- I'm Kate Snow,
and this is
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
- We were definitely
really close.
**
People kept askin'
where my mom was,
and I couldn't
give an answer.
Just seemed wrong.
That was real, kinda...
stake in the heart.
- It was one of
the most baffling cases
investigators
had ever seen.
- This tops the charts
for most bizarre.
- No one can believe that
this actually happened.
- A single mom and
whip-smart computer whiz
who seemed to disappear.
- I started getting
text messages
saying that
she had quit her job.
- She had somethin'
down in Kansas.
- Left behind--
a puzzling computer trail.
- Emails and text messages.
So active on social media,
but nobody can locate her.
- She didn't
wanna be found.
- Exactly.
- A mom-turned-ghost.
Was she missing or hiding?
- I wanted to know.
- Taunts. Threats. Violence.
A deadly mystery that
would link three moms
and one man.
- You were the last one
to see her.
- It was as if
I'd already done somethin'
and he already knew it.
He was drillin' with
them policeman eyes.
- This was almost an obsession
to get this solved.
- A heart-stopping case of
jealousy, secret identity,
and murder.
- It's like
you're on edge.
What's gonna happen next?
**
- Hello and welcome to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
Working in the tech industry
came easy for Cari Farver.
Life sometimes did not.
The single mom was coping with
a debilitating mental illness.
Then came the morning
she simply vanished.
To investigators,
it looked like Cari herself
left a tantalizing
trail of clues.
Following it led them to
a digital trove of secrets
and the key to
unlocking the truth.
Here's Keith Morrison
with "Scorned."
**
- It was dark when
they started searching.
Dark and cold.
The 5th of December, 2015.
Just across the night-black
Missouri from Omaha.
Back and forth
went the chopper
as squad cars
prowled the park.
Big Lake Park, Iowa.
Looking for a shooter.
[phone ringing]
Looking for whoever shot her.
The woman who'd come out here
alone to clear her mind,
get that nemesis out
of her head, and instead,
was bleeding through a hole
shot clean through her thigh.
Oh, she knew
who did it, she said,
as they patched up
her wounded leg.
She knew all too well how deadly
that crazy woman could be.
She? Who was she?
That furious
woman scorned.
And what horrors
was she capable of
to eliminate
her rivals to win,
or punish the one man
she so desperately wanted?
The man who
didn't want her.
**
It began, as these
things often do,
on an innocent and ordinary day
in Omaha, Nebraska,
three years earlier.
The fall of 2012.
- I'm workin'.
I'm behind the counter.
I'm doin' 10 things.
- It happened in
an auto repair shop
to a mechanic
named Dave Kroupa.
- She walks in,
I see her, we meet eyes,
and just for a moment
I kinda stop and I go,
"Well, hello."
- He was working.
She wanted her
SUV repaired.
- And, you know, in the back
of my mind I'm thinkin'
"Wow, she's gorgeous."
But I'm at work.
I'm representin'
the company I work for.
That's off the table.
It's not a possibility.
- But did you detect
a little sort of signal
comin' back your way?
- I thought I did.
- And then, a few weeks later,
it seemed like fate.
Dave went on a dating website
and there she was.
Her profile.
Her picture.
Her name, Cari.
He started typing.
- I just said,
"Hey, I know you. Haha."
And she replied.
Same thing.
- And then, before long,
Cari came into
his shop again.
- Without sayin' it, there was
kinda some sparks flyin'.
We're both lookin' at each
other like we're both tryin'--
wantin' to say
somethin' and, uh--
and we did.
And we exchanged
phone numbers.
- They had dinner.
The food didn't matter.
- And we were very I would say
enthralled with each other.
- He invited Cari
back to his place,
and she agreed.
And that's when
something else happened.
Didn't seem
so important. Not then.
Not like it would later.
Just as they walked
into the apartment,
the doorbell rang.
It was Dave's
ex-girlfriend Liz,
here to pick up some things
she'd left behind
in his apartment.
Awkward.
But Cari just laughed.
Bowed out.
- She said,
"Ah. I get it.
"It's not a big deal.
I-I'm gonna go home.
"You call me when you're
done dealin' with this mess."
- So, Dave escorted
Cari to the door.
- And her and Liz passed
each other at that moment.
- Yeah?
- Uh, there were
no words spoken.
- Did it start then
at that moment?
Later, once Liz left
his apartment,
Dave called Cari.
- And, um, she invited me
out to her place,
which was like an hour drive
outside of town.
Cari, when I got
to her place,
we're there 20 minutes
making coffee, BSin'.
And of course, pretty soon
we're on the couch
and-and we're gettin'
a little closer.
Now at this point,
we haven't even kissed.
And, uh, she turns
to me and she said,
"Look. If we're gonna have
sex, that's all it is.
"Period.
"There's nothin'
more to it."
- Huh.
- And asked me,
"Are you good with that?
Is that gonna be a problem?"
And of course, my eyes lit up
and I'm like, ping,
I hit the Powerball.
- Because Dave felt
exactly the same way.
- As a man,
I want companionship,
so I'm always lookin'
for a girlfriend.
Uh, but never
a committed relationship.
- And you let them know that
this is the way it's gotta be.
- That was
the first conversation.
Yeah. Take it or leave it.
That's how it is.
- But with Cari?
He didn't have
to bring it up.
- It was all her and--
- Yeah.
- And we hit it off
right from there.
- Cari told him she was
a computer programmer.
Her office was close
to his apartment.
They met there often.
Made love. Talked.
- She was extremely
intelligent.
She was much
smarter than I am.
For instance, what she did
for a living, uh, programming.
I consider myself a little bit
of a computer nerd,
but compared to her, I didn't
even know what a computer was.
- Dave reconsidered
his no commitment rule.
A rule he'd broken before
with a woman named Amy Flora.
They had two kids together,
but it didn't last.
- After 12 years,
you would think
there would be some kind
of a proposal or something,
but like I said,
he's kind of
emotionless, so--
- He really didn't
wanna get married.
- No.
And I wanted to eventually
be married, you know?
- Well, I mean--
- I mean, every girl does.
Everybody wants their
fairytale wedding.
- Amy and Dave stayed friendly
for the sake of their kids.
And Amy knew about
Dave's other women.
Heard about Cari.
- Expected you would meet her
at some point if--
if it continued?
- Well, if it continued,
yeah, I would've liked
to have met her.
- But Amy didn't
meet Cari.
Not then.
No idea what was coming.
Early that
November of 2012,
Cari told Dave she had
a big project at work.
She'd stay over at his place
instead of driving home
to the country
every night.
Until they began their
workweek together.
And then, on Tuesday,
November 13th.
- I gave her a kiss on
the way out the door.
You know?
Like, "Hi.
"See ya later, honey."
That kind of thing.
You know, it was almost
like a-- that sort of
'50s TV show garbage.
- That doesn't sound like a guy
that's got no attachments.
- Well, I didn't
say "honey,"
but that's the way
it came across, you know?
- Yeah, okay.
All right.
- But she brought
that outta me.
That's why I say,
with Cari, it was potential.
That long term.
It might've been different.
- So, when you went off
to work that day,
you were in
a pretty good mood.
- Oh, yeah, yeah,
I was in a great mood.
I have this beautiful lady
who's gonna be in my house
when I got home.
I don't know who wouldn't
smile about that.
- Dave was at
his shop by 6:30.
Entirely unprepared.
And then.
- By 10 o'clock I receive
a text from her that says,
"Do you wanna
move in with me?"
or "Should-- We need
to move in together"
or something along those lines.
- Really?
- But I immediately
I texted her back
"No, I'm not int--
We've known each other 2 weeks.
"It's not gonna happen."
As soon as I text her back,
I get a text back
that says, "Fine.
"I don't ever wanna see
you again, uh, go away.
"I'm dating
somebody else.
"I hate you." On and on
and on and on and on.
- Weird.
- Very weird.
Very what is
goin' on here?
Uh, but I was at work.
It was very busy.
I didn't have time
for that nonsense.
