'Serial killer' Pam Hupp - serving life sentence for slaying a disabled man in 2016 - is finally charged with second murder over the 2011 death of her friend who was stabbed 55 times

Hupp, 62, was charged with first-degree murder in Missouri on Monday

Suspected serial killer Pamela Hupp, who is serving a life sentence for shooting a disabled man dead in 2016, has now been charged with murdering her friend years earlier.

Hupp, 62, was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the 2011 slaying of Elizabeth 'Betsy' Faria, and could face the death penalty, prosecutors in Lincoln County, Missouri said Monday. 

Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Wood said Hupp convinced Faria to switch a $150,000 life insurance policy to Hupp's name just four days before staging her stabbing death to make it look like her husband did it. 

Prosecutors say Hupp waited until Faria, her coworker at State Farm, was weak and lethargic from a chemotherapy before she stabbed her some 55 times as she lay on a couch under a blanket. 

Then, Hupp dipped the victim's socks in her own blood and spread it around the house to frame her husband for killing her her in a domestic assault, according to court documents filed Monday charging Hupp with the 2011 murder. 

Prosecutors say Hupp waited until Betsy Faria (left and right), her coworker at State Farm, was weak and lethargic from a chemotherapy before she stabbed her some 55 times

Hupp dipped the victim's socks in her own blood and spread it around the house to frame her husband Russ (with Betsy above) for killing her her in a domestic assault, prosecutors say

Prosecutors also noted that Hupp was the last known person to see Faria alive, and say that she was aware that Faria's husband would not be home on Tuesday, December 27, 2011 when she drove Betsy home from chemo.

As part of the twisted plot, prosecutors believe that Hupp killed another man in a plot that she thought would cast suspicion away from her in Faria's murder. 

Hupp in 2019 was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole for the 2016 fatal shooting of 33-year-old Louis Gumpenberger. 

Hupp entered a guilty plea in that case on the condition the death penalty was waived. 

In Gumpenberger's murder, Hupp staged a fake kidnapping to divert attention from herself in a re-investigation of the Faria killing, prosecutors said. 

They claim she cruised St. Charles County, and lured Gumpenberger to her home with claims she was a producer for NBC's Dateline in need of help reenacting a 911 call. 

Prosecutors say she attempted to lure other people with that same story, and succeeded with Gumpenberger, who had mental and physical disabilities from an accident. 

Prosecutors say Hupp lured Gumpenberger to her home with claims she was a producer for NBC's Dateline in need of help reenacting a 911 call

Hupp claimed that she shot the man in her bedroom at her home in O'Fallon, Missouri, after he tried to kidnap her, claiming Russ Faria had masterminded the attack from behind bars

Hupp reported his death, claiming she'd shot him in self-defense after he launched an unprovoked attack on her in her driveway - a story which quickly unraveled and led to authorities charging her with his death. 

It is suspected that Hupp planned to implicate the recently acquitted Russell Faria in Gumpenberger's death by staging a hoax attack, in order to distract investigators from re-opening his wife's murder case. 

Wood told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that investigators mishandled the initial Faria murder investigation by rushing to judge her husband, Russell Faria, as the murderer and then protecting their case by ignoring or concealing evidence that pointed to Hupp.

Faria was sentenced in 2013 to life in prison for his wife´s killing in but the conviction was overturned in 2015. 

The Lincoln County Sheriff's Department last year reached a $2 million settlement with him for the wrongful conviction.

Faria was sentenced in 2013 to life in prison for his wife´s killing in but the conviction was overturned in 2015

Russ won a $2 million settlement for his wrongful conviction. He is seen with Betsy above

TIME OF THE PAM HUPP SAGA: 

December 22: 2017: Pam Hupp becomes beneficary of friend Betsy Faria's $150,000 life insurance policy.

December 27, 2011: Betsy Faria is found stabbed to death 55 times.

January 4, 2012: Her husband Russ Faria is arrested and charged with her murder.

November 18, 2013: Russ' murder trial begins. He has been in prison since his arrest.

November 21, 2013: Russ is found guilty by jury of murdering Betsy.

December 22, 2013: Russ is sentenced to life in prison.

November 2015: Russ is granted a new trial due to new evidence about Pam being the benificary of the life insurance policy.

November 7, 2015: Russ is acquitted and cleared of murdering his wife.

August 16, 2016: Pam Hupp shoots dead mentally ill man in 'bizarre' plot to distract from re-investigation of Betsy's death.

June 19, 2019: Pam enters Alford guilty plea to charges of murdering Louis Gumpenberger.

August 12, 2019: Pam is jailed for life over Gumpenberger's murder.

October 2019: Investigators confirm they are re-investigating the death of Betsy Faria.

July 2021: Hupp charged with Faria's murder 

Wood said he and the new sheriff are investigating 'misconduct and potentially criminal behavior on the part of (the former) investigators and prosecutors.' 

Wood said he was 'on the fence between (whether it was) really gross negligence and calculated criminal behavior.'

Online court records didn´t list a lawyer for Hupp on Monday. 

In the phone calls with her husband, Hupp lamented that the Faria case, as well as accusations she was responsible for her own mother's fatal fall to her death in 2013, had people labeling her as a serial killer. 

'It's not the facts,' she told her husband. 'That's not what people are convicted on. It's what 12 people think you did, you know what I'm saying? If we didn't get her for this one, we'll get her for the other two and it's like... but they have nothing to do with each other and I didn't do anything, nor was I ever, you know implicated in any of that yet. 

'No I'm not up for three of them, are you kidding me?' 

Phone calls between husband and wife had been taking place almost every day since Hupp was arrested in August 2016, with both fully aware the phone calls were being recorded. 

Her husband questioned why, if the stories the authorities told were not true his wife opted to take a life sentence over a trial. 

Hupp said it was 'just the best offer they offered.' She also claimed to have taken the deal so her family would not have to witness an ugly trial. 

In one phone call made from behind bars on June 18 this year, the day before she officially accepted the plea deal, Hupp claimed the case was never about the truth. 

'You've got to remember the judge and the prosecutor are on the same team,' she said. 

The convicted killer said several witnesses who came forward to claim she had tried to lure them in before killing Gumpenberger were just attention seeking. 

Hupp is seen in a police interview just hours after her friend Faria's murder

Hupp is taken into custody. She pleaded guilty to murdering Gumpenberger

'Got people coming out of the woodwork saying, oh we saw her do this and she tried to pick me up and all that,' she told her husband in the calls obtained by Fox News.

 'I don't even know who these people were or the places that they are talking about. 

'Everybody is just jumping on the bandwagon for their fifteen minutes of fame and it's like, who are these people?'