Bad Romance: Tangled Web (Revisited)

Summary

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20/20 Podcast: Bad Romance – Tangled Web (Revisited)

Date: January 14, 2026
Host: Debra Roberts (ABC News)
Featured: Dave Krupa, Leslie Rule, Detectives, Digital Forensic Experts, and others

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode from 20/20’s "Bad Romance" series revisits one of the most astonishing and chilling true crime stories: the disappearance of Carrie Farver and the terrifying campaign of stalking, impersonation, and murder orchestrated by Shanna "Liz" Golyar. The episode unfurls how a seemingly ordinary romantic triangle evolves into an almost unbelievable web of deceit and violence, ultimately solved by determined detectives and digital forensic breakthroughs.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Lover Becomes Stalker

• Premise: The story opens with the shocking account of an Iowa woman who escalates from sending thousands of harassing texts to committing arson and even attempted murder.

  “An Iowa woman goes from lover to stalker. She sends 15,000 harassing emails and texts. But it goes so much further. Arson, a gunshot…”
  (Narrator, 00:49)

2. The Love Triangle Forms

• Dave Krupa’s Return to Dating:
  Recently separated and new to online dating, Dave meets Liz Golyar (Shanna Elizabeth Golyar), a fellow single parent, and soon after, meets Carrie Farver by happenstance at his work.
  • Dave describes his first dates and openness about avoiding commitment.
  • Notably, Dave and Carrie share a mutual understanding of their casual relationship.

    “If we’re gonna do this…that’s all it is. You're not my boyfriend, I’m not your girlfriend. I felt like I hit the jackpot with that.”
    (Dave Krupa, 05:40)

3. Carrie’s Sudden Disappearance and Bizarre Behavior

• An Abrupt Shift:
  Shortly after spending the night together, Dave receives strange texts from Carrie, abruptly ending their relationship.

  “She just changed very quickly…fun and happy…to ‘I hate you, you ruined my life. You're a terrible person.’”
  (Dave Krupa, 07:28)

• Carrie Goes Missing:
  Carrie vanishes, misses significant family events, and her family becomes increasingly concerned.

  “She was absent for her own birthday...She even missed her father's funeral. And when she didn’t come home for that, her mother knew that something was very, very wrong.”
  (Debra Roberts, 13:43)

4. Descent into Harassment and Escalating Threats

• Flood of Messages:
  Dave and Liz are both bombarded with hundreds of messages daily, allegedly from Carrie. The attacks include personal insults, threats, and disturbing content.

  “I would regularly receive 60 plus texts a day. 100 emails a day was not uncommon.”
  (Dave Krupa, 14:07) “She is nothing. She’s a fat cow…Maybe she’ll do us all a favor and kill herself. LOL.”
  (Leslie Rule, reciting a message, 14:18)

• Escalation to Crimes:
  • Vandalism of Liz’s property and Dave’s auto shop.
  • Arson at Liz’s house resulting in the death of pets.

    “My house is on fire. Somebody's burned my house down.”
    (Liz/Golyar phone call, 17:10)

  • Gunshot incident, with Liz herself later found shot and blaming others.

5. Police Investigation – Two Tracks

• Unraveling the Mystery:
  Detectives Ryan Avis and Jim Doty take a fresh look. One investigates as if Carrie is alive; the other, as if she's dead.

  “Jim's gonna work it like she’s dead, and I'm gonna work it like she’s alive.”
  (Detective, 20:29)

• Digital Breakthroughs:
  • Discovery: Many harassing messages originated from Liz’s devices and home.
  • Physical evidence: A fingerprint on a mint case in Carrie's car matches Liz.
  • Photographs: Forensic analysis of Liz’s phone uncovers photos showing Liz staged kidnapping images and had access to Carrie's vehicle before police did.

6. Liz’s Deceptions and Techniques

• Impersonation and Alibis:
  Liz used apps to send messages that made it seem as if she couldn’t have been the sender, even sitting next to Dave as “Carrie” messages arrived.

  “She was able to send messages pretending to be Carrie, and they would arrive while she was sitting on the couch next to Dave. It gave a perfect alibi to Liz.”
  (Digital Forensic Expert, 30:50)

• Attempts to Shift Blame:
  Liz tries to convince police that Dave’s ex, Amy, is the culprit.

7. Building the Case – No Body, No Murder Weapon

• Forensic Evidence Grows:
  • Police retrieve deleted images from an SD card, including a decomposing foot with a distinctive tattoo matching Carrie’s.
  • Blood found in Carrie’s vehicle matches her DNA.
• Confronting Liz:
  • Detectives use tactical interviews, feigning ignorance or playing along with Liz’s narratives to collect more evidence.

