On December 27, 2011, Betsy Faria was found dead inside her home in a small Missouri town, and authorities assumed it was an open-and-shut case involving her husband.
However, as time passed, fresh information surfaced, revealing a nefarious plot involving Betsy’s close friend Pamela “Pam” Hupp and her claimed role in her mother’s death.
So, now that this still-developing storey has been covered on NBC’s ‘The Thing About Pam,’ let’s find out all the specifics surrounding Shirley Neumann’s untimely death, shall we?
Must Read: Betsy Faria’s Murder: What Happened to Betsy Faria?
How Did Pam Hupp’s Mom ‘Shirley Neumann’ Die?
Shirley Neumann, at the age of 77, was not only the loyal wife of late Victor Jr., a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, but she was also a proud former schoolteacher.
Regardless, by 2013, she was living alone in a third-floor apartment in an independent elderly community in Fenton, suffering from dementia and arthritis.
It was thus not uncommon for her to forget things/paths or become “unsteady” even on the best of days, but no one could have predicted she’d lose her life in a stunning fall.
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Shirley’s bones were discovered beneath the balcony of her home at around 2:30 p.m. on October 31, 2013; she was cold, and the aluminium railings above her were completely destroyed.
The older woman must have fallen straight to the earth from her balcony after losing her balance, according to the first responders’ first assessment, which was confirmed in her autopsy.
Shirley died from blunt force injuries to the chest as a result of an “accidental” fall, according to the medical report, despite having eight times the average quantity of sedative in her blood.
Also Read: Where is Pam Hupp now? What is Her Story?
Who Killed Pam Hupp’s Mother ‘Shirley Neumann’?
The detectives had no reason to suspect foul play at one point because Shirley Neumann’s death was ruled an accident not once, but twice by the coroner’s office.
They couldn’t overlook the high Ambien dosage or the fact that it happened practically immediately after she’d spent the night at her daughter’s — Pam Hupp’s — house after a trip to the hospital for back pain.
It didn’t help that Shirley’s third child — out of four — had warned the staff not to anticipate her for dinner that night or breakfast the following day when she dropped her there on October 30.
According to accounts, the personnel at the Lakeview Park Independent Senior Living Community listened to Pam and only visited Shirley after lunch on the 31st.
The housekeeper discovered her apartment door ajar, water flowing in the bathroom, and the patio entrance wide open, with the balcony bars bent and broken, at that time.
They looked down after seeing two garden gnomes fall next to a glass of water, which led them to a nightgown-clad Shirley crushed against the grass.
Pam was not only the last person to see her mother alive, as was the case with Betsy, but she’d also made a disturbing remark during a police interview earlier that year in connection with the latter.
“If I really needed money, my mother is worth half a million dollars, which I will inherit when she dies… If I genuinely wanted money, there was a better method than fighting someone physically stronger than me,” she added.
Referring to the allegations that she had damaged Betsy in exchange for a $150,000 payout from her insurance policy, of which she was the sole beneficiary.
With all of this, officials decided to re-examine Shirley’s case after Pam was indicted in the 2016 shooting death of Louis Gumpenberger, concentrating on her daughter’s role in the case in particular.
The cause of death of the 77-year-old was later modified from accidental to “undetermined,” but every other investigation proved fruitless.
In other words, the investigation into Shirley’s death has never been reopened, and Pam has never been legally charged with her murder.
