Pam Hupp

Pamela Marie Hupp ( Neumann; born October 10, 1958) is an American convicted murderer serving a life sentence in Missouri's Chillicothe Correctional Center for the fatal shooting of Louis Gumpenberger in her home in O'Fallon, Missouri. In August 2016, Hupp staged the killing of Gumpenberger (a disabled man) by luring him into her house and shooting him. Hupp's claim that she had killed Gumpenberger in self-defense was not accepted by law enforcement and she ultimately entered an Alford plea before charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action could go to trial.

Testimony from Hupp had played a key role in the 2013 conviction of Russ Faria for the murder of his wife, Betsy Faria, who was stabbed to death in her home in Troy, Missouri, in 2011. After a successful appeal and second trial in 2015, Russ was exonerated after his defense attorney was permitted to introduce evidence that had been withheld from the original trial jury, some of which implicated Hupp the beneficiary of a life insurance policy held by Betsy as the killer. Law enforcement have theorized that Hupp tricked Gumpenberger into entering her home and then murdered him in a failed attempt to frame Russ. In July 2021, Hupp was charged with the first-degree murder of Betsy Faria, with a trial expected to be held in 2028.

Hupp has also been investigated in connection with the death of her mother, Shirley Neumann, who died in 2013 from injuries sustained in a fall from the balcony of her third-floor apartment in Fenton, Missouri. A tip-off to police accused Hupp of killing Neumann for financial gain. Neumann's death was initially ruled an accident, but in November 2017 the chief medical examiner for St. Louis County, Missouri changed the cause of death to "undetermined", referencing the events in O'Fallon and Troy. An investigation into Neumann's death by the St. Louis County Police Department was inconclusive.

The killings of Betsy Faria and Louis Gumpenberger have been the subject of significant media coverage, including extensive reporting from the local Fox affiliate station KTVI in St. Louis and six Dateline NBC episodes airing from 2014 to 2022, as well as a Dateline NBC true crime podcast. A scripted television series featuring actress Renée Zellweger as Hupp, The Thing About Pam, aired on NBC in 2022.

Prior life Pamela Marie Neumann ("Pam") was born on October 10, 1958.