    “I knew most likely she was a murderer. And I knew in order for us to solve this, she was gonna have to believe that I genuinely thought Amy was responsible for all of it.”
    (Detective, 32:04)

• Emotional Deception:
  Liz, impersonating Carrie, cruelly continued to message Carrie’s family and son to create the illusion she was alive.

8. Trial and Conviction

• Rare Circumstantial Conviction:
  Even with no body, no weapon, and mostly digital evidence, Liz is convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

  “This is one of the few cases that went to trial with no body, no murder weapon, no witnesses. It's a hard case to prove… and it’s even harder to get a conviction.”
  (Leslie Rule, 41:59)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the horror of the ongoing impersonation:

  "It's almost like murdering the victim twice, because first she actually murders her as a human being. And then she's murdering her reputation and her memory. It's so fundamentally evil to me."
  (Police Officer/Investigator, 43:53)

• On the victim, Carrie Farver:

  "I just want people to remember her as the fun loving, talented, smart woman that she was. If I could talk to Carrie right now, I'd say, I love you. I'm so glad you were in my life, and I miss you terribly."
  (Debra Roberts, 44:34)

• On justice and technology:

  "It was important for us to clear Carrie's name because she was accused of stalking, she was accused of harassment, and she didn't do any of those things. And that's not who she was."
  (Digital Forensic Expert, 44:24)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:49 – Introduction to the case and initial crime summary
• 03:35 – Dave meets Liz and Carrie
• 06:49 – Carrie’s abrupt disappearance
• 13:43 – Carrie’s absence from all major life events alarms her family
• 14:07 – Dave describes constant digital harassment
• 16:52 – Bizarre escalation: fake kidnapping photo
• 17:10 – Arson at Liz's home
• 20:29 – Two-pronged detective investigation begins
• 22:46 – Digital forensic analysis begins to crack the case
• 25:41 – Crucial discovery: fingerprint match
• 26:08 – Liz tries to shift suspicion; detectives obtain more digital evidence
• 30:50 – Explanation of Liz’s impersonation tactics with technology
• 35:27 – Discovery of murder evidence in Carrie’s car
• 40:07 – Final big evidence: decomposing foot photo with tattoo
• 42:43 – Liz convicted, sentenced to life
• 44:14 – Memorial scholarship for Carrie established

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Conclusion

"Bad Romance: Tangled Web" masterfully traces a haunting story where digital crimes blend with physical violence. The episode stands out for its careful dissection of a case solved against steep odds—no witness, no weapon, no body—thanks to meticulous detective work and digital forensics. It is both a tragic remembrance of Carrie Farver and a striking example of modern investigative triumph.

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For further reflection:
The story is not just about unraveling an incredible crime, but about justice, technology, and the resilience of victims’ families. As Leslie Rule concludes:

"Instead of being the spider, [Liz] became the insect."
(Leslie Rule, 42:34)

Transcript

[Debra Roberts]

This is Debra Roberts. We're taking a few weeks off from new podcast programming on Wednesdays while we work on a new interesting series to share with you. So in the meantime, we're bringing back some of our installments from our classic series, Bad Romance. Here's this week's episode. Hey there, 2020 listeners. This is Debra Roberts, co anchor of 20 20. We've got a new spinoff series we think you're gonna wanna hear, so we're making it available for you right here on our podcast and it's called Bad Romance. Have a listen.

[Narrator]

An Iowa woman goes from lover to stalker. She sends 15,000 harassing emails and texts. But it goes so much further. Arson, a gunshot. And for one man, it seems like there's no escape from this tangled web. It's a huge place, this park, and somehow it feels bigger in the dark. And a killer is in the park tonight carrying a loaded gun. A woman is out for a walk alone.

[Detective]

She said a female approached her from behind, told her to get on the ground and then fired a shot at her leg.

She said the female ran off into the woods and then she felt it was safe, so she walked this pathway and called 911 because she had left her phone in her car.

[Debra Roberts]

911, what's the address of your emergency? I've been shot in a leg. My peasant leg is filled with blood. Oh, Jesus. The assailant still nearby? I don't think so. I took on boarding. You know what he looked like at all?

[Narrator/Investigator]

No.

[Debra Roberts]

She was behind me.

[Detective]

Councillor's police responded. They had a helicopter over, could not find a suspect.

[Narrator/Investigator]

This was a shocking event to have a no one was able to find this woman with a gun running through Big Lake Park.

[Leslie Rule]

It's a mystery that started three years earlier, 10 minutes from big Lake park in Omaha, Nebraska, with a man named Dave Krupa.