Uh, so, in the back of my mind,
I'm thinkin', "Whew,
"I dodged a bullet there."
- Oh, but he didn't.
No. Now, it was
just beginning.
- Coming up.
Who was this mysterious
lady named Cari?
- So, this is the woman
from hell now.
- All of a sudden.
- She was about to vanish
in a very mysterious way.
**
- Dave Kroupa, the man who
liked his sex life uncommitted,
was confused.
The woman who'd seemed to
share his philosophy
had turned on him.
Was behaving like a woman
who expected something from him.
Like a woman scorned.
Suddenly, she
wanted to move in.
And when he refused,
she responded with
a nonstop staccato of angry,
often misspelled texts.
Cari.
Now, that name sounded like
his personal horror show.
So, this is the woman
from hell now.
- All of a sudden, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Or in the course
of a couple of hours.
- Wow.
Maybe to Dave in Omaha
that's how it seemed,
but an hour's
drive away,
there was quite
a different story.
Here in this tiny sweet
farming town called
Macedonia, Iowa.
- I think there's only
around 250 people
that live there now.
It's very--
It-It's just home.
- Home to Cari.
Cari Farver.
And where she was raised
by her step-father Mark
and her mother Nancy,
who would stick with Cari
through it all.
But of course,
they'd always known
there was something
different about Cari.
- She felt like she wanted
to do her own thing,
and sometimes that--
- That doesn't always go well.
- Always go well. Yeah.
- Yeah.
Thing is, Cari was smart.
Super smart.
School was easy.
But then, so were boys.
- Guys were just
drawn to her.
- And she liked it.
- Yes, she did.
- Cari!
[laughter]
- But there was something else
about Cari, said her friend,
Holly Drummond.
Brainy, yes, but...
she sometimes made
dubious choices.
Like when she was away at
college and there was this guy.
One of a parade of guys.
- She would constantly
talk about this night
where they were all dressed up
and it was midnight
and they were
walking in the streets
with a bottle
of champagne.
I mean, she made it
sound like--
She made it sound
like a romantic movie.
- Didn't last.
Even when Cari found
out she was pregnant.
- Did it come
as a surprise?
- Yes. Yeah.
I was just--
I knew what she was gonna
have to go through,
because I had been divorced
with-with children.
Young children.
- Yeah.
- And it's hard.
- Not easy.
She moved home,
took computer courses,
and she named
the baby Maxwell.
Everyone called him Max.
- She was such
a good mother.
But I know she had so much
on her plate, too, at that time.
- It's a lot to do.
- When she was goin' to school
and everything else.
But she did very well.
She held up very well.
- Except, that is,
for the mood swings.
The dreadful depressions.
- She just would go under
the covers and sleep
and she'd just-- you know,
she'd hibernate.
She'd-She'd close herself
off from everything.
- It's hard for a mother
to watch her daughter
go through that.
- Yeah. It is.
Trying to get it out
of her, you know?
What can I do?
And there's really nothing
that I can do or say.
- But it got better once
Cari was diagnosed
with bipolar disorder,
medication evented things out.
And Cari and Max settled
into an apparently happy
and successful life.
And then, that
inexplicable turn.
Cari had just started that
high tech job of hers in Omaha.
- She really
liked that job.
- What was she doing?
- She was computer
programming.
- And then, November 2012,
she took on that big project.
Max, who was
a teenager then,
he understood about
her long hours
and how she decided to stay
in the city for a few days.
Didn't ask about the man
she'd be staying with.
- I didn't know
Dave at the time.
I just had
heard of a Dave.
- Dave.
That's all her
family knew.
- She in a very
good place.
I mean, she had been
for a long time.
And, um...
I didn't think
too much about it.
- And so, that weekend,
Nancy picked up Max, and later,
Cari drove off to Omaha to
spend the week with Dave.
- She didn't text me
or anything that-that Monday.
And then, I started
getting text messages
saying that she was--
had quit her job,
she was going to Kansas
to live, and, um--
- What was it like
to get that?
- It was totally
off the wall.
- That was about
the same time
Dave was getting
those angry texts.
Though, Nancy had
no idea about that.
Anyway, Cari's news came as
a big surprise to Nancy.
Though to Max,
maybe not so much.
- 'Cause she had somethin'
down in Kansas
that was gonna be going
and interviewing for
after those
few days at work.
- His mom had mentioned
a possible job change.
She even discussed with him
staying with grandma
to finish high school.
And then,
early that weird week--
- I got a text saying, "Hey."
Uh, "I got
a second interview."
- But she'd be back from Kansas
on the weekend, she'd texted,
for a family wedding
at which Max was an usher.
But as the bride
walked down the aisle,
no sign of Cari.
- I was just like, okay,
she's just running late.
She'll be
at the reception.
She'll be there for the party
and everything.
But at the party I remember
probably every 5, 10 minutes
I was glancin' back
at the door.
Just hoping.
- Where is she?
- Yeah. Just wondering
where she was.
I just kept saying, "Oh,
she'll be here any minute.
Be here any minute."
Midnight got around and
she wasn't there and--
eh, I had--
I didn't know what
to think at that point.
- Unsettling doubts
about Cari's story.
Was she moving
or was she missing?
- I could just feel it
in my bones.
Something wasn't
right here.
**
- Long as he could
remember,
Max Farver believed
he knew his mom Cari
as well as anybody
possibly could.
- We were definitely
really close.
I was her second opinion
on most things.
- So, when Cari was a no-show
at the wedding,
Max knew something
was way off.
- I wasn't sure what
was going on, but it--
I just knew
somethin' was wrong.
- I could just feel
it in my bones.
There was something--
Something wasn't
right here.
- Nancy didn't tell
her grandson
about the truly
disturbing text
she'd received
from Cari.
This one didn't say
anything about a new job.
Instead, Cari texted
she broke up with her boyfriend
and was thinking about checking
into a mental hospital.
That'd scare you.
- Yes, it scared me
tremendously.
- By "boyfriend," did she mean
this mysterious Dave?
- Did you know how to reach
this guy or even--
- No, I didn't.
- What his last name was?
- I didn't know how to start
looking for her.
- So, what is that like?
- It's hell.
It's just, uh--
Frustration
and just helplessness.
- So, before dropping off
Max at the wedding,
she called the county
sheriff's office
to file a missing
person's report.
- They took down all
the information, of course,
and they couldn't--
they didn't really
offer too much.
- Well, I guess they thought,
what, she's a grown woman.
- Yeah.
- She can leave
if she wants to leave.
- Right.
- Nancy told the deputies
about Cari's struggles
with bipolar disorder.
And here's what they
told her, said Nancy.
- Well, she's probably
off her medicine
and, you know,
these things happen
and so, there's--
that happens a lot.
- Nancy tried calling,
but Cari just wouldn't
pick up.
She did respond to texts,
but sent mixed messages.
- I'm moving down
with this Dave.
I had no idea
who this Dave was.
- It was confusing.
Did she have some sort
of mental breakdown?
Cari quit her job
in Omaha.
Sent her company a text
to let them know
and texted her mom that she was
taking that job in Kansas
and moving away.
And has sold
her furniture.
She attached a photo
of a check from the buyer.
Cari wanted Nancy
to let the buyer pick it up
out in Macedonia
and take it away.
- And I said,
"Absolutely not."
I said,
"Either you call me.
"You come see me.
I'm not doing anything
until I hear you."
And that's when the nasty
texts started coming.
- What did she say then?
- That I was a bad mother.
And she said,
"I'm gonna take Max.
You're--
We're gonna leave."
- Cari texted Max, too,
and let him know.
- You're coming with me.
You have no choice.
I'm the adult here.
And my-- what I say goes.
- I'm just trying to
imagine what it was like
to be you in the middle
of that situation.
- It was, uh--
It was a bit scary
because we all thought that
someone might come at school
to try to get me.
Because the school would
legally have to let them--
- Yeah.
- Let me go with 'em.
- Yeah.
- Like if my mom showed up.
- Max was scared.
Had no idea what was
going on with his mom.
And he wanted to stay
with his grandparents.
