Lie led to innocent man's murder conviction, MO cops say. Now detective charged

Miami Herald

2 days ago

An investigator lied in court to help secure a murder conviction of an innocent man in his wife's 2011 killing, Missouri officials said.
Investigator Michael Merkel is accused of lying in court and now faces two counts of perjury in a criminal trial to secure conviction of murder, according to a criminal complaint filed on June 3.
McClatchy News reached out to Merkel's attorney but did not immediately receive a response.
In 2011, Russ Faria came home to find his wife, Betsy Faria, dead with approximately 55 stab wounds and a knife in her neck, the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office said in a probable cause statement.
The husband was accused of killing his wife and was later convicted of first-degree murder in 2013, according to the law firm representing him, Rosenblum Schwartz Fry & Johnson.
Faria had served two years of his life sentence when the verdict was reversed and he was acquitted of the murder charge at a second trial in 2015, according to the attorneys.
During the investigation, detectives found what they believed to be a bloody paw print from the family dog on the woman's pants at the crime scene in December 2011, according to the statement.
When the husband arrived at the Troy home, however, the family dog was in the backyard, deputies said. Investigators believed the person who killed Betsy Faria took the dog outside after she was stabbed, the probable cause said, and blood was cleaned up from the path between the victim and the patio door.
In January 2012, investigators hoped to prove their theory by using a 'Bluestar' chemical reagent to see if blood had been cleaned up from the scene of the killing, court documents said. Photos were taken at the scene. A reaction occurs when blood interacts with the reagent, officials said in court documents.
Photos were taken when the reagent was used, according to the probable cause statement.
This investigation led the husband to be indicted by a grand jury, the probable cause said.
During the high-profile trial, Merkel was asked what the photos showed. He replied 'absolutely nothing' and said the camera used to take the photos had malfunctioned, prosecutors said.
However, the camera did not malfunction and there were approximately 130 photos taken at the crime scene, deputies said.
During Faria's second trial, Merkel said his 'absolutely nothing' comment did not indicate that the photos showed nothing, but rather no chemical luminescence as a result of the chemical reagent, the probable cause said.
Three of the photos did show chemical luminescence, which indicates blood is present due to the reaction with the reagent, the probable cause said. This contradicted Merkel's statement.
None of those areas were marked and further tested by investigators, according to court documents. Instead, different pieces of the floor from where the chemical reaction occurred were cut out and removed from the home for testing, but there was no blood present on those pieces, prosecutors said.
'In contrast, the areas that did exhibit the most obvious signs of potential blood evidence were ignored entirely,' the probable cause statement said.
Now, Betsy Faria's friend, Pamela Hupp, is accused of murdering the woman, prosecutors said in a 2021 news conference posted by KSDK. Her trial is scheduled next year, the outlet said.
Merkel faces up to life in prison if convicted of perjury.
Troy is about a 55-mile drive northwest from St. Louis.