[Debra Roberts]

Dave Krupa was a 35 year old mechanic. Dave Krupa was just a normal guy, really nice guy. He wasn't the kind of guy you'd expect to find in the middle of a murder mystery. My name is Leslie Rule and I'm an author.

[Leslie Rule]

Leslie Rule was so intrigued by this story that she wrote a book about it called A Tangled Web.

[Narrator]

Rule is the daughter of legendary true crime author Ann Rule, who wrote the book the Stranger Beside Me about her friendship with Ted Bundy.

[Debra Roberts]

Dave Krupa liked women. He made no secret about that and he made no apologies.

[Narrator]

Dave is recently separated from Amy Flora. They've been together for 12 years and have two children.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Dave Krupa moved to Omaha in 2012. He got a small single dad apartment and he got a job at an auto repair shop there.

[Dave Krupa]

Well, I didn't know how to venture back into the dating pool. I'd been out of it for a long time, so I felt pretty rusty. So Internet dating was the way to go.

[Narrator/Investigator]

The first person Dave met on an online dating site was a woman by the name of Liz Goliar.

[Leslie Rule]

Her full name is Shanna Elizabeth Gollier, but she went by her middle name, Liz. Liz was a single mother with two children, and her kids were about the same age as Dave's kids. She had a business, Liz's Housekeeping. Liz loved taking selfies and sending them to her friends.

[Dave Krupa]

She was sexy, she was bright and shiny, and she was very engaging.

[Debra Roberts]

Dave was up front. He absolutely did not want a commitment. He just wanted to have a little fun. And he was clear with every woman he met that that was the case.

[Dave Krupa]

I was kind of going wild, just, you know, being free for the first time in a long time.

[Narrator]

So a lot of online dating, but then he meets somebody the old fashioned way, just by accident.

[Dave Krupa]

I'm at the counter managing the shop and I'm the person greeting customers when they come in and an extremely attractive woman walks in the door.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

It's a woman named Carrie Farver.

[Dave Krupa]

When we looked at each other, there was a little spark, you know, we both smiled.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Carrie Farver was a 37 year old single mother to a 14 year old son. She was a computer programmer at a big firm in Omaha.

[Dave Krupa]

She's showing me something inside the vehicle and we're standing there and we're very close, you know, within a couple inches of each other, and there's some tension.

[Debra Roberts]

Carrie talked to me about meeting Dave and she was like, you know, this guy, totally not my type. But there was just something there.

[Dave Krupa]

Carrie and I ended up going to Applebee's for our first date. We hit it off. As we're getting up to leave, I asked Carrie if she wanted to come over, hang out, and she said yes. So we went back to my place and we shared a kiss. And then it got a little hotter and a little heavier. And then Carrie stopped and said, okay, if we're gonna do this and this implying sex, that's all it is. You're not my boyfriend, I'm not your girlfriend. I felt like I hit the jackpot with that. I couldn't have wrote it better.

[Narrator]

So first date goes well as Carrie is leaving Liz Goliar, the other woman Dave had Been dating, comes down the hall of the apartment complex unannounced to pick up a T shirt she'd left at Dave's. No words exchanged.

[Dave Krupa]

I watched Carrie out the front door and she walked right by Liz. And they probably saw each other for.

[Narrator]

Six seconds out there in the hall hallway. In just a few seconds, three lives are changed forever.

[Dave Krupa]

Sherry's job happened to be right around the corner from where I lived versus an hour from where she lives.

[Narrator/Investigator]

She had a big project coming up at work. She was working very late hours. Dave offered for her to stay at his house so that she wouldn't have to make that commute back and forth. Dave Krupa wakes up and gets ready for work. And about 6:30am, he gives Carrie a kiss and he leaves for work for the day.

[Dave Krupa]

She's on the couch, got her laptop out, she's doing her thing. So I gotta go to work. So I say I'll see you later. I had expected to see Kerry that evening.

[Narrator/Investigator]

When Dave said goodbye to Kerry that morning, he had absolutely no idea the nightmare that his life was about to turn into.

[Debra Roberts]

Mid morning, Dave received a text and he glanced at it. It was a message from Carrie.

[Dave Krupa]

She texts me and says, let's move in together. Which was very left field. As soon as I can, I text her back and say, I can't do that. We haven't known each other nearly long enough for that. And almost immediately I get a message back that says, fine, I hate you, I'm dating someone else. I don't want to see you anymore. You know, go away. Lots of profanity. I didn't know what to think. I was blown away.

[Narrator/Investigator]

She just changed very quickly from the fun and happy person that he had known just that morning.

[Dave Krupa]

It was a day, maybe a day and a half of radio silence. And then my phone starts blowing up with texts from Carrie along the lines of, I hate you, you ruined my life. You're a terrible person. I thought, okay, I don't need this in my life. I dodged a bullet.