- I've heard all of these
horror stories
about people having
these personality changes.
- Yeah.
- And going off the deep end.
And I thought, "I've got
to do something about Max.
I've got to
keep-keep him safe."
- Nancy applied for temporary
guardianship of Max.
- That must be so weird.
- Oh.
- Fraught.
- Yes.
And just wondering what
am I doing to my daughter
if-if we were doing this.
The lawyer said, "Now,
this is just temporary.
"Now, if she comes back,
you know,
you can always undo this."
I said okay.
- Meanwhile, surely the sheriff
could find her daughter.
Get some help.
She showed them Cari's texts
about the furniture.
The phone company said
they were coming
from a location in Omaha.
Officers went there.
No Cari.
Sergeant Jim Doty
and then-Corporal Ryan Avis
of the Pottawattamie County
Sheriff's Office
who joined the investigation
much later
said the next step
was to find the woman
who'd paid
for the furniture.
And her name was
Shanna Golyar.
- I called her.
Left a voicemail.
Which she returned that call
the next day.
- Shanna went by
her middle name, Liz.
And it turned out
that was the same Liz
Dave Kroupa once dated.
She lived in Omaha
with her two kids.
Liz told the cops that somebody
stole her checkbook
and she suspected
that somebody was the woman
she ran into
at Dave's place.
Liz gave the detectives
his contact information.
She's with him,
and then suddenly she goes
off the rails
and starts doing
weird stuff like this.
So, he must know
something, right?
- Yeah.
Definitely a person
you wanted to talk to.
- And by then, the story
Dave could tell the police?
Scary.
- Cari's latest lover
finds himself
in the hot seat.
Will investigators
believe the bizarre story
Dave Kroupa
is about to share?
- He was drillin' me
with them policeman eyes.
- You were the last one
to see her.
- It was as if
I'd already done somethin'
and he already knew it.
**
Welcome back to "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow.
Cari Farver hadn't
been seen in days.
Friends and family had
received several messages,
but it appeared
the single mom planned
to keep her whereabouts
a secret.
Her mother Nancy
was worried.
Was Cari experiencing
another bout of mental illness?
Investigators thought one person
in particular might know
and they were about
to pay him a visit.
Back to Keith Morrison
with "Scorned."
- Dave Kroupa was upset.
Maybe as upset
as he'd ever been.
Ever since he told Cari that
she couldn't move in with him,
she'd been texting and emailing
and saying awful things
and making his life
miserable.
He tired calling her,
but she didn't answer.
And then, a little more
than a week later,
the cops showed up
at his auto repair shop.
How did you find out
they were comin'?
They just showed up?
- Oh, yeah.
There was no warning.
- The detectives took him
outside for a talk.
- And he tells me, "Hey,
do you know Cari?"
My first thought is,
"Oh, that crazy one.
Yeah, what?" You know?
- Yeah.
- "When did you
see her last?"
"Oh, the morning of--"
- Yeah, uh-huh.
- And "Okay, so,
where is she now?'
"No idea."
- The detective didn't
seem to buy that.
- He was drillin' me
with them policeman eyes.
Them ones that are like
ah, you know,
you feel like you're
in the principal's office.
- "Where were you at
6:30 on that morning?" and--
- Yeah. Yeah, no,
I totally had the feeling--
- I mean, he was at your house.
- Yes.
- You were the last
one to see her.
- And that was how
he approached me.
Was as if I had already
done somethin'
and he already knew it
and it's time
to deal with it, you know?
And I was like, "Whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa.
Slow down."
- Dave tried to explain,
he said.
- "Hey, man.
I don't know where she's at,
but I've got nothin'
to do with it."
It's-- You know,
I'm back pedalin'
as fast as I can.
- Huh.
- I don't know where she's at,
and I don't wanna know
where she's at
at that point.
I just want her
to go away.
- Because,
Dave told the detectives,
Cari would not stop
messaging him.
He showed them his phone
and was adamant
he had not seen her
since the morning
he left her at his place.
Do you think
they believed you
when you said you didn't
know where she was?
- I--
100% they believed me.
- And then,
the strangest thing.
Cari started texting
the detective, too.
The detectives
texted Cari back.
- We can't stop
looking into it.
We need to locate you.
Uh, and the missing person
entry won't be taken out
until someone talks
to you in person
to where we know
you are okay.
- Did she respond to that?
- She said
it was pointless.
- She didn't wanna be found.
- Exactly.
- But the detective
got another text.
This one seemed ominous.
Who might that person be?
The detective had
a pretty good idea.
Dave showed them texts
in which Cari blamed Liz
for their breakup,
even though,
as he explained,
he and Liz weren't even
together when he met Cari.
Made sense that Cari
must have stolen Liz's
checkbook all right.
Maybe even forged that
check for five grand.
The detectives called Liz
right away and told her
she should file a report
with the Omaha PD.
It was their jurisdiction.
But before she got the chance,
Liz went to her garage
and there, scrawled on the wall,
she found the words
"whore from Dave."
Had to have been Cari.
All of it was so strange,
thought the detectives.
- Very out of
the ordinary.
- Yeah, like maybe she'd had
a breakdown or something.
Had a psychotic
episode and--
- That would be
the only answer.
- To the police in Omaha,
Cari was now
a suspected stalker.
But back home in
Pottawattamie County, Iowa,
she was still a missing person
with a very worried family.
Cari's mother heard
about the threatening texts,
the harassment,
the police reports
filed against her daughter.
To her, it didn't seem
like Cari at all.
And it made her wonder.
How serious were the police
about finding her daughter?
- I got a little callous
towards the authorities,
thinking that--
I didn't think they were doing
quite as m-- what they
should've been doing. But--
- Did you get the feeling
you just wanna get in there
and storm the barricades
and make something happen?
- Yeah.
But again, I didn't know
how much I could do.
And I-I didn't know
where to start.
- Cari had been gone
for almost 2 weeks.
Thanksgiving a day away.
Nancy sent Cari
a message on Facebook.
Cari didn't respond
and didn't show up
for Thanksgiving dinner.
Less than a month later,
Nancy's ex-husband,
Cari's father,
died of cancer.
Cari didn't come
to the funeral.
Instead, she sent
a message on Facebook.
And just a few days
before that,
she posted on Facebook...
What in heaven's name
was going on?
Nancy called the detectives
who called Dave
who swore no way
he was engaged to Cari.
He said he hadn't
even seen her,
but still heard
from her constantly.
A hail of texts and emails
that was only getting thicker.
- I would get
50, 60 a day.
- Make you wanna change
your phone number, wouldn't it?
- I did that
a couple of times.
- You did?
And they still kept comin'?
- They did.
- Occasionally, Cari's texts
seemed almost normal.
But mostly, the emails
and messages were angry rants
about perceived
romantic rivals.
Liz Golyar in particular.
And then,
with a shudder,
Dave realized
Cari did see him.
She seemed to be
watching his every move.
- It was very common for me
to get messages, emails,
or whatever that say,
"Oh, I see you
through your window.
You're doing this."
And I'd go,
I am doin' this.
Okay great.
And I'd haul ass outside
and go lookin' for somebody.
Just somebody knows
what I'm doin'.
- Even more disturbing,
Cari messaged Dave
that she'd taken
his extra apartment key
and had been coming and going
when he wasn't there.
Liz got unsettling
emails, too.
Attached to the email--
a photo to prove
Cari was there.
Eventually, the messages
got threatening.
Cari wrote Dave a note
claiming she'd kidnapped Liz.
Attached was this photo.
A woman bound.
Couldn't see her face,
but was that Liz?
- I had told her,
"BS. That's a crock of crap.
I don't believe you. Go away.
Leave me alone."
- Through it all,
Cari remained invisible.
Even after she texted Dave
she was moving
into an apartment
building nearby.
Dave told the cops,
of course.
They went looking
for Cari.
- And the building number
was correct
but the apartment number
did not exist.
- Cari was still
nowhere to be found.
But near the complex,
Dave did find something
that belonged to Cari.
- The danger escalates.
