A lot of people were eagerly awaiting the sentencing of Pam Hupp. The family of Louis Gumpenberger, first of all. He’s the young father she was convicted of killing in 2016: a perfect stranger who, little did she know, had suffered a head injury and probably didn’t even have the mental capacity to pull off the scheme she was attempting to frame him with. Gumpenberger’s death had nothing to do with him; she shot him during a 911 call, as a convoluted way of exonerating herself from any suspicion in the death of her friend Betsy Faria four years earlier.
Betsy’s widower, Russ Faria, was also in the St. Charles County courtroom on August 12, dignified in a gray suit. Wrongfully convicted of his wife’s violent murder (she was stabbed 55 times), he served time in prison before being acquitted on appeal. (It’s possible that Hupp will be tried in the future for that crime, too; the case has been reopened by the new Lincoln County prosecutor, Mike Wood.)
Carol Alford was in the courtroom, too. “I’m the one who put her behind bars,” she announced; she finally feels safe enough to give the press her name. Alford had reason to be nervous; she was the first person Hupp approached before she settled on Gumpenberger. “I was bored and curious,” Alford told me, explaining that she let the scheme play out for a while. Hupp identified herself as a producer with Dateline and offered money to help with a reenactment. Sharply suspicious, Alford pointed out her surveillance camera, extricated herself from Hupp’s SUV, and called the police.
The list goes on; the courtroom was crowded. Noticeably absent, though, were any members of Hupp’s family—although reference was made to her husband, Mark Hupp, visiting her in jail.
“I hope he stops,” said Louis Gumpenberger’s sister, sobbing with a mix of fury and grief. She spoke on behalf of Louis’ family, and she began by describing how she’d gone on Facebook and instead of finding her brother, she saw news stories of his murder. “Do you know what that does to a person, to look up a loved one and find out they’ve been murdered? Because of her, Louis won’t be able to see his son off to school or play video games with him. Because of her, a mother lost her child. She wouldn’t know what that type of pain feels like, because she doesn’t care about anyone but herself.” The only consolation? “She won’t be able to prey on the elderly or disabled any longer.”
Real justice will come at the end of Hupp’s life, the sister added. “But today would be a nice day for her to come clean and to admit to what she’s done, so we can put this behind us. If she chooses not to, then she’s just showing the world the kind of monster she is.”
Hupp declined to make a statement.
The judge read her sentence, noting that her crimes “are particularly heinous,” in that her victim was entirely innocent and vulnerable.
When a KMOX reporter asked the St. Charles County prosecutor, Tim Lohmar, how much weight Hupp had lost in jail, he did a doubletake: “What kind of question is that?!” But it was hard not to remark on the difference; the hefty blond woman arrested three years ago has gone gray, her cheeks are sunken, the swagger’s drained away. At the start of the proceedings, she sat with her bony shoulders hunched. Yet she wasn’t lost in her own world; she seemed alert, interested in her lawyers’ conversations, even smiling a bit. As the proceedings began, she sat straighter, and when she took the stand to assure the judge that she found no fault with her legal representation, she tilted her chin up at him with the old bravado. Most of his questions, she answered vaguely, carelessly, and almost inaudibly, as though refusing to give the courtroom the satisfaction of hearing her voice. Yet when the judge asked whether she had chosen her plea, that “yes” came out strong.
“She’s been manipulative the whole way,” Lohmar said at the press conference after the sentencing. “She wants everybody to believe she’s still in control.” Asked if this is the most bizarre case he’s ever prosecuted, he said, “Yes, I would say that. The great lengths to which she went… It’s hard to imagine a human could be so evil.”
On June 19, Hupp had waived her right to a jury trial—and in doing so, removed the possibility that she would be sentenced to death. She used an Alford plea, which does not admit to guilt but does concede that the State has enough evidence to convict her. Thus convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action, she will be imprisoned for life with no chance of parole or release unless by an act of the governor.
Hupp chose not to be interviewed for her sentencing report, a biographical assessment that can sometimes influence the sentence. “What’s funny about that,” Lohmar said, “is she’s the one who asked for that report to be made. Again, a way to manipulate…”
Faria stood well away from the press conference, looking dazed. “It’s a little relieving, to say the least,” he said of the sentencing. “But I’m hopeful for the time she has to answer for the crimes in Lincoln County.” What he felt today, watching Hupp in court? “Disgusted.” He can’t banish her from his thoughts, he added, “but I think about my wife more than anything.”
Hupp’s attorneys weren’t part of that press conference, either. But reached later, defense attorney Nick Williams said, “There is no true closure for victims of such horrendous loss; not from the legal system and not from words of condolence. Yet, as humans, our hearts go out to those who are made to suffer at the hands of those we represent.”
