On December 27th, 2011, Russ Faria returned to his Troy, Mo., home from a night out at a friend’s house to find his wife Betsy dead on the floor. She had been stabbed more than two dozen times, a steak knife sticking out of her neck. It was a horrific scene. And for Faria, things were about to get even worse. Despite having a rock-solid alibi, Faria was soon charged with her murder. He would spend nearly four years in jail as the system failed him one step at a time — first the police, then the judge and prosecution and finally the jury. Despite this, it took Faria’s defense lawyer Joel Schwartz only a few hours to deduce who likely committed the murder.

The sensational Missouri case has been consistent true-crime fodder, and now Schwartz has written the definitive story, “Bone Deep: Untangling the Betsy Faria Murder” (Citadel Press), out now, with co-author Charles Bosworth Jr, as a “cautionary tale to anyone out there who says this can’t happen to them.”

Just after 5 p.m. on December 27, 2011, Russ Faria left his house and drove to a friend’s home in his St. Louis suburb to watch movies. Faria left at 9 p.m. and began the half-hour drive home, stopping at an Arby’s for dinner along the way. He arrived home around 9:40 p.m. to find Betsy — her body cold and stiff, indicating she’d been dead several hours. Russ was questioned for nearly a day by detectives, and despite protesting his innocence over and over again, was charged with the murder. The only real evidence against him was a pair of his slippers found in the house that appeared to have been dipped in Betsy’s blood.

A cousin hired Schwartz to represent Russ, advising that he look closely at Pam Hupp, a friend of Betsy’s who had been acting strangely. Hupp had driven Betsy home the day of the murder and was the last person to see her alive. In a plot twist so cliched it was worthy of “Columbo,” the 53-year-old Hupp had been named the beneficiary of Betsy’s life insurance policy four days before the murder. Schwartz quickly identified several inconsistencies in Hupp’s statements to the police. “It was painfully obvious to me that she was involved in this,” he says. But for some reason, the cops trusted Hupp, a mother of two.

At Faria’s 2013 trial, Schwartz was barred from introducing Hupp as a suspect, the judge ruling that none of the issues surrounding Hupp qualified as a “direct connection” to the murder. The four friends Faria had watched movies with testified to his whereabouts that night, as did video surveillance from stops he made and an Arby’s receipt found in his car. But it was not enough for the jury. Faria was found guilty, and he was ultimately sentenced to life plus 30 years.

“There was no alternate suspect put in front of them, so the jury figured it must have been him,” Schwartz says.

The defense lawyer filed an appeal and a new trial was granted in late 2015. Russ was found not guilty by a judge and set free.

In the meantime, Schwartz had been getting anonymous phone calls alerting him to discrepancies in Hupp’s testimony during the first trial, where she had been called as a prosecution witness. She’d claimed her mother had recently died of Alzheimer’s, but Schwartz discovered that her mother had, in fact, likely been pushed out a window to her death. Hupp was, again, the life insurance beneficiary.

At the end of Russ’ second trial, Schwartz warned that if Hupp was not prosecuted, she was likely to kill again.

And she did.

In August 2016, Hupp called 911 claiming she’d just shot an intruder in her home. Police arrived to find a man named Louis Gumpenberger dead on her floor, a clumsy note found in his pocket instructing him to kidnap Hupp and make her turn over “Russ’ money” — a reference to Betsy’s life insurance pay out.

Hupp’s claim of a random stranger attacking her quickly fell apart, and it turned out she’d recruited Gumpenberger for a staged kidnapping that she hoped to pin on Faria through the note in Gumpenberger’s pocket.

She was charged and sentenced to life. Last year in yet another twist, she was also charged with Betsy’s murder and is now awaiting trial.

The saga has been turned into a March NBC miniseries, “The Thing About Pam,” starring Josh Duhamel as Schwartz and Renee Zellweger as Hupp.

Russ has since collected on Betsy’s life insurance policy and was awarded more than $2 million from the police’s insurance. He works in a motorcycle shop — his passion — and has a new girlfriend.

“To say it’s all fine and dandy would be too strong,” says Schwartz. “However, he’s found what I would call peace.”