- It was like,
what in the hell?
- Into something deadly.
- It's like you're on edge
as to what's gonna happen next.
**
- Big snow in Omaha
that winter of 2012-'13,
the winter Cari Farver's texts
were driving Dave Kroupa crazy.
Blizzards were nothing
compared to them.
And worse, said Dave,
the skin-crawling feeling
that she was stalking him,
spying on him,
but always, like a ghost,
when he looked, she was gone.
Then one day, about two months
after it started,
Dave was driving home
from his shop.
- And I'm comin'
through the parking lot,
and I notice
the truck there,
because it still
had all the snow on it.
And when I got up close,
I'm like,
"Oh, it's an Explorer.
Oh, it's the right color. Hmm."
So I called the
sheriff and said,
"I'm pretty sure
I found her truck."
- He was right.
It was Cari's SUV,
still half-buried
in the snow.
- They impounded it.
We had a crime scene
tech process it,
and, uh, it was
really clean.
- They did a thorough
investigation, right?
- Yeah, they did.
They dusted it for prints,
and they found a fingerprint
inside and recovered that.
- The fingerprint was found
on a mint container
in the cup holder
of the SUV.
They ran the print through
the national database.
No hits.
But if Cari wasn't
using her SUV,
at least certainly
not daily,
her presence was
as unavoidable as ever,
what with the texts
and emails, graffiti,
threatening photos sent to
both Dave Kroupa and Liz Golyar.
County detectives made sure
to do a phone dump
from both
of their devices
to preserve the evidence
and perhaps figure out
where Cari was.
There was even a link to
a fake obituary for Liz.
Then, minutes later.
Trying to enlist you...
- Oh, yeah.
- ...in her
scheme to kill Liz.
- It totally-- Yeah.
- And her kids.
- Totally. Yeah.
Yeah, that was a-a very
interesting read
the first time
I read that.
It was like, oh, my--
what in the hell?
- Cari didn't seem to realize
that her ongoing harassment
was actually pushing Dave
and Liz back together.
You compared notes on the
harassment you were getting?
- Oh, we'd spend hours
talkin' about it,
showin' each other
texts and emails we got.
And, yeah, it was--
- Kind of comforting each other.
You--
- Yeah.
- 'Cause that's-- Who else
would understand, right?
- Exactly. Nobody else
did understand.
- By now, Dave and Liz were
regulars at the Omaha PD,
filing one complaint after
another against Cari,
like the time
they reported
that Cari had broken
Dave's apartment window.
And that's when
Detective Chris LeGrow
stepped in
to investigate.
- He says,
"Yeah, it's her.
"She's done this
to me before."
Um, he identifies
a photo of her.
Shows me, you know,
some text messages
that she had
made a text
referencing the fact that
she broke out his window.
- LeGrow could see the
attacks were escalating
from angry texts
to theft
and then vandalism
and threats of physical harm.
He obtained an arrest
warrant for Cari Farver,
not that he had much
hope of finding her.
He knew Cari was
a computer expert,
probably using software
to disguise the phones
and computers
her messages came from.
- I thought well,
maybe--
This must be some kind
of avenue she's utilizing,
um, because, um, it--
just nothing's there.
We can't find her.
- Weeks passed,
and each time
Dave and Liz were hit
with an even more
outrageous barrage,
LeGrow would look again
and again not find Cari.
And yet, it all seemed to
be leading somewhere bad.
Were Dave and Liz afraid?
- Oh, yes.
It's not so much you're
terrified of the individual,
but it's like
you're on edge
as to what's gonna
happen next.
- And sure enough,
what happened next
was terrifying.
Early Saturday morning,
August 17th,
Liz called Dave,
frantic.
- "My house burned down.
Oh, my God.
"It's that crazy person Cari
stalkin' me again."
- Wow. Liz had been in
the middle of moving out.
She and her kids were already
sleeping at her new place,
but she went back to the old
place that Saturday morning
to pick up more
of their things.
And instead, she had to call
the Omaha Fire Department.
They responded
right away,
and later, so did
Detective LeGrow.
- The inside of the house
was pretty charred
and burned and the--
smoke damage.
- A serious fire. Big damage.
- Sufficient. Yes.
Really, it could've ended up
burning down the house,
uh, but, uh, just didn't
quite get to that point.
- But it was deadly enough.
Liz had two dogs,
one cat, and a pet snake.
All were still
in the house.
All of them
were found dead.
Neighbors across the street
said they saw a woman
in a car parked outside
Liz's house
a few weeks
before the fire.
Detective LeGrow showed
them a photo of Cari.
The neighbors said
they couldn't be sure,
but she had the same
general appearance.
But an email to Dave made
no secret of who did it.
And later,
Cari to Liz.
- Once you get into, uh,
situations like arson
or threats to
an individual's life
or those around them,
their children,
the ex-boyfriend.
Certainly, you're gonna take
that much more serious.
- Suddenly, the case
against Cari
looked very serious
indeed.
But still, like smoke from
the fire, she vanished.
- What I did was try
and find some way of so--
seein' if somebody
saw her,
uh, and again, came
up with nothing,
over and over again.
Nothing.
- By this time, said Dave,
he was afraid
she'd try to attack
his kids, too.
What did she say when she
threatened your kids,
for example?
- Oh, it was somethin'
along the lines of "slit your
children's throats."
- Wow.
- Yeah.
That's pretty hard to read.
- It took a toll, said Dave.
- For a while there,
I was drinkin' heavily,
which is not me.
- And you bought a gun.
- Sure. Yeah. Yep.
- Why?
- For my safety and
my children's safety.
For just protection in general,
'cause I didn't know.
- So Dave and Liz kept
watch in the city,
wary, fearful,
while out in Macedonia,
Cari's family was coping
with a whole different
set of emotions--
emptiness, grief,
and a terrible
gnawing uncertainty.
Nancy had sent several
pleading messages.
"Come home."
For a parent,
for a mother,
I don't know how-how--
How do you characterize
this episode in your life?
How do you talk about
those feelings
and make sense of them?
- There was no
making sense of it.
Uh, total loss.
- What happened
to Cari Farver?
And why?
- News like a lightning bolt
for a family in anguish.
Someone claimed
to have seen Cari.
- My heart was just
racing like crazy.
**
- Where was Cari Farver?
Everyone wanted to know,
especially her family.
What was it like at
Christmastime without her?
- That was hard.
That's hard.
- Christmas was once magic
for Max here in Macedonia,
a celebration of his amazing
bond with his mother.
The little things,
like their family's
gift-opening traditions.
At our house,
instead of everyone
just kinda goin' at once,
we go by age and
do rounds at Christmas.
And just going from me to
grandma just seemed wrong.
- Well, it was wrong.
And you kinda had to
bottle it up, didn't you?
- Kinda.
- He didn't show his emotion
too much to me,
'cause he could--
he knew that I was, um--
- You were worried.
- I was really worried.
But I found out from his
girlfriend's mother
that he would go over to her
house after school and stuff,
to his girlfriend's house,
and, um, her mother
told me
that he did a lot of crying
at their house, and...
that bothered me,
of course.
- There had been
a sudden bit of hope
after that first Christmas
without Cari.
In April 2013,
the phone rang.
On the line was a man.
- Saying that Cari was
at this, uh,
a homeless shelter
in Omaha,
and that we were
to go pick her up.
- What was happening
in here when you heard?
- Oh, I-- Just flutters.
I mean, I-- My heart was
just racing like crazy.
- The shelter was
about an hour away.
Nancy, who had neither
seen her daughter
nor heard her voice
for months,
was too wrought up
to drive,
so she asked her
brother to take her.
- Oh, I was so tense,
and it was just,
you know, tryin' to catch
your breath and just--
- Did you rehearse
what you'd say
once you saw her?
- Yeah. Oh,
"Where have you been?"
Yeah, and I--
You know, it's--
"I don't care where
you've been. You're home."
- An investigator
met Nancy at the shelter.
He had a photo
of Cari with him.