[Narrator]

This is after dating just two weeks. Maybe Cary just wasn't who he thought thought she was. So who was Carrie Farver? She grew up in the small town of Macedonia, Iowa.

[Debra Roberts]

Macedonia is a very nice place to raise kids because you can let your kids walk down the street without worrying.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Carrie was very close to her mother, Nancy. They talked every day.

[Debra Roberts]

She had a lot of friends. She was very gregarious. You noticed Carrie when she walked into the room. She had a laugh, she had a smile. You were drawn to her.

[Narrator]

It hasn't been easy raising Max by herself, but she has no regrets.

[Debra Roberts]

She just doted on him all the time. But I think she was a little overwhelmed just being on her own. In her late 20s, she started developing depression.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Carrie had been diagnosed in her 20s with bipolar disorder.

[Debra Roberts]

There was a couple of times when she just would stop taking the medication because she said, mom, I feel like I'm just numb.

[Narrator]

But by 2012, Carrie is in a very good place. She landed a good job as a computer programmer.

[Debra Roberts]

Max was just going into high school. Kerry was so excited about classes he was taking and the sports that he was playing. I started getting text messages that said that she was taking a job in Kansas, which totally threw me. And so I texted her back and she would not call me and talk to me. But Nancy figured she'd see Carrie soon because Carrie's half brother was getting married in just a few days.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Her son Max was to be an usher, and she promised Max that she would return for the wedding.

[Debra Roberts]

Carrie didn't show up to pick up Max and she didn't call. Everybody was stunned. That's when I reported her missing. I called the sheriff's office and they had somebody come out and they took my report. Nancy mentioned to the police that Carrie had been diagnosed as bipolar. I said, well, yes, she was on medication. The police jumped on that and said, when somebody who's bipolar stops taking their meds, sometimes he couldn't start some really erratic behavior.

[Narrator]

Things are going to get stranger and scarier. Kerry writes, my favorite thing to do is stand outside your window and stare at you.

[Dave Krupa]

What do you do when somebody invades every space of your life?

[Narrator]

This man's life is about to become terrifying.

[Detective]

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[Narrator]

As for Dave Krupa, after the day he got that first bizarre text, he starts getting a stream of angry messages. Kerry's rage seems to be focused on his on again, off again girlfriend Liz, the one he dated before Carrie. And Kerry is contacting Liz too.

[Dave Krupa]

Liz gets into contact with me and says that now Carrie is harassing her via text and email.

[Narrator/Investigator]

She wanted to know how this woman that she just had this chance encounter with at Dave's apartment got her phone number got her email. One day Liz arrived home from work to find that her garage had been vandalized.

[Dave Krupa]

She found that someone had written pour from Dave on the inside of her garage and spray paint.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

When Liz tells police that the common link between herself and Carrie is Dave Krupa, they decide to pay him a visit.

[Dave Krupa]

The police show up at my work looking for me. I pulled out my phone and said, no, she's lost her mind. She's going crazy, she's harassing me. And then their tone certainly changed from an accusatory one to oh, okay, we've seen this before.

[Debra Roberts]

When I'd get text messages, I would just say, please call me, I just need to hear your voice. And she would say, well this has got to be good enough for you. She was absent for her own birthday. She missed Thanksgiving. She wasn't around when her son Max turned 15.

[Narrator/Investigator]

She even missed her own father's funeral. And when she didn't come home for that, her mother knew that something was very, very wrong.

[Debra Roberts]

Okay, maybe she had gone off her meds. There had been times in the past when she had thought, maybe I don't need these.

[Narrator]

While Carrie's family was afraid for her, Dave Krupa was growing afraid of her.

[Dave Krupa]

I would regularly receive 60 plus texts a day. 100 emails a day was not uncommon.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

Carrie would refer to Liz in her messages.

[Leslie Rule]

She is nothing. She's a fat cow. She looks like she lost her puppy. Maybe she'll do us all a favor and kill herself. Lol.

[Narrator/Investigator]

One night in January, about two months after all of this started, Dave came home from work and there was a vehicle in the parking lot. He got closer to the vehicle, and he recognized it to be Carrie's Ford Explorer because he knew it very well. That was how they met. He had worked on the vehicle.

[Dave Krupa]

So I took a picture of the license plate, sent it to the police.

[Narrator/Investigator]

He had no idea at the time how big of a piece of evidence this would turn out to be. The police in Iowa are looking for Carrie Farver as a missing person.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

But less than five miles away in Nebraska, just across the Missouri river, police are looking for Carrie Farver as a stalker. Somebody that is harassing Dave Karupa and Liz Goliar.

