: Nothing came. His breathing got a little quicker. He moved again, slower, now looking lower, scanning the floor around the couch in the open space behind it. Then his angle changed. Something on the carpet near the sofa resolved into a body. He closed the distance in a rush, two fast steps, and then a hitch in his movement, like part of him wanted to stop before the last few feet made it real. Betsy was on the floor beside the couch, her body turned awkwardly, head angled off to one side, her hair partly covered her face.

14:56 Speaker 3: Blood was everywhere, not just a little, not just a stain on clothing, but a broad, dark spread across the front of her and out onto the carpet beneath her. It had soaked into the fibers and spread under her in a shape that kept widening the longer he looked at it. He bent at the waist first, not yet kneeling, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Then he saw the handle a kitchen knife stuck out of her neck, the dark handle rising up at an angle that made no sense in a room like that, in a house like that, in the middle of what had started as a normal night.

15:31 Speaker 3: He froze there, half bent, hands hanging useless at his sides, staring at the knife, then at her face, then back at the knife. Then his knees hit the carpet beside her. He reached for her shoulder. First, his hand hovered there a split second before it touched fabric, gone wet and heavy with blood. Betsy, he said, at once, then again louder, Betsy. He pressed against her shoulder as if he could shake her into answering him, then shifted that his hand toward her neck, searching for anything he could call movement, pulse, heat.

16:05 Speaker 3: Nothing answered his touch. He leaned closer, his face near hers, looking for the rise and fall of breath, listening to his own breathing too loud in his ears. His hand came away, slick. He looked at it, stunned, palmed, dark and shining in the room light, then wiped it instinctively against his pants, leaving a long smear across the fabric. He leaned in again, closer, this time, one hand braced on the carpet, the other reaching toward her jaw line, and then jerking back, unsure where to touch and where not to touch.

16:37 Speaker 3: Betsy, Betsy, He used her name, like it could do something by itself. The knife never moved, she never moved. He rocked back onto his heels, pushed himself up with one hand, nearly lost his footing, then caught himself and turned toward the front of the house. He took a few fast steps, stopped, looked back at her again, then moved harder and more urgently, his hand already going for his phone before he reached the injuryway. He pulled it out, fumbled once, almost dropped it, caught it against his palm, and jabbed at the screen with his thumb.

17:11 Speaker 3: The phone rang in his hand. He paced two steps one way, then back toward the living room, not able to stay still and not willing to get too far from where she lay. When the despatcher answered, he started talking immediately, words coming before the opening questions were finished. My wife killed herself. She's on the floor.

17:30 Speaker 2: The dispatcher's voice came back, clear and level, asking for the address, asking if she was breathing, asking what he could see. He answered in fragments, looking over his shoulder into the living room. While he talked, blood knife, floor. He swallowed hard between words. The dispatcher told him to stay on the line. He didn't take the phone from his ear. He moved back toward the living room while the dispatcher kept talking. I'm going back to her, he said, voice catching and then steadying as he crossed the room.

17:59 Speaker 2: Heduch the carpet as he walked, choosing where he put his feet, avoiding the edge of the blood spread, without really thinking about how he knew where it ended. He lowered himself again, slower, this time, one knee down, then the other. The phone pressed hard to the side of his face. The dispatcher asked him to check for breathing, to look closely to tell her exactly what he was seeing. He leaned in until his face was close to Betsy's. His free hand reached toward her neck, then stopping in mid air before it landed.

18:29 Speaker 2: When he finally touched her again, he did it lightly like he was afraid any pressure at all might make what he was seeing worse. She's cold, he said at one point, then corrected himself into broken pieces. The dispatcher could work with I. I don't know she's she's not moving. There's so much blood. He kept looking for something to change, and nothing did. The dispatcher kept him talking. Every time he went quiet for more than a beat, another question came through the phone. Was the door unlocked?

18:59 Speaker 2: Was anyone else in the house? Had he touched the knife? He answered each one while glancing from the room to the doorway and back again, as if expecting the house to tell him something. No, No, I touched her. I didn't touch the knife. His answers were short, clipped, pulled out of him. When she told him to go unlock the door, he looked toward the front enterie like he had forgotten there was even a door to unlock. Okay, He stood up too fast, steadied himself with a hand on the couch, and then moved toward the front of the house with the phone still to his ear.

19:31 Speaker 2: His footsteps sounded loud on the floor. He reached the door, worked the lock with fingers that slipped once, then twice before the dead bolt turned. He pulled the door open, and colder air came in from outside. It's open, he told the dispatcher. He left the door open and turned back toward the living room. When he got back to Betsy, he didn't kneel right away. He stopped a few feet short of where she lay and just looked at her, his shoulders rising and falling. Phones still pinned against his ear.

20:01 Speaker 2: The dispatcher asked what he had touched, what he had moved, whether he'd tried to roll her over. He answered, while keeping his eyes on the floor beside the couch, then on the knife, then on her face. I touched her shoulder, I checked her. No, I didn't move her. The answers came broken up with breathing and silence, and the sound of him swallowing hard. Before he spoke again, he took one step closer and crouched without fully kneeling, like he couldn't decide whether getting close again would help or make it worse.

20:31 Speaker 2: He reached a hand out, stopped before touching her, and pulled it back to his own chest instead. The dispatcher kept him in the room with her through the phone, asking him to stay there, asking him to keep answering. He stayed where he could see her and the knife at the same time. The first hint of sirens came in faint through the open door, too far away at first to be certain. He turned his head toward the entry and listened, and then back towards Betsy, then toward the door again. I hear them, he said to the phone, though the dispatcher hadn't asked yet.

21:03 Speaker 2: His voice sounded lower, now worn out, the words less rushed because there was nowhere for them to go. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked down at the blood on his pants where he'd wiped his hands without thinking. The dispatcher kept him on the line, still asking, still answering him, keeping the connection filled. Outside, the sirens got louder, moving closer street by street, until they were no longer somewhere else. The sound bounced off the houses and came in clean through the open door.

21:32 Speaker 2: Russ stayed in the living room, one hand holding the phone, the other hanging at his side, Flexing once and then going still. He looked at the front door, then back to Betsy on the floor. The sirens came up fast, at the end the way they do when they turn onto your street, and suddenly stopped being background noise, red and blue. Light started to flash across the front of the house, catching the edge of the open door, then sliding in across the floor in the wall. He stood there in the living room with the dispatcher still in his ear, his body turned half way between the doorway and Betsy, like he didn't know which direction to face.

22:08 Speaker 2: Now that the waiting part was over, He said again that she was on the floor, said there was a knife, said please at least once without attaching it to anything. The dispatcher told him help was there, Help was arriving. Officers were coming in. He didn't move toward the door. He didn't leave Betsy. The living room stayed exactly the way it had been since he found her, couch, carpet, blood, the knife still upright in her neck. The house lights on the front door opened to the night. Footsteps hit the front walk and came hard toward the door.

22:42 Speaker 2: All right, we're gonna stop there. Please do join me a week from today, Wednesday, May fifth, for part two of the Murder of Betsy Farrhea. And hey, if you know anybody who likes a true crime podcast, your family, your friend, somebody you bump into in an elevator, someone you'll weigh that on the street. Please do tell them about the show. I sure would appreciate it, and thank you once again for spending your time with me. Thank you truly for being here. I'm Zevan Odleberg and this has been kind of Murdery.

23:14 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 kindamurderyat gmail dot com.