- The investigator went into
the-the shelter
and showed the picture
and wanted to know if there had
been anybody there like her,
and they said
she hasn't been here.
- What's that like?
- Well, then, uh, you know,
then, your hopes
are dashed again.
You just think,
"Where can she be?"
- It's a feeling that
comes with realizing
you're on a wild goose chase.
- Yes, I went home,
and I thought, I can't
live with this anymore.
This is just too much.
- Again, Nancy
messaged Cari.
No response.
But then, a Facebook
post weeks later.
Then, there were
posts like this one.
Nancy had to wonder.
maybe it was
self-delusion,
but these messages just
didn't sound like Cari.
- Because my daughter
was so meticulous
about grammar and spelling.
- Yeah.
- And the way it sounded--
- And this stuff
was like what?
- Oh, it was just garbage.
It was just--
- Sort of chaotic.
- Yes. It was chaotic,
and it was just--
The language that was used
and everything else,
Cari wouldn't have
used any kind of language.
It looked-- Definitely.
- Un-Unless she had become
a different sort of person.
- Right. Yeah.
So, I-- You know,
and that, too,
I'm thinking,
is this the case?
- Had her daughter
had a total breakdown?
Or what if Cari's
disappearance
was not what
it seemed to be?
- Dave buys another gun
that soon goes missing.
Could Cari be behind it?
- She's still active
and sending text messages,
sending pictures.
- Or maybe it
wasn't Cari at all.
Soon, police would be
investigating
a whole new suspect.
**
- Welcome back to "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow.
Cari Farver had vanished.
Investigators suspected
the single mom
was waging a secret
campaign of terror
against her ex, Dave Kroupa
and his ex, Liz Golyar.
What started with taunting
texts had escalated to arson
and death threats.
Now, events were about to take
an even more dangerous turn,
leaving one of the players in
this twisted lover's triangle
in grave jeopardy.
Here's Keith Morrison
with "Scorned."
- Cari Farver's family was
desperate for answers.
No one had seen or
spoken to her in months.
Yes, there were texts
and Facebook messages,
but somehow, they just
didn't sound like Cari,
at least not to her mother,
who was beginning to suspect
her daughter may have
been the victim
of some kind of crime.
What if Cari
was kidnapped?
What if someone
stole her identity?
She asked the
police about that.
What did they say?
- And they said,
"Yeah, we-- Well,
we'll check it out."
You know, that
kind of thing.
- Nothing came of it.
But after Cari's father
died, Nancy's ex-husband,
she had this
weird dream.
- He came to me very vividly
in the dream and said, um--
He said, "Don't worry, Nancy.
She's with me."
I know that sounds silly,
but that's when
I knew that, uh--
'Cause I knew she
wouldn't just vanish.
- Max was looking for
answers his own way.
About a month after Nancy
went to the shelter in Omaha,
Max sent his mom
a message on Facebook.
That was it.
And then, the next day,
Cari responded.
Max messaged back.
Things only
she would know.
- Yeah, yeah, things
only she would know.
- Max asked...
And what was her response?
- Nothing.
I-I never got a response
to that one.
- Which meant what?
Was that his
not-in-her-right-mind mom
or could his grandma
be right,
that someone had
kidnapped Cari?
No way of knowing,
really.
And the messages
kept coming.
Like this one,
for Cari's mom.
And then, the following
year, for Mother's Day--
Nancy, frustrated,
replied...
Cari never called.
For Nancy and Max, the anguish
of missing Cari never stopped.
And meanwhile,
all Dave Kroupa wanted
was to escape her.
In February 2015,
Dave moved from Omaha
to Council Bluffs, Iowa,
across the river.
His kids lived there
with Amy Flora,
and he wanted to spend
more time with them,
and he hoped Cari
wouldn't find him there.
He bought another gun,
just in case,
and after about three years
of relentless harassment,
things finally seemed
to be quieting down
for Liz and Dave.
There weren't as many
messages from Cari.
She seemed to
be fading away.
And as that happened,
Liz and Dave saw each other
less and less, too.
There was just one
rather scary thing.
That gun Dave bought
for protection,
the one he kept hidden high
in a closet disappeared.
And you're the only
guy in that apartment?
- Right. I'm the only one
livin' there.
Now my mind's racin'.
There's no forced entry.
The doors are all
shut and locked.
The windows are shut.
- What did you think?
- I didn't know what
the hell to think.
- Meanwhile, in
Pottawattamie County, Iowa,
where Cari Farver lived
before she became a mysterious
and dangerous digital persona,
her disappearance was
more office chatter
than active case.
That's when the Detective
Sergeant Jim Doty
and Corporal Ryan Avis
got hooked on it.
- We'd heard some stuff,
you know,
just, you know,
water cooler talk,
I guess,
about the case.
And, uh, it was
somethin' that--
- Somethin' about this
strange, crazy woman.
- Yeah.
- It-It-It piqued our---
- It was interesting.
- It piqued our interest,
and so we requested
to take a look at it.
- That was April, 2015,
more than two years after
Cari's reign of terror began.
The file was
huge by then,
a bizarre digital
house of mirrors.
And so, Doty and Avis
decided to sort things out,
beginning with
a very simple question
police had never
really considered before,
though her family
certainly had.
Was Cari Farver
really the vengeful woman
she seemed to be,
or did she even exist?
- Thought the smart idea was
not to have tunnel vision
on any direction.
So Ryan worked it as
if Cari's still alive,
and he was gonna work it
until he came to a dead end.
I was gonna work it
like she was not alive,
uh, because there's-there's
things that lead us
to maybe both conclusions.
You know, she's still active
and sending text messages,
sending pictures.
- She certainly seemed alive.
- So, maybe she's alive,
but she's also missed so
many significant events
and hadn't physically
been seen by anybody.
- And we started from scratch.
Started readin'.
- Reviewing all
the old material.
- Mm-hmm.
- Callin'.
- Reading all the reports.
Lookin' through those
phone downloads.
Uh, listenin' to any interviews
that had been recorded.
Just divin' in.
- Of course, they
spoke to Dave Kroupa.
No doubt in his mind
Cari was alive and crazy.
- He was, uh, transparent.
He gave us access to his
whole email account.
- 11,000 emails that he
had saved over the years.
Could be more.
- Wow.
But that wasn't
all they had.
Right there in the file was
a wholesale dump of material
from Liz Golyar's
cell phone.
So they were learning a lot
about both Dave and Liz.
They'd been immersed
in all that for months,
but hadn't interviewed
Liz yet,
when in the office one day--
pure coincidence.
- I was in the hallway,
uh, talking with
a county attorney,
and another investigator
was walking down the hall
with Liz to his office.
- Wow.
- And it-- To me, it was
like I saw a famous person,
because I knew
everything about her.
And she was there to
file a harassment report.
- But this was odd.
Her complaint
wasn't against Cari.
It was someone else.
- Amy Flora?
That's, uh, the mother
of Dave's children.
- Wait. Amy?
Not Cari?
First, Detective Avis did a
kind of psychic double take,
and then, he asked if
he could be the one
to interview Liz.
Liz told Detective Avis
that her on again/off again
relationship with Dave
was off again,
but ever since their most
recent split,
Dave's ex Amy had been
stalking her on Facebook,
and she was very worried
because...
And that, said Liz,
is when she suddenly
realized that she and Dave
had been played for fools.
For three years,
she'd believed Cari
was the woman
behind all the threatening
messages,
the harassing graffiti,
the deadly fire that
killed her pets.
But suddenly, it was like
a light went on, said Liz.
It wasn't Cari at all.
That scary, awful
online villainess,
the woman responsible
for all the trouble
had to be Amy Flora,
Dave's ex,
the mother
of his children.
Diabolical.
But think about it,
said Liz.
Amy was the one who so
desperately wanted Dave.
She had the motive.
But Cari?
Not really.
Head spinning,
Detective Avis
made some notes,
told Liz he'd do what he
could to help her out,
and no surprise, the very
next evening, December 5th,
Liz felt like she needed
some time alone to think.
