Woman charged in shooting of man she claimed was intruder

O'FALLON, Mo. -- A suburban St. Louis woman who claimed she shot an intruder who followed her inside her home is facing murder charges, with a prosecutor saying Tuesday she set up an innocent, mentally impaired man to kill him.

St. Charles County prosecutor Tim Lohmar said Pamela Hupp, 57, of O'Fallon "hatched a plot to find an innocent victim and to murder this innocent victim" as part of an effort to frame a man involved in a previous murder case in which Hupp was a key witness.

Hupp is charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the Aug. 16 death of Louis Gumpenberger of St. Charles, a 33-year-old man left physically and mentally impaired from a 2005 car wreck.

Hupp was arrested at her home Tuesday. While in custody at the O'Fallon police station, she stabbed herself several times with a ballpoint pen she had managed to hide, O'Fallon police chief Roy Joachimstaler said. She was hospitalized in stable condition. Bond was set at $2 million.

A message left with Hupp's lawyer was not returned.

Hupp testified in the 2013 murder trial of Russell Faria in nearby Lincoln County, Missouri. Faria was convicted of stabbing his wife, but the conviction was reversed, and Faria was acquitted in 2015.

The case was upended partly on claims Faria should have been able to argue in the first trial Hupp had a motive to kill Betsy Faria after becoming beneficiary of a $150,000 life- insurance policy shortly before Betsy Faria's death.

Hupp has said she had nothing to do with Betsy Faria's death, but Joachimstaler said police believe Hupp set up the killing of Gumpenberger "to take heat off her because of that previous case."

It wasn't clear whether the new charges against Hupp would lead to a new investigation of Betsy Faria's death. A message left with the Lincoln County sheriff's office was not returned.

Hupp told police soon after pulling into her driveway Aug. 16, Gumpenberger, who she said was a stranger, jumped out of a car and demanded at knifepoint she take him to a bank "to get Russ's money," Lohmar said. "Russ" was an apparent reference to Russell Faria and the insurance money Hupp claimed after Betsy Faria's death.

Lohmar said Hupp claimed she knocked the knife out of Gumpenberger's hand and ran inside, where he followed her. She went into a bedroom, got a gun and shot him.

But Lohmar said six days before the killing, a woman reported a white female in an SUV approached her claiming to be a producer for the TV show "Dateline" and tried to recruit her to record a scripted sound bite about 911 calls, promising to pay her $1,000.

She initially agreed but backed out when the woman in the SUV couldn't produce any credentials.

Surveillance footage from a camera on the woman's home captured the SUV's license plates, which matched Hupp's, Lohmar said.

"Our theory is she was vetting a potential victim," Lohmar said.

Meanwhile, GPS from Hupp's cellphone showed she was at Gumpenberger's apartment, 13 miles from her home, less than an hour before their confrontation on her driveway, Lohmar said. She was there for about four minutes, but authorities don't know what transpired during that time, Lohmar said.

"She was very calculated, looking for someone who fit a particular profile," Lohmar said. "This victim fit that profile, someone not very sophisticated, someone easily swayed by a large amount of cash."

Gumpenberger had no cellphone or ID at the time of his death. Police found $900 in plastic bags in his pocket, along with a note that appeared to be instructions to kidnap Hupp and collect "Russ's" money, Lohmar said. But authorities believe the money and note were planted.