When Pam Hupp previously sat in interrogation rooms with investigators, she’d always appeared chatty and carefree, as per Dateline. But after her arrest for the murder of Louis Gumpenberger, she “clammed up.” Finding herself in handcuffs and on the wrong side of suspicion (like Russ Faria in 2011), Hupp grew wildly desperate. If murder didn’t solve her problems, she would have to try something else. She needed a final way out, which came to her in the form of an innocuous ballpoint pen.

After police officers briefly left the room, Hupp smuggled the writing implement from the table and into her waistband per video footage (via Fox 2 St. Louis). Then, she stroked both sides of her neck repeatedly, feeling for the pulse of her carotid arteries. Next, she asked to use the bathroom, escorted into the facility by a female officer. In the stall, a new drama began.

Hupp used the pen to puncture her wrists and throat countless times, leaving her skin a gruesome Swiss cheese patchwork. The cool façade had shattered, and the Midwestern Murderess finally appeared to understand the gravity of her situation. After police officers rushed into the bathroom, preventing further harm, she stood for a mugshot, thick bandages covering the self-inflicted holes in her neck. Considered “a key moment” by St. Charles County Prosecutor Phil Greenway, he argued Hupp finally showed some “consciousness of guilt” (via Fox 2 St. Louis).