She drove out to
Big Lake Park,
took a walk along
the trail there,
sat down on a bench--
quiet, alone,
in the gathering
cold and dark.
And that's when
it happened.
The deafening bark
of a gun
and the pain tearing
through her thigh.
- A shooter on the loose,
and the prime suspect?
- All I heard was,
"Open up. Police."
And two officers
with guns drawn--
- Pointing at you?
- Yes.
**
- It was dark when
the Council Bluffs PD
roared out to
Big Lake Park,
found a wounded and
bleeding Liz Golyar,
packed her off
to the hospital
while the chopper
trained down a searchlight
and ground-based cops
scoured the
paths and bushes.
So somebody on the
park on foot and what?
Armed and dangerous?
- Yes.
- While other cops searched
for the shooter,
Detective Matthew Kuhlmann
checked on Liz at the hospital.
- You could tell that she--
you know, she was in pain.
- Yeah. I imagine.
- Obvious wound to her leg.
- But Liz was lucky.
The bullet went clean
through her leg,
missed bones
and arteries.
It could've been
much worse.
She told the detective
what happened.
- She says she, uh, came out
here to clear her mind
and she walked out to
a bench and sat down.
And then, a female who she
believed to be Amy Flora--
- Uh-huh.
- Came up behind her,
stuck a gun to her back,
told her to get
on the ground,
and then shot her
in the leg,
and then ran off.
- A few minutes later,
a city police task force
surrounded Amy's apartment.
- And I'd kinda seen
somebody lean against my,
um, building and I
said, "Who's there?"
And all I heard
was, "Open up. Police."
So I opened the door,
and they had two officers
with guns drawn.
- Pointing at you?
- Yes. Yeah.
- What did they say to you?
- Um, they had said that
I was accused of shooting Liz.
- They searched
her home,
and later, sat her down
in an interview room
and hooked her up to a
polygraph machine,
asked her questions like
this one, among others.
Did you go to
Big Lakes Park that day?
- Um, no.
- Amy also denied that she
shot Liz, again and again.
But she failed
the polygraph.
Still, something
didn't add up.
When that local detective
arrived at Amy's place
right after the shooting,
he felt the hood of her car.
Ice cold.
Hadn't been driven
for a while.
And the neighbor said Amy
was home all afternoon.
So was Amy so nervous
she blew the polygraph,
or was something else
going on?
Detective Avis went to see
Liz at the hospital,
his recorder rolling.
Seemed like the
friendly cop.
- Or the dumb one.
I'll be whatever
she wanted,
as long as she kept
tellin' us information.
- Wait, what?
Avis was playing dumb,
he said,
to pump Liz
for information,
because he and his partner
had a strong suspicion
about who
really shot her.
A truly shocking idea.
Something beyond devious.
- She shot herself,
is what I thought.
- Liz shot herself?
That sounded crazy.
Or maybe a certain
kind of crazy.
Remember, to help
catch Cari Farver,
Liz had given the police
her cellphone,
and here's what
Detectives Doty and Avis
found on that phone--
A photo of
Cari Farver's SUV,
which didn't make
any sense at all because--
- We looked at the date
that was taken,
and it was taken on
Christmas Eve of 2012.
- Wasn't that when her
car was actually missing?
- Yeah, it hadn't been recovered
'til January of 2013.
- Mm-hmm.
- So we thought,
that's-that's weird that
the police couldn't find it.
Dave didn't know
where it was.
But somehow, Liz was able
to take a picture of it.
- But that wasn't all.
Remember that threatening
photo Cari emailed to Dave
of a woman bound
and duct taped?
That photo was
linked back to Liz,
which made them wonder,
was it possible those wild
and scary electronic messages
all sent in Cari's name
were really sent by Liz?
Tricky, even for
a computer whiz
to nail that bit of Jell-O
to the wall.
- It's beyond our expertise,
and that's what we--
- Well, I was gonna say.
How-How well do you know
computers and social media
and all of that nonsense?
- We know how to pick up
a phone and call Tony Kava
and tell him that he's got a
lot of information to look at.
- Tony Kava? Who's he?
Your cave.
- By day, I do IT work,
and I've done that,
um, for about 15 years,
and then, uh, by
night, I fight crime, so...
[laughter]
- You sound
like a superhero!
Anthony Kava's day job
was IT supervisor
for Pottawattamie County.
But at night,
for a dollar a year,
he's a reserve
sheriff's deputy.
I mean, how much stuff did
you have to go through?
- It was, um, it was terabytes
worth of information.
Uh, maybe about
three dozen email accounts,
a dozen Facebook accounts,
and a number
of different apps.
- And in his tiny office,
Kava sat hour after hour,
late into the night,
deciphering enormous amounts
of digital data.
- It might take her five minutes
to create a fake email account.
It might take me,
you know, 15 hours
to prove that
it's actually her.
- Among those many accounts
was a YouTube account
with this video.
- The title of the video is
"Husband's Cheating Place,"
and that video showed the
apartment of Dave Kroupa.
- But the IP address where
that video was uploaded
was where Liz lived.
- So, again, it was another
arrow pointing at Liz.
- Painstakingly,
arrow by arrow,
Anthony Kava
compiled the evidence.
His conclusion?
Every one of those
threatening emails and texts
and Facebook posts
and YouTube videos
linked right back
to Liz Golyar.
Meanwhile, Detectives Doty
and Avis busied themselves
with good old fashioned
earth-bound evidence.
Remember that one
unidentified fingerprint
found on a mint container
in Cari's otherwise
spotless SUV?
- And we asked our, uh,
crime scene tech,
"Hey, could you compare
that fingerprint
"to the known prints
of Liz?
"See what you come up with."
- It was a match.
- This lady who should've
had very little interaction
with Cari shouldn't--
had no reason to ever
be in her vehicle.
- Only met her in passing...
- Yeah?
- ...one time, but now her
fingerprint is in her car.
- Liz in Cari's SUV.
Liz impersonating
Cari online.
There was no logical
explanation for it unless...
- We think Liz may
have been involved
with making
Cari disappear.
- A case about to dive right
through the looking glass.
And on the other side?
[scoffs]
Hard to believe.
- A seismic shift
in the investigation.
Can detectives turn the
tables on their new suspect
and beat her at
her own game?
- Why else would you
disguise yourself as Cari
if you weren't
responsible for it?
- What had really
happened to Cari?
Police hatch
a bold new plan
to finally get to
the bottom of it all.
- I'm Investigator Doty.
I work here for the
Sheriff's Office.
**
- By the time these two
county detectives started
looking into the strange
case of Cari Farver
and all those jealousy-fueled
texts and emails and threats
and arson, Cari's son Max
was getting ready for
high school graduation.
He hadn't seen his mom
in three years.
But always the optimist,
he decided to try one more time
to reach her
on Facebook.
- I was-- At that point, it was
just a last-ditch effort
just hoping something
would happen.
- When she didn't respond,
how did that feel?
- It-- I-I wasn't
really surprised
'cause, like I said,
I knew it wasn't her.
- Max and Nancy had
suspected for months
that all those digital rants
were not actually from Cari.
And they didn't know it yet,
but Detectives Jim Doty
and Ryan Avis agreed
with them.
The detectives already had
proof Liz was impersonating
Cari online.
But they also suspected
something much darker.
Remember, another part
of their investigation involved
this basic question--
was Cari Farver alive or dead?
- Her father died.
- Yeah.
- And she didn't
go to the funeral.
Missed her son's birthday
and all these things.
I mean, it didn't take Ryan
very long at all
to come to a dead end where
he-he couldn't find anything
to show that she was alive.
- No.
- Suddenly, Cari Farver looked
not like a villain,
but like the real victim.
And the woman who claimed
she was the victim, Liz Golyar,
looked like the prime suspect
in Cari's disappearance.
- Because why else would you
disguise yourself as Cari
if you weren't responsible
for it?
Why would you be
in Cari's vehicle
if you weren't responsible
for it?
- All of that is so
counterintuitive
and so bizarre that, you know,
you wouldn't be expected
to believe such a thing.
- No.
- It was stunning, really.
