Russell Faria’s wife was stabbed 55 times, but was he the killer?
By Robert Patrick, St. Louis Post-Dispatch | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
"I just got home from a friend's house and, and my wife, my wife killed herself. She's, she's, she's on the floor," said Russell Faria, after giving his address and before alternately sobbing, wailing and answering questions.
But no one who arrived at the scene on
She had been stabbed 55 times, with a serrated-edge MasterChef knife from her kitchen still sticking out of her neck. Her heart had stopped quickly, so there was less blood than the brutality of the wounds would suggest. Her body was cold.
Deputies took Russell Faria to the station. Before a day had passed, they were accusing him of the murder of his wife, who already had been close to dying of breast and liver cancer.
Four alibi witnesses put Faria with them watching movies miles away at the time when
But there was incriminating evidence: Russell Faria's slippers, stained with his wife's blood, were found in a closet. He said they must have been planted by the killer.
Faria was charged with murder and arrested after his wife's funeral.
Two years later, a
His uncertainty grew after the trial.
After the verdict was delivered, Masterson was only a few miles from the courthouse when a friend who works there -- and had watched at least some of the trial -- called.
"Let me tell you," she told him, "that guy's innocent."
PROBLEMATIC TIMELINE
Faria's defenders, and even some of those who still suspect him, have been raising questions with the
Faria's lawyer,
Judge
That refusal, Schwartz said, let Prosecuting Attorney
In her closing, Askey also suggested a theory about why Faria's clothes -- the ones he's seen wearing in security pictures in a series of stops at stores and gas stations on the way to movie night -- were blood-free: he might have killed his wife while naked and then showered.
Schwartz complained that the prosecutor said it despite knowing there was no evidence of blood in the drain, nor that the shower had been recently used.
Since Askey raised those issues in closing arguments, Schwartz said, he had no opportunity to counter them with evidence during the trial. He did object, unsuccessfully, and warned jurors in his closing arguments that she had no proof of her claims.
The lawyer also complained that while the judge banned Askey from arguing that "no one else could have done this," the prosecutor essentially did anyway.
Askey did not return calls seeking comment for this story. The
Faria's alibi witnesses were never charged, and they have denied any complicity in the crime. All expressed anger at being accused without evidence. They told reporters they had believed police who said Russell Faria did it, until they realized the timeline didn't fit.
FRIEND GETS INSURANCE
Supporters of Faria have long questioned why police did not look harder at other possible suspects, including the last person to report seeing
The women had been friends for about 10 years, Hupp told authorities, and had worked together in the insurance business.
Hupp testified at the trial, but Schwartz said he was barred from questioning her in front of the jury about inconsistencies in her account of the circumstances and her possible motive.
Three days before
Hupp told detectives the change was
Schwartz claimed in court, mainly away from the jury, and in court documents that Hupp made contradictory statements to police. She initially told investigators she did not enter the Faria house the night of the murder, then said she went only as far as the living room, and later said she went into the bedroom.
She also told police that she called her husband when she arrived at Faria's home, and again when she left. But she later amended that, saying the second call was to tell
Cellphone records showed that Hupp was still in the Farias' neighborhood at
The prosecution never offered evidence of a time of death. Schwartz said emergency responders found
A receipt put Russell Faria at an Arby's in
His cellphone records comport with the movements he claimed, although the prosecutor suggested in court that he might have entrusted his phone with friends to deliver later.
VICTIM SAID TO BE AFRAID
Hupp spoke at length to investigators the morning after the murder, telling them that
Russell Faria, Hupp told them, was verbally abusive, a "huge drinker" and degrading to his wife. Hupp said
Russell Faria, Hupp said, had annoyed his wife with talk of what he would do with the insurance money after she died of cancer. Hupp said
Hupp spoke of
Hupp's statements take up nearly two pages of the 12-page synopsis of the Major Case Squad investigation.
Major Case Squad investigators scheduled a polygraph exam for Hupp three days after the murder, but Hupp's lawyer asked to postpone it until he could be with her, according to the report. After police were told that Hupp had a past head injury and might be on medications and potentially prone to seizures, they asked her for a doctor's note clearing her for the test.
In a note dated
Dr.
Knowing the likelihood that someone who inflicts dozens of stab wounds will suffer cuts on a hand that slides down a blood-slippery knife handle, police checked both Russell Faria and
A DETERIORATING RELATIONSHIP
In an interview with the
Wolf said Russell Faria was a "loving and doting husband."
"I know all about the facts and if I was on the jury, I never could have convicted him. And I didn't like him," she said. Wolf later said that she didn't dislike Russell Faria, but they had "butted heads" and he had a temper.
Wolf said
Another friend,
Several friends did say that the Farias' relationship had been deteriorating. One of
The prosecution also painted a sinister picture of the role-playing games Russell Faria often enjoyed with the three men and one woman who accounted for his whereabouts. Lacking enough players, they had watched movies that night.
HUPP SAYS IT WASN'T HER
In a phone interview with the
She said she was neither angry nor shocked that some were making accusations about her.
