Pam Hupp: The real story of husband-framing killer played by an unrecognisable Renée Zellweger

Pamela Hupp, a woman serving life in prison and recently charged with murder in a separate case, is portrayed by Renée Zellweger in The Thing About Pam, an upcoming true-crime drama on NBC.

Hupp was charged in July last year in the 2011 death of her friend Elizabeth “Betsy” Faria and has pleaded not guilty.

When charges were brought in that case, Hupp was already serving a life sentence after entering an Alford plea in a separate case. (An Alford plea is a plea in which one doesn’t admit guilt, but concedes that evidence exist that would likely result in a conviction if a trial were to take place.)

That case was that of the death of Louis Gumpenberger, who was fatally shot at the age of 33 on 16 August 2016. Hupp claimed she had killed Gumpenberger in self-defense, but a prosecutor contended that she had killed him to distract from the re-investigation of Faria’s death.

The prosecution has claimed that Hupp lured Gumpenberger, who has physical and mental disabilities, to her home by claiming she was a producer for NBC’s Dateline programme, The Associated Press previously reported.

Faria was fatally stabbed on 27 December 2011 at her home in Troy, Missouri. Her husband Russ Faria was initially convicted of the killing in November 2013. A judge granted him a new trial in June 2015 based on new evidence linked to Hupp, according to the University of Michigan Law School’s National Registry of Exonerations. In November of that year, Russ Faria was acquitted, having spent more than two years in prison.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, Hupp testified during Russ Faria’s trial that Betsy Faria, who was suffering from terminal cancer, had made her the beneficiary of a $150,000 life insurance policy days before the killing.

The Thing About Pam, starring Renée Zellweger, Josh Duhamel, Judy Greer, and Katy Mixon, will start airing on NBC on 8 March.