Liz apparently impersonating
Cari for years.
Sending thousands of texts
and emails in her name.
But now, they had
a bigger question
and a much
bigger problem.
- I guess part of the worry
was that if-- even if we could
prove that it's Liz sendin'
all the stuff out as Cari,
well, that doesn't
prove murder.
- Murder? Yes.
Sergeant Doty
and Corporal Davis believed
that Liz killed Cari
out of jealousy.
Impersonated Cari in order
to win Dave back,
then tried to frame his
ex-partner Amy for everything.
Even going so far as to set
her own house on fire,
kill the family pets,
and shoot herself in the leg.
Pretty wild stuff.
But could they prove it?
- We did s-- need
somethin' more.
So, we still weren't quite sure
how to get to that point.
- And then, Liz herself,
by accusing Amy of shooting her,
gave them
their big idea.
- And that's when
we introduced Jim to Liz.
- I'm Investigator Doty.
I work here for
the Sheriff's Office.
- Little over a week after
the shooting in the park,
Liz arrived at
the sheriff's station
wearing her work uniform.
- I told ya I was lookin'
into a missing person's case
briefly on the phone.
- He told her there was
a break in the case.
- There are some-- been some
remains that have been located.
- Okay.
- It was a ruse,
of course.
- We're waitin' on the lab
results to make a positive ID,
but the initial indication,
these remains are Cari.
- Okay.
- Meanwhile, said Detective
Doty, he was hoping Liz
could help establish
a timeline.
Like when was the last time
Liz saw Cari?
Well, that was easy,
said Liz.
One brief encounter
when Liz went unannounced
to Dave's apartment
back in 2012.
- I didn't know he was dating
anybody else at the time.
- Mmm-hmm.
- So, uh, she came out
and I was going in.
- Mmm-hmm.
- And she made a smart comment
to me.
- What'd she say to you?
- Called me a bitch.
- Okay. Okay.
- And it wasn't a big deal.
I didn't really care
at the time, I just wanted
to get my stuff, and then I left
and went home.
- Okay, that's the only time
you've ever seen her in person?
- She told Detective Doty
that it was Dave who blamed Cari
for all those harassing messages
over the years,
but just as she had told
Detective Avis, she now thought
perhaps Amy was really the one
behind it all.
- She was with him
for 12 years.
And she still goes in and out
of his life all the time.
So.
- Yeah.
So, you think she could've
been the person that did
some of that stuff
to you?
- I-I'm just saying,
as another person who would
be possessive of Dave,
it would be her.
So, I mean, I wouldn't
put it past her.
- Detective Doty
pretended to agree.
- I'm thinkin' if she was
bold enough to go
and then shoot you, okay?
She could easily be bold
enough to have done
somethin' to Cari.
- Of course, he said,
he'd need to prove it.
- We have messages from her
saying, "Hey, I did this"
or "I did that,"
you know,
I could easily start
buildin' that case.
- Right.
- We wanna build
a case against Amy.
We wanna get Amy
thrown in prison.
Which we were hopin'
was music to her ears.
- And apparently, it was.
Liz agreed to help
with the investigation
and she limped away.
- And she became
a little deputy for you.
- Yeah.
- No telling what Liz
might come up with next.
Liz forwards emails
and propels the investigation.
**
- When Cari Farver
never returned
to Little Macedonia,
Iowa back in 2012,
cops and neighbors alike
seemed all too
willing to believe
she simply lost her mind.
Left her son with
her mom and split.
- In this small community
where she's from,
they all kinda
believed that too
and Nancy never could
stand up and argue.
- Nancy felt lonely indeed.
Until one day, Detective Doty
knocked on her door.
- I was a little bit
standoffish because--
- Been down
that road before.
- Right. Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Finally, he said
to me-- he said,
"Well, I want you to know
that I don't think
"she left on her own."
And I tell ya,
my attitude
just changed.
- The very thing
she'd suspected.
They saw what you
had seen all along.
- Right.
- Yeah.
- So, then the-y--
then the investigation
really got going.
- An investigation
as unusual
and convoluted as
the apparent crime,
in which an eager Liz Golyar
would try to prove
that her rival Amy
killed Cari.
Of course, all the while,
the detectives knew
Amy was innocent.
But they let Liz think
they believed otherwise.
- If she made any real
threatening statements
or inferred that
she did anything to Cari.
'Cause that is
like gold to me,
if we had somethin'
like that.
- Okay.
- And what do you know.
Within days, Liz began
forwarding them emails from Amy.
Although the misspellings
looked awfully familiar.
- When they first
started comin' in,
they were pretty vague.
- So, Detective Doty
spoke to Liz again.
They needed more,
he told her.
Liz said she'd try.
So, Liz said she sent
this email to Amy.
According to Liz,
Amy responded.
Then, she wrote this.
Sort of detail
a killer would know.
To see that it was working,
though, must've been enormously,
uh, exciting.
- It felt good.
- Couple of days later,
Dave Kroupa called
Detective Avis to say
he'd just had a disturbing
conversation with Liz.
Dave was understandably
shaken up.
Avis couldn't tell him much,
but he did drop a big hint.
Dave took his advice.
Moved in with Amy so they
could protect each other
and their kids.
But that outraged Liz.
She called the police
to say so.
Detective Doty told her
he still needed more evidence.
So, Liz gave them access
to her email account.
And over the next month,
emails came pouring in.
Allegedly from Amy,
of course.
All that read like
a detailed confession. But--
- We had to find evidence
that would match
what she's
tellin' us to confirm
that what she's
tellin' us is true.
- The chilling clue that might
finally unlock this mystery.
- Took out the passenger,
pulled off the fabric of that,
and there's a dark red stain
right on that seat.
- That's huge.
- It was.
- When "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered" continues.
**
- Detectives were convinced
Liz Golyar killed Cari Farver
in a convoluted plot
to win back
her ex-boyfriend
Dave Kroupa.
She handed them emails
describing the murder.
Details only the killer
would know.
The sender, she said,
was Dave's ex-wife, Amy.
Investigators thought
otherwise and needed
to look at
Cari's car again.
But the car had long since
been sold to somebody else.
But they found it, much used,
in a whole other county.
- Took out the passenger seat,
pulled off the fabric of that,
and there's a dark red stain
right on that seat.
Large stain.
- They tested it.
Human blood.
And DNA confirmed
it was Cari's blood.
That's huge.
- It was.
- We high-fived.
[chuckles]
But we really didn't know
what to do next, for sure.
- But they were sure
they had to move fast
because it appeared Liz
was scouting a new target.
- We would see her
circle Amy's apartment
multiple times a day.
- Because Doty and Avis
believed Cari was murdered
in Omaha, they asked
the city police for help.
And the Omaha PD
picked up Liz
on an unrelated
misdemeanor warrant.
But in the interview,
their questions were about Cari.
Liz stuck to her story
that she was the victim
in this tragic tale.
- What-What do you think
happened to-to Cari Farver?
- I don't know.
I don't even know-- I don't know
if what Amy's saying is true.
I don't know.
- Okay.
- I'm more--
I'm more scared
that somethin's gonna
happen to me
and then my kids aren't
gonna have anybody.
- The Omaha detective
added some pressure.
Why, he asked, was
her fingerprint in Cari's car?
- I don't know,
but I've never been in her car.
I don't even know
what car she drives.
- She denied everything.
- The finger's pointin'
right at you.
- Then I'm done talking
and I'm gonna have my attorney,
because I didn't
do anything.
- By the end of the night,
she bonded out
and the county attorney
wanted more time to
review the evidence.
What was it like when
you were waiting for that?
Was it frustrating?
- It-It was.
- Months went by.
Max, who hadn't heard about any
of that recent investigation,
graduated from high school
without his mom.
- That was the real kinda
stake in the heart.
But...
'Cause...
- Well, God knows,
if there was any occasion
she was going to attend,
it certainly would've
been your graduation.
- Yeah.
- Summer came and went.
Another winter set in.
And then, December 22, 2016.
Four years after
Cari Farver vanished.