[Debra Roberts]

There was a mint container found in the car that had one perfect fingerprint on it.

[Leslie Rule]

But that fingerprint didn't match Carrie, and it didn't match anyone in the FBI's national database. So that lead so far is a bust.

[Narrator]

There's just no information, no leads. Her son Max sends her one short message on her Facebook page.

[Narrator/Investigator]

All it said was, hi. And she immediately wrote him back, hey, little man. How are you? He asked her to answer three questions to prove that it was really her, and she never responded to that message.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

Then Carrie posts on Facebook, I've answered enough questions to prove myself. I'm not missing. I just don't want to come home right now.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Dave and Liz referred to Kerry as Crazy Kerry.

[Dave Krupa]

That was what we would say. Crazy Cherry. Oh, crazy Terry. This. Oh, I got another email from crazy Terry.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

The messages said things like, I hate you so much, I want to drive a knife through your heart. Hey, loser. So am I ruining your life yet?

[Narrator/Investigator]

The trauma that they were both going through brought them back together, and they started dating again.

[Dave Krupa]

It was actually extremely common for us to be hanging out, and both of our phones would start blowing up with text messages and emails from Kerry. I get an email, and it's a picture of what looks like Liz tied up in the trunk of a car. And it says, I have Liz tied up in the trunk of the car, and you need to call her right now and tell her you hate her. She's a whore. Otherwise, I'm gonna kill her. I called Liz, and I say, hey, you're not tied up in the trunk of a car, are ya? No. No.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

Ha ha.

[Dave Krupa]

All right, good. Good night. And at that point, it was just another day. Just wasn't even shocking anymore. I get a call from Liz, frantic, freaking out. My house is on fire. Somebody's burned my house down.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Luckily, her children were not home, but many of her belongings were still there, including two dogs A cat and a snake. And they all were killed in this fire.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

There is audio of the officer at the scene talking to Liz about the fire.

[Narrator]

Fire.

[Detective]

From what I've seen so far, looking inside, this is looks pretty obvious. This is an intentionally set fire.

[Debra Roberts]

Hey, guys. I'm seeing. He has a girlfriend he dated for two weeks and she's been stalking me since November.

[Detective]

Do you know her name?

[Debra Roberts]

It's Carrie. C A R I.

[Leslie Rule]

Dave's auto shop is vandalized with a message for everyone to see. Dave beats women in fluorescent orange spray paint.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Dave became a nervous wreck. He purchased a gun. He was always on edge.

[Debra Roberts]

In January of 2014, I drove from Sioux Falls to Omaha to visit with Dave. I have known Dave since high school. Dave and I have just always had a special, special connection. We've always been more than friends.

[Dave Krupa]

We were in the living room of the apartment, just chatting old times.

[Debra Roberts]

Within a couple of hours, his phone was going crazy.

[Dave Krupa]

Apparently, Carrie saw her come in. I actually got a text to the effect of, I see you in there with that whore.

[Debra Roberts]

He told me that he was having issues with an ex that was stalking him. And the next thing I hear sounded like a gunshot.

[Narrator]

Dave Krupa's old friend Heather is visiting, but another woman is right outside.

[Debra Roberts]

Sounded like a gunshot to me, which was actually a brick being thrown through the bathroom window. Dave called the police. They came over and talked to Dave for a few minutes. After the police left, Dave had me get into the car with him and he said he needed to go check on Liz because Carrie had threatened Liz in the past prior to this incident with me.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Dave's ex and the mother of his children, Amy Flora, was also getting threatening messages from Carrie, calling her all sorts of names.

[Dave Krupa]

Nothing was being done about it. The police had dropped it off at some point. So it was just something I had to deal with. Being stalked in her house was just part of life.

[Debra Roberts]

The case had become cold. Detectives Ryan Avis and Jim Doughty worked at the Potawatomi County Sheriff's Office in Council Bluffs.

[Detective]

We'd heard about the case. It was kind of water cooler talk around the office.

Is there more to it? Is there something else that we're not seeing?

What we did first was just go back to the case file. We started looking through everything that the previous investigator had.

Jim's gonna work it like she's dead, and I'm gonna work it like she's alive. I'm gonna try and prove every which way I can that Carrie is still alive and is out There. And Jim's gonna try and prove every which way that she is not.

[Narrator]

There's no activity in her credit card or checking accounts. Nobody's seen her, nobody's heard her voice. Just the emails and the texts.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

And one of the things about these text messages, they don't look like they're written by Carrie. They're filled with spelling error and grammatical errors. And her mother said Carrie never would have sent messages like that.

