TROY, Mo. — A lot has happened in Russ Faria’s life in the past 13 years.
He was convicted of his wife Betsy Faria’s 2011 murder and spent about three years in prison before his conviction was overturned at a second trial.
Betsy Faria’s friend, Pam Hupp, then killed a man with intellectual disabilities and tried to frame Russ Faria for that murder along with his wife.
An NBC mini-series and a Dateline special were made about the case.
Now, Russ Faria is a newlywed.
And he never would have met his new wife had Hupp not allegedly tried to kill her, too.
“I mean, we met under really unusual circumstances being this whole Pam Hupp, fiasco, saga, whatever you want to call it,” Russ said. “At this point, of all the bad things that happened to me, this is one good thing that's come from this.”
The Farias were at the Lincoln County Justice Center in Troy Friday to hear Hupp’s attorneys enter a second not-guilty plea in the murder of Betsy.
Prosecutor Mike Wood charged Hupp with Betsy’s murder in 2022, but her defense attorneys asked for a change of venue.
They got one – in Greene County – four hours away.
Wood told 5 On Your Side his office was initially pleased with the decision, but that changed.
“As we started to put our case, together, the voluminous amount of evidence that we would have, and witnesses that were going to be involved in what we believe prospectively could be a month long trial, being able to prosecute that from four hours away was just going to be more of a burden than I think would have been studious or responsible for us to proceed on,” Wood said.
So he dismissed and refiled the charges, and Hupp’s first appearance on the same charges happened Friday. Hupp stayed at the Lincoln County jail and did not show up in the courtroom, letting her attorneys speak on her behalf.
Wood said she had to be brought to Lincoln County
Russ sat with his new wife Carol Faria for the 10-minute hearing. Carol, formerly Carol McAfee, was the first person police believe Hupp tried to lure to her home after Russ Faria was freed from prison.
Police say she drove to McAfee’s neighborhood posing as a producer for NBC and asked her to come to her house to help film a scene for a Dateline episode.
“She told me I couldn’t bring my keys, my phone or anything with me, so I knew something was up,” Carol said Friday.
Carol didn’t fall for it.
Hupp then targeted a man with intellectual disabilities named Louis Gumpenberger. She stuffed a note in his pocket after shooting him inside her home, which accused Russ of sending Gumpenberger to Hupp’s house to kill her and blamed him for Betsy's murder.
Hupp entered an Alford plea in that case, which means she acknowledged prosecutors had enough evidence to convict her. She’s serving a life sentence in that case.
“Evil like that doesn’t need to exist,” Carol said.
Russ and Carol’s romance started not long after that. They got married in Florida.
“It was not the twist I expected my life to take at all,” Carol said.
Carol says her new husband has taught her about patience, so the couple says they’re fine with Wood’s decision to dismiss and refile the murder charges even though it brought them into court for more hearings, again.
“He is teaching me all good things come to those that wait,” Carol said. “Pam's going to get what's coming to her and I hope she gets the death penalty.”
The defense will likely ask for another change of venue this time around, given the extraordinary publicity surrounding the case.
Wood said he hopes a judge will schedule the trial to happen somewhere within 100 miles of Lincoln County.
He said he still expects the trial to begin next summer as originally planned, given that he says his office has already provided all of the discovery in the case to Hupp’s attorneys.
A status conference hearing has been scheduled for April 22.
The Farias plan to be there.