After reviewing all
the evidence,
the county attorney
finally felt there was enough.
Liz Golyar was
arrested for murder.
- The best part of it was
bein' able to go to Nancy
and tell her,
"We've arrested somebody
"for the murder
of your daughter."
- That was
a big day for her.
- That was what made workin'
this whole case worth it.
- What'd it feel like,
driving out there to see them?
- Couldn't drive
fast enough.
- It was big news
for Dave, too.
- That was the first time
I could go outside
and take a breath
of fresh air and say,
"I don't have to look
over my shoulder today."
- Liz sat in jail
while the prosecutors
prepared
for a trial they knew
would not be easy.
Well, yeah. "No body" cases
are tough, right?
- Yeah. And circumstantial.
It was very circumstantial.
- But then, as the trial
date was bearing down,
a teeny, tiny memory card
yielded an amazing discovery.
Which was basically
just BS luck
you ever got that, right?
Last minute?
- I don't think it's luck.
I think it was
divine intervention.
- A signature tattoo,
the ultimate computer clue.
- It turns up on a
picture of a dead body.
- Yeah.
**
- We've had
our fair share
of homicides
and bizarre cases,
but this certainly,
in all my experience,
tops the charts
for most bizarre.
- Not just bizarre--
Challenging,
even for Brenda Beadle
and James Masteller,
both seasoned prosecutors
when the case landed
on their desks.
- Your typical murder case,
you know exactly when
the murder happened.
You know exactly
where it happened.
When you don't
have a body,
you don't really have a good
date, time, or location.
- This is a bizarre
and twisted case
of a fatal attraction.
- Nevertheless,
on May 10, 2017,
they put Liz Golyar
on trial
for the murder
of Cari Farver.
- It's about
an obsessive woman
that would stop at nothing
to get what
she wanted.
- Liz waived her
right to a jury trial.
A judge would
hear the evidence.
The prosecutors laid
it out methodically.
Cari's blood in the car.
Liz's fingerprint on the
mint container in the car.
The emails that read
like confessions.
The vast trove of
digital forensics.
They even tracked down a
purchase on Cari's bank card
made after she vanished--
A Walmart receipt.
- One of the items
was a shower curtain.
And that shower curtain
looked familiar to us
because in one of our--
that phone dump that we did
in 2013 of Liz's phone,
there's a picture
of that shower curtain.
- And they found the
shower curtain itself
at Liz's apartment.
There was also a photo of
Cari's driver's license
with a large knife next to it
that was emailed to Dave.
He thought it was
a threat from Cari.
In fact, it was sent from
an email account
created by Liz.
- All these pieces together
made a big difference.
- All of it put together,
said the prosecutors,
told the story of how Liz Golyar
murdered Cari Farver.
They told the judge
it happened the morning
of November 13, 2012
after Dave Kroupa
left for work.
Cari was on her laptop.
- We know by examination of
Cari Farver's known Facebook
that she logged into
her Facebook
at 6:39 A.M.
that morning.
- About two minutes later,
she logged off.
She was supposed to leave
for work,
but never made it.
- She was intercepted.
Something happened.
That something
was the defendant.
- Hard to know exactly what
Liz did to Cari, but--
- It didn't take her
too long,
because at 9:54 A.M.
Cari Farver's cell phone
is being used
to access Facebook.
- And at that moment,
it appeared Cari
unfriended Dave.
- The fact that they had
the temerity
to actually be
Facebook friends?
This is one of the very
first acts the defendant takes
to actually eliminate
that Facebook friendship.
- And from then on,
in cyberspace,
Liz became Cari.
- All for that purpose,
for the reason
of convincing people--
her friends, her family,
relatives, everyone--
that she
was still alive.
- Nancy went to court
every day for the trial,
heard the details for
the very first time.
- I went I heard
all of this,
what this person was
doing in her name,
it just made me so angry,
'cause it--
Cari's--
She didn't deserve
that at all.
- So, strong case?
The prosecutors hoped so,
though "no body" cases
are tough to prove.
But was it luck?
Divine intervention?
Before the trial began,
Detective Avis
and tech guru Tony Kava
went back to
Dave Kroupa again
and asked if he had anything
that might help them,
and that's when
it hit him.
He'd put a tablet
into storage
and forgotten
all about it,
so he fished it out,
and Kava examined it.
- Tony removed the-the
external SD card.
- Ah. Yeah?
- The memory,
and it had been deleted
and reformatted.
- Blank, or so it seemed,
until Kava took
a closer look.
Pay dirt.
- There were, I wanna say
thousands of pictures
that he was able
to locate.
- Thousands of photos that
Liz thought she had deleted.
- One of the pictures
we found,
it was a Chinese symbol
that we were able to
determine meant "mother."
And there were dark
lines in the picture.
- Dark lines?
They looked more closely.
Those lines were veins
on what looked like
someone's foot--
Someone's deceased foot.
Avis called
Cari's mom Nancy.
- Nancy was able to email
a few pictures,
and sure enough,
Cari has that same
tattoo on her left foot.
- Wow.
- Identical.
- And remember the yin yang
tattoo mentioned
in one of those possibly
confessional emails?
Lo and behold, it
turns up on a picture.
- Yeah.
- Of a dead body.
- Yeah.
- Holy cow.
That was Cari's too.
The tattoo parlor
kept a record.
- My first thought when
I saw those photographs
was this defendant had taken
a trophy or trophies
of the person
she'd killed.
- The motive?
A very old one.
Jealousy.
- It was really all
about Dave Kroupa.
She did it because
she wanted this man.
- Jealous makes people
do strange things,
but that's just--
Why so much?
What-- Why?
- I think it snowballed.
I think once she did it,
um, she couldn't stop.
She had to make Cari look
like she was still alive
to keep the heat
off of her,
and it just went on and on
and on for years.
- Dave Kroupa heard it all
and finally understood.
- I mean, it makes sense now,
at the end, you know?
But the Tarantino movie
always makes sense
at the end, you know?
It doesn't make any
sense gettin' there.
- And Liz's defense attorney,
James Martin Davis
agreed it was
like a movie--
A fictional one.
- I know they've got all
this bizarre behavior
and they've got all this
circumstantial evidence,
but it doesn't show my client
on that day
in this jurisdiction
took a knife
and stabbed Cari Farver
to death.
- Without that?
No murder case.
- You may have camcorders
and you may have, uh,
smart cards,
and you may have phones,
but you don't have a body
and you don't have
a cause of death
from a medical examiner.
What we have is
their belief,
their speculation.
their notion that
this is what happened.
But they-- It--
That's-That can't convict.
- And then, the judge
retired to think about it
and returned to
an anxious courtroom.
Max, inside the courtroom,
waited for the words.
- It-It was nerve racking.
- And then
finally, an answer.
- The court finds and judges
the defendant guilty.
- Guilty of first-degree
murder
for killing Cari Farver
and second-degree arson
for setting fire
to her own house
and killing her pets.
She was sentenced
to life in prison.
Just a few rows behind Liz,
Cari's mother Nancy finally
heard the longed for words
from the judge.
- Saying that Cari
did not vanish
off the face of the earth,
and she just didn't
vanish into thin air.
It was just at total
relief to me,
and I just
started crying.
- You can't grieve,
really, until you know.
And now they did.
- It'll never go away,
but at least we can
deal with it now.
Have to deal with it.
- So important, said Nancy,
to finally set
the record straight
about a loving mother
and a good woman
who never
abandoned anyone.
- And I think it would've
been important to Cari, too.
'Cause she would've wanted
people to say,
"This was not me."
Max followed his
mother's footsteps,
pursuing a career
in software engineering.
- Yeah. That--
She was the one
that really got me
to understand computers.
I'll never type as
well as she could.
But she-she's definitely
a big influence there.
- And inspired your
love of them.
- Mm-hmm.
She-She definitely
did, but...
So, uh, I-I have her
to thank
for-for what
I'm going down now.
- I think she would be
pretty proud of you.
- I hope so.
- That's all
for this edition
of "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow.
Thank you for watching.