[Debra Roberts]

Detectives Doty and Avis were aware that Carrie had been diagnosed as bipolar, but they didn't think it had anything to do with why she went missing.

[Detective]

How many people in the world are bipolar and they don't just go missing for no reason, whether they take their meds or don't take their meds. She had good income, a good house. I had come to the conclusion that I could not prove she was actually alive.

[Narrator]

So if Carrie Farver is dead, what happened to her on the morning she left Dave's apartment two years before?

[Detective]

To me, the thing that was glaring was Liz. This lady had no involvement in Carrie's life until all of a sudden she went missing.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

According to Liz, she only met Carrie once in this brief encounter outside of Dave's apartment.

[Detective]

All of a sudden, she's this focus of harassment. Her name was all over all the reports. So to me, there was something with Liz. She definitely was a person of interest.

[Narrator]

And if Carrie's not alive, who has been sending all the messages to Dave, to Amy, to Liz?

[Detective]

Myself and Ryan were not digital experts at all. So we had a call. One of our co workers, Tony Cava, who's our digital forensic expert?

[Digital Forensic Expert]

Carrie or the person, the imposter who was pretending to be Carrie, sent Dave about 15,000 email messages over a three year span. I thought, there's gotta be a way we can track down this digital activity.

[Narrator/Investigator]

When Liz was getting all of these messages, through the course of investigation, she actually gave her phone to police and allowed them to dump all her files and review them.

[Debra Roberts]

One of the things they found when they downloaded Liz's phone was a photograph of Carrie Farver's Ford Explorer.

[Detective]

We looked at the metadata of that photo, and it was taken about a month before police even recovered her vehicle. So somehow Liz knew where Kerry's vehicle was before law enforcement even did. We found an email that Carrie had sent to Dave Krupa. It consisted of a picture of a woman who was tied up. We found that picture of that bound woman in Liz's phone, and the metadata showed it was taken from Liz's phone.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

They realized that Liz had put duct tape on her own mouth, tied up her own hands and crawled into the trunk of a car.

[Detective]

All signs were pointing back to Liz.

[Leslie Rule]

And then Liz herself goes to to police with a new suspect.

[Detective]

I look down the hallway and I see another investigator walking Liz down our hallway.

[Leslie Rule]

And she says she's come to this stunning realization. It might not have been Carrie Farver harassing her all along.

[Narrator]

A left hand turn in the investigation. An incredible opportunity. And just maybe the break they've been looking for.

[Detective]

For 100 days. I'm going to cross the seven continents because the answers to everything important are.

[Narrator]

Out there at the edges of our world.

[Detective]

I'm stepping into the unknown. Where are we going to see our planet? This is amazing as it's never been seen before. From pole to pole, Pole to Pole.

[Narrator]

With Will Smith from National Geographic now streaming on Disney and Hulu.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

Show me the way FX Is the Beauty.

[Detective]

Imagine the hottest new superdrug that makes you effortlessly beautiful.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

From executive producer Ryan Murphy.

[Narrator]

This is the closest to the fountain of youth anyone's ever gonna get.

[Debra Roberts]

Are there side effects? I just went in, woke up and looked like us.

[Detective]

Who?

Like the first pope.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

FX is the Beauty premieres January 21st.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

On FX, Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers.

[Leslie Rule]

Police have been taking a close look at Liz Goliar.

[Narrator/Investigator]

All of the investigating they had done was leading them to the idea of that Carrie Farber was dead and Liz had been impersonating her this entire time.

[Narrator]

One of the key pieces of evidence convincing Dodie and Avis is that mint case. The one in Carrie's car, the one with the mystery fingerprint.

[Detective]

One of the things we did when we took the case is we had that fingerprint compared to Liz's fingerprints, and it was a match.

[Dave Krupa]

I was trying to understand how this person I spent so much time with could be this other person I didn't know.

[Narrator]

There's just not enough evidence to arrest Liz. Which is when the police get an incredible break. Liz actually comes to them.

[Detective]

I look down the hallway and I see another investigator walking Liz down our hallway into his office. So I eavesdrop a little bit. I hear Liz telling the other investigator something about a harassment report.

[Narrator]

Liz leaves as Detective Avis sees an opening.

[Detective]

Within 30 minutes of Liz leaving our office. I hop in my truck and I drove to her house in Council plus and just knocked on the door. She opened the door and I told her I was an investigator with the sheriff's office and I had heard she had stopped in. Hi. Was it Shannon?

[Debra Roberts]

Yeah, or Liz.

[Detective]

I told her who I was and that I didn't have a heavy caseload at the time and I'd be more than happy to help her with whatever report that she had tried to file. She let me come in, we sat down and talked. My sergeant you had just talked to and he said that you were trying to file. Harassment.