"Anybody can say it, but there's no evidence at the scene that I did," she told the newspaper. "I don't care what
She also denied that she pointed a finger at Russell Faria with police, saying, "I only answered the questions that they asked me."
Hupp said she had no motive, as she was financially secure and would have received the insurance money anyway when
She said her DNA was not found in the home, and that she would have had no way of knowing when Russell Faria would arrive home that night.
Hupp was open with police, offering to let them search her house and car, and giving them the clothes she said she was wearing that night. She allowed them to photograph her and take evidence swabs from her face, hands and body, according to the police reports. She said she even called a few days later to alert police to refuse pickup day in her neighborhood, so they could collect the contents of her trash before they were lost.
"Did Russ do it? I have no idea," she told a reporter. "But his defense relied on finger-pointing at me."
In an interview video obtained by Fox 2, a Major Case Squad detective preparing for Russell Faria's trial expressed concern to Hupp that it "looked bad" for her to be holding
Hupp testified -- and also told a reporter recently -- that she set up a revocable trust fund for
The remaining
For all her concerns about the insurance proceeds, however,
She said she "knew" from the moment she heard her sister had been killed that Russell Faria was the culprit, in part because he had once threatened his wife to "cut her up into a bunch of pieces" or something similar during a fight.
As further proof of Faria's guilt, Rodgers said prosecutors told the family that Faria had confessed to a cellmate. That was never used in evidence, and the inmate who allegedly heard Russell Faria admit guilt told Fox 2 it was not true.
JURORS DID DISCUSS HUPP
The Post-Dispatch tried to talk with all 12 jurors, and reached four. One refused to comment, but three agreed to speak about the case.
They said the jurors started deliberations split 6-6.
They said they discussed Hupp as a suspect because despite the legal rulings limiting what Schwartz could say in court about her, it was clear what the defense lawyer was trying to do.
Masterson remembers writing in his notebook, "They're trying to pin this on
But juror
He called the diversion of attention to Hupp a "red herring."
Masterson said jurors were never told about the insurance beneficiary change, and thus knew of no motive Hupp would have.
Gehner said that the prosecutor's timeline "made more sense." He did not believe there was a conspiracy to falsely accuse Russell Faria. And he said he thought Faria did have adequate time to kill his wife after returning home.
The three jurors interviewed said they did not believe Faria's alibi. Masterson said he already doubted it before the prosecutor's closing arguments.
One male juror, who did not want to be identified in connection with a murder case, said he believed that
He said he was struck by the discovery of the victim's blood on Faria's slippers in the closet.
"Somebody (else) coming to kill her isn't going to grab (Russell Faria's) slippers, run them through the blood" and hide them in the master bedroom, he scoffed.
Russell Faria and Schwartz both have said they think the slippers were dipped in blood by the killer and planted in the closet to incriminate the husband.
The juror also said he was swayed by the prosecution's suggestion that someone had cleaned up blood that led directly to a kitchen drawer containing towels. He said only someone who lived in the house would know the correct drawer.
But Schwartz told jurors that the testing was done a week after the murder, once the scene was potentially contaminated. Lab results showed no blood was present and there were no reports or photographs that substantiated investigators' claims about the blood trail.
Masterson said it also didn't look good that the coat and gloves Russell Faria had worn were neatly folded and placed near the body. And he said he was struck by the violence of the attack.
"There was rage there. That was one of the things that hurt
Still, if he knew during deliberations what he knows now, Masterson said, he's not sure he would have voted guilty in the end.
"I'm not sitting here thinking we really screwed up," he said. "I still think the scale is tipped against
But, he said, "I'm glad there's an appeal, and I'm glad someone's looking into it."
FARIA DENIES MURDER
Russell Faria, in an interview in prison, insisted that he is innocent.
"I loved her. I love her still. I didn't kill her," he said, still wearing the wedding ring he says he will never take off.
Faria denied ever placing a pillow over his wife's face.
He admitted the couple had a tumultuous relationship, but said things had gotten better since they moved to
He said he had not known about his wife's affairs, and reluctantly admitted that he had one of his own -- the only time during an interview lasting more than an hour that he tried to dodge a question.
Faria said he first thought his wife had committed suicide because, in part, she had spoken of it before.
"My mind wasn't working right. I saw slashes on her arm and jumped to conclusions," he said. "I was in shock. I saw this and didn't want to look anymore."
Faria said that Rolemaster, the game he and his friends often played, was like an action-adventure novel. His character was a monk he likened to
Although Faria said that some evidence could be seen as pointing to Hupp, "I don't want to accuse anybody who may be innocent, because I know how that feels."
After the verdict, Schwartz unsuccessfully filed a motion for acquittal, complaining that the judge had denied three mistrial motions and prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence, violated court orders restricting what they could say and in closing arguments argued facts not in evidence.
The judge, he said, prevented a "possible defense that someone else committed this crime" and thus stripped Faria of his right to a full cross-examination of Hupp.
Schwartz said he will appeal, although it won't be filed for months and likely would not be decided for more than a year.
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