Bone Deep by Charles Bosworth and Joel Schwartz
Bone Deep
by Charles Bosworth; Joel Schwartz
Narrated by Gary Bennett
Publisher Tantor Audio
Publication Date: 22 February 2022
Unabridged Audiobook
Audiobook kindly provided by Tantor Audio via NetGalley
Publisher's Summary
Two days after Christmas, 2011, Russel Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home to find his wife, Betsy, dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She had been stabbed 55 times in a brutal murder that would set off a chain of events leading to one man's wrongful conviction and imprisonment, another man's death, the revelation of a diabolical scheme, and an astounding miscarriage of justice left unresolved for another 10 years.
First responders concluded that Betsy was dead for hours when Russ discovered her. No blood was found implicating Russ, and surveillance video, receipts, and friends' testimony all supported his alibi. Yet incredibly, police and the prosecuting attorney ignored the evidence. In their minds, Russ was guilty. But prominent defence attorney Joel J. Schwartz quickly recognised the real killer.
The motive was clear. Days before her murder, the terminally ill Betsy replaced her husband with her friend, Pamela Hupp, as her life insurance beneficiary. Still, despite the prosecution's flimsy case and Hupp's transparent lies, Russ was convicted - leaving Hupp free to kill again. Bone Deep takes listeners through the perfect storm of miscalculations and missteps that led to an innocent man's conviction-and recounts Schwartz's successful battle to have that conviction overturned.
©2022 Charles Bosworth Jr. (P)2022 Tantor
Two days after Christmas, 2011, Russel Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home to find his wife, Betsy, dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She had been stabbed 55 times in a brutal murder that would set off a chain of events leading to one man's wrongful conviction and imprisonment, another man's death, the revelation of a diabolical scheme, and an astounding miscarriage of justice left unresolved for another 10 years.
First responders concluded that Betsy was dead for hours when Russ discovered her. No blood was found implicating Russ, and surveillance video, receipts, and friends' testimony all supported his alibi. Yet incredibly, police and the prosecuting attorney ignored the evidence. In their minds, Russ was guilty. But prominent defence attorney Joel J. Schwartz quickly recognised the real killer.
The motive was clear. Days before her murder, the terminally ill Betsy replaced her husband with her friend, Pamela Hupp, as her life insurance beneficiary. Still, despite the prosecution's flimsy case and Hupp's transparent lies, Russ was convicted - leaving Hupp free to kill again. Bone Deep takes listeners through the perfect storm of miscalculations and missteps that led to an innocent man's conviction-and recounts Schwartz's successful battle to have that conviction overturned.
©2022 Charles Bosworth Jr. (P)2022 Tantor
What to say? If, like me, you listen to this never having heard of Betsy and Russel Faria, you certainly won't want too many spoilers. However, if you have read the summary you will at least be aware that Russ is innocent of this awful crime.
The whole thing reads like an outlandish fictional detective story, one in which the reader would likely find the plot to be quite unbelievable, one has to keep in mind that yes, this really did happen! Betsy was brutally murdered and Russ was convicted of this dreadful crime
How this all came to be, how it all turned so bad for Russ makes for a compelling read, but, what is more unbelievable is the prosecutions train of thought.
Just to make the situation even stranger than fiction is how events unfolded to prove Russ Faria to be innocent.
If you love True Crime then this is for you!
Narrated by Gary Bennett, the only part of the narration I found a bit tedious was the first part, the initial interview of Russ, however, not the fault of the narrator, just the way the story was written
Charles Bosworth is a True Crime author and Joel Schwartz the criminal defence attorney