[Debra Roberts]

Yeah. A harassment. The reports have been made again.

[Detective]

Favorite.

[Debra Roberts]

Yeah, it's F A R E R.

[Detective]

I knew who Carrie was, obviously, and I just played dumb. I wanted her to think that I had no clue of what she was talking about just to lower her guard.

[Debra Roberts]

She used to date my boyfriend. Only for about two weeks.

[Leslie Rule]

Liz tells Avis she's come to this stunning realization. It might not have been Carrie Farver harassing her all along.

[Debra Roberts]

That might be sure if it really is Kate. Carrie Paver.

[Narrator]

Liz is offering the police a new suspect. Dave Krupa's ex, Amy.

[Detective]

Amy Flora is Dave Krupa's ex girlfriend and also the mother of his children. Now she thought maybe it was actually Amy this whole time pertaining to be Carrie and that would make more sense. Right. So Amy still would like to be.

[Debra Roberts]

With Dave, I guess.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Dave?

[Debra Roberts]

I don't know.

[Detective]

I then request. Hey, could I do a download of your phone to extract those messages? We have a machine that'll plug in your phone.

Sign right there.

You're giving me consent to retrieve information? In that moment I was so giddy. I can't believe I'm going to download her phone and she's just going to hand it over to me.

[Narrator]

When Liz's phone was downloaded before, it was because she was reporting a stalker and they only downloaded current information then. But now she's a suspect.

[Debra Roberts]

She was unaware that detectives had the ability to download everything on the phone. Even things she thought she had deleted.

[Detective]

I ran it straight to Toni Cava.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

Toni Cava, who is the forensic digital expert, is going to actually start examining her phone. But in the meantime, there is an even more pressing concern. Dave Krupa's gun is missing.

[Dave Krupa]

I purchased a pistol for self protection in case Carrie would come in the house with ill intent towards me or my children. I opened a box. The weapon is missing. So I immediately call the police and tell them I have a firearm stolen. This isn't good because now this person is armed. They've already proven to be dangerous. So it was a heart stopping moment.

[Leslie Rule]

Six days after Dave's gun was stolen, a call was placed from Big Lake park in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

[Narrator/Investigator]

It was Liz Goliar. She had been shot and she was bleeding, alone, on the walking trail in the dark.

[Debra Roberts]

I've been shot in the leg.

[Detective]

At the beginning, Liz said she didn't know who shot her, but she kind of changed that story and eventually said Amy Flores shot her.

I never believed that Amy Flores shot Liz Collier, ever. It was pretty quickly determined that most likely Liz Gollier had shot herself. Amy Flora was cleared nearly immediately that.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

Evening when the shooting happened. This is finally when Dave gets it.

[Dave Krupa]

How did I not see anything? And how could I be so naive or so stupid or so gullible? Everything you thought you knew was a lie.

[Leslie Rule]

Deputy Tony Cava is actually on a mission to prove Liz is the culprit.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

He has the recent download of Liz Goliar's phone and all of the messages that are supposedly been sent from Carrie Farber.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

Liz signed up for upwards of 20 or 30 fake addresses that say they're Carrie Farber and they're different variations on Carrie's name or even her real email address. Every impersonated message, every text message, there's always a connection back to an account that she has to a device that she has or to her house.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

Kava also discovered that part of her ruse, Liz was using an app which actually allowed her to send messages and receive them at a later time.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

She was able to send messages pretending to be Carrie, and they would arrive while she was sitting on the couch next to Dave. From Dave's point of view, Liz couldn't have sent it because she was sitting next to him the whole time. It gave a perfect alibi to Liz.

[Detective]

We brought her in for an interview about two weeks after she was shot.

[Debra Roberts]

Dodie tells her he's working on a missing person case. They're trying to find Kerry Farver.

[Detective]

The case is regarding Kerry Farver? Are you familiar with her?

[Debra Roberts]

Barely even know her. Yeah, ran into her one time.

[Dave Krupa]

Okay.

[Detective]

Okay.

[Debra Roberts]

Just bypassing her going into Dave's apartment.

[Detective]

To pick up my stuff, we developed a bit of a ruse that we were going to employ on Liz, and we were going to tell her that we had found remains that we believed were carries. The initial indication these remains are Carrie.

Okay.

Okay. Is there anyone that you think would want to hurt Carrie?

[Debra Roberts]

I didn't know her long enough to know if anybody wanted hurt her.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

Liz then again shifts the blame away from Carrie Farver towards Amy Flora. And of course, the police know that Amy has nothing to do with Carrie's murder and that she's not involved in this in any way.

