stabbed to death in a century city parking garage. detective salaam abdul-rahman has seen enough cases to know that, in his line of work, murder and marriage go together like a horse and carriage. the ongoing fayed divorce, therefore, got his attention. acrimonious, nasty, bitter. mr. fayed was really upset with his wife, mrs. fayed. and so that marriage would bear much more scrutiny. investigators set about talking to friends and family to solve the mystery of pam s death. they needed to start with the story of her life. pamela had a spirit that was infectious. carol neve was pam s best friend. she was always happy. she had a personality that just sucked you in and kept you there. carol met pam 22 years ago. we were neighbors, and we did become best friends to the tune of every day we talked.
pamela and jim fayed s financial woes eased with their growing business success, but their relationship began to crumble under the weight of newfound wealth. here again is josh mankiewicz. jim and pam fayed had staked their claim in the online gold trading business. they began by buying old gold coins and selling them at a profit. then they expanded, setting up what was essentially a small bank, storing gold for customers and allowing them to borrow against it. the market grew, and so did the bottom line. pam s best friend, carol neve. they went to gold shows, trade shows in las vegas, san diego, l.a., do all the meet and greet kind of thing. pam was very good at that. she was very charming.
she was very fond of joey. had moya charmed his way into the fayeds life as a way to gain their trust? was this all part of a bigger plot to kill each of the owners and steal their gold? pam s best friend carol recalls how pam talked during the divorce. i was on the phone with pamela, and she was really upset. she felt like someone was following her in a truck she did not recognize. i said, are you sure? she says, it s been following me for quite some time. i said, who is it? she goes, i don t know. it s a guy. she kept looking and watching, and they turned off into a parking lot. at that point she could see that it was josé. and she says, why is jose following me? and i said, i don t know, pam. what the hell is going on? you need to call the cops and tell the cops. tina holland s last visit with pam was a week and a half before she was killed.
he was bankrolling it. no question. he commissioned this crime. and that s where the investigation began to lead us. that s where the evidence began to lead us. we knew clearly that he had an alibi for the actual stabbing. he s not the stabber. he s not the actual killer. you also knew he had probably a bigger motive than anybody else. there were always, in my mind, dual motives for james fayed to contract the murder of his wife. one was the divorce. but one was to silence who he thought was going to be a witness against him. pamela fayed. did he just give this hit man that he hired the money and say, go kill my wife? james fayed is a control freak. if he s anything, he wants to be in control at all times, which is why he didn t want his wife, pamela, doing anything having to do with transfer licenses. the same m.o. is what drove this contract killing. and investigators believe that jim fayed exhibited that
they were separated. pam urged jim to apply for the licenses. he appears to have been adamantly opposed to a move that would have essentially opened goldfinger s books to scrutiny by the federal government. pam decided she was not going to allow jim to roll the dice on their business. the business that had let pam live the life she s always wanted. pamela was a girl scout. she wanted to do it right. pamela knew that they were making plenty of money. they as a family, the fayed family, were flush. they didn t need to worry about nickels and dimes here and there. she was also aware, i believe, that at some point the federal government was going to start looking very closely at them. they couldn t continue building this business on this international scale without someone taking a look. and so pamela s idea was, let s do it right. let s cross our ts, let s dot our is. let s get the money licensing. her husband said absolutely not. he said absolutely not. but pam moved forward an