Betsy Faria's daughters sue Pam Hupp for insurance money

Just four days before Betsy Faria was murdered, she appointed Hupp as the executor of her $150,000 life insurance policy. Now even her own lawyer says you can't believe what comes out of Pam Hupp's mouth.

"I'm not going to argue about her credibility," said Michael Kruse, Hupp's attorney. "She's not a credible witness, but that's not the issue."

The issue now is a claim by Betsy's daughters, who say they've never seen a dime, and they're suing Hupp to get the money.

"Her purpose was to try to assure that it got to her girls."

"Whoa," said Hupp. "I don't know what you are talking about -- this has nothing to do with me drawing up a trust."

Hupp, under oath and defiant, admits to lying about the insurance money on several occasions.

Attorney: "Did you lie to anybody else that you've spoken to, Miss Hupp, about what you were going to do with these life insurance proceeds?"

Hupp: "Possibly."

Attorney: "OK. Who else might you have lied to?"

Hupp: "Anybody that would bug me and bug me and bug me and bug me."

Attorney: "Did the detectives bug you and bug you?"

Hupp: "Yeah."

Attorney: "So you might have lied to them?"

Hupp: "No. They didn't bug me about the proceeds, they never, that wasn't their focus."

Crime Watch Daily first introduced you to Pam Hupp when Russ Faria was let out of prison. Faria had been wrongly convicted of killing his wife, and Hupp was a key witness in the murder trial, telling detectives she saw Faria in the driveway shortly before Betsy was viciously killed.

Russ Faria always maintained he didn't do it. Faria became the cops' prime suspect when he called 911 after finding Betsy savagely stabbed with a steak knife more than 50 times.

Police stacked up a mountain of grisly evidence to try and break him down. But even after being convicted in a Missouri courtroom and slammed with a life sentence, Faria's answer has always been the same:

"I loved her, I love her still, I didn't kill her," said Faria.

For some reason, the information about Pam Hupp becoming Betsy's beneficiary was not allowed as evidence in Russ Faria's first trial. That, along with several other strange omissions uncovered by St. Louis affiliate KTVI, led to a new trial. Faria was found not guilty and walked out of prison after nearly four years.

Russ came straight to Crime Watch Daily studios as a free man, but still haunted by one question.

"I have my beliefs about [who killed Betsy], I don't want to throw stones at anybody, but there is overwhelming evidence that Pam Hupp had something to do with it," said Faria. "She's been interviewed 13 times by the authorities and lawyers, and I believe she's given 13 different stories.

"I don't know that she actually committed the deed, but I think she did have a big part in it," said Faria.

Hupp has never been charged or named a suspect in Betsy Faria's murder. She's now on the stand defending herself in a civil suit brought by Betsy's daughters.

Hupp now claims Betsy wanted her to have the life insurance money because she was in love with her and though she now denies an intimate relationship, she earlier claimed they had a lesbian love affair.

Hupp also claims she once had the money in cash, showed it to Lincoln County Prosecutor Leah Askey, and defiantly told the court she carried it around in a sack.

Then comes another shocker. Asked if she still has the proceeds of that life insurance policy, Hupp says no.

"In November I used that money to buy a house on the Troy Courthouse steps," said Hupp. "It was my personal money in my checking account. I still had $150,000."

She bought a house at auction with what she now calls her personal money? That's not what she told detectives during the murder investigation. She said Betsy, who was dying of cancer, wanted to make sure her daughters got the $150,000.

Hupp: "[Betsy] goes, 'Would you be my beneficiary on my life policies and make sure my kids get it when they need it?'"

And now Pam Hupp's attorney is dropping a bombshell, claiming authorities told Hupp to put the money in a revocable trust so she wouldn't be a suspect in the murder, and so they could keep the heat on Russ Faria.

"This was a criminal investigation that was going on in the murder charge against Russ Faria. The prosecution's concern was that Pam Hupp just received $150,000 on this life insurance policy -- that's 150,000 reasons why she should have been named in that jury trial as a suspect," said Michael Kruse, Hupp's attorney.

Keep in mind, this is Hupp's own defense attorney.

"The trust was nothing to do with Ms. Hupp, it wasn't her idea, she was spoon-fed that idea by the law enforcement in Lincoln County in order to create the conviction," said Kruse.

The Lincoln County Sheriff's Office is responding to those allegations in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, claiming they never suggested facts to Hupp, saying, "We've done everything we can to know every fact and detail of this case."

But Hupp has her own explanation for all the discrepancies in her statements and her testimony: She's now claiming she suffers from a medical condition that causes memory problems.