[Debra Roberts]

I'm just saying, as Another person who would be to able possessive of Dave.

[Narrator/Investigator]

It would be her.

[Detective]

When I'm sitting across from Liz, I knew most likely she was a murderer. And I knew in order for us to solve this, she was gonna have to believe that. I genuinely thought Amy was responsible for all of it. In my head, I'm thinking, if she was bold enough to go and then shoot you, okay, she could easily be bold enough to have done something to Carrie.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

And that's where Detective Doty tells her that he needs her help to get Amy to confess to Kerry's murder.

[Detective]

So we told Liz, if you get any type of messages from Amy to have anything to do with what happened to Kerry, to let us know. Is that like gold to me if we had something like that? Because then we could start building a case.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

This is a genius move by the police. The question is, is it going to?

[Detective]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

Tell Me Lies is back with an onu Czech.

[Detective]

I'm willing to forgive you after everything you've done.

[Debra Roberts]

Everything I've done? What about everything you've done?

[Narrator/Investigator]

Now streaming Every single time you try.

[Debra Roberts]

To make something better, you end up making it so much worse.

[Narrator]

Every betrayal.

[Debra Roberts]

Why are you doing this?

[Narrator]

Has consequences.

[Detective]

Because I want to hurt you, and.

I don't know how else to do it.

[Narrator]

Tell me Lies New season now streaming Streaming on Hulu and for bundle subscribers on Disney plus terms apply.

[Debra Roberts]

Liz Goliar had no idea that the investigators were on her tail, and they wanted to keep it that way.

[Narrator]

They set a trap. They pretend to believe that Dave's ex, Amy is the prime suspect. And Liz starts giving them emails saying they're from Amy. Of course, the police know that Amy has nothing to do with Carrie's murder. The messages, the vandalism, that Amy's not involved in any way.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

But what Detective Doty really needs are the details about the final moments of Carrie Farver's life. And he explains this in a phone call to Liz.

[Detective]

See if you could kind of push her for some more info on the Carrie thing. That would help our case immensely if it was more specific.

[Debra Roberts]

So you guys want me to try and email her back?

[Detective]

I would tell Liz, hey, we need more information. Things that only the killer would know.

[Narrator]

And in the emails that Liz gives them. Emails that she pretends are from Amy.

[Detective]

Amy confesses, when I met crazy Carrie, she would not stop talking about Dave and him being her husband. She tried to attack me, but I attacked her with a knife. I stabbed her three or four times in the chest and stomach area and then took her out and burned her. I stuffed her body in a garbage can with crap. The details were. I mean, they're bone chilling because they were graphic.

[Leslie Rule]

She writes, I really did kill Carrie, and I did do it in her own car.

[Detective]

These emails gave us Carrie's vehicle as a crime scene. So what we wanted to do is go back and look at that vehicle to determine if that crime happened there. We opened up this door, we pulled out the passenger seat, and we pulled off the fabric off that passenger seat, and that's where we found that big red stain right in the bottom of the seat. It was a positive test for human blood. We took the DNA from the blood that we found on the seat, and it was a match for Carrie Farver's DNA.

[Narrator]

Omaha police Detective Dave Schneider is brought into the case. Since Liz has an unpaid traffic ticket in Omaha, he can bring her into the station, take a handcuffs off her.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

Now, once she's actually in the interview chair, Detective Schneider tells her the real subject of their interview that day.

[Narrator]

Carrie Farber.

[Detective]

Now, the reason why you're in this chair right now, today is because you have a lot of questions that you need to answer for me. Her phone was at your house right after she disappeared. I want to ask you how you can explain that to me, please.

[Debra Roberts]

She's never been to my house.

[Detective]

Your fingerprints are inside her vehicle.

How would your fingerprints be inside her vehicle?

[Debra Roberts]

I don't know, because I've never been in her car.

[Detective]

Your fingerprints are in there. She definitely was giving me the old evil eye.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

She was upset.

[Detective]

You could tell by being confronted. For years and years, people have been sending emails under Carrie's fictitious accounts. The IP addresses show up to whose house? Your house.

[Debra Roberts]

I haven't had Internet at my house.

[Detective]

All these have been coming from your house.

[Debra Roberts]

And I'm not gonna be accused of something that I didn't do.

[Detective]

The finger's pointing right at you.

[Debra Roberts]

Then I'm done talking, and I'm gonna have my attorney because I. I didn't do anything.

[Narrator]

Okay.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

While this interrogation is taking place with Detective Schneider, Detectives Avis and Dodie have gotten a search warrant and are conducting a search of Liz's apartment.

[Detective]

When we're searching her apartment, we found two things. We found Kerry's digital camera and camcorder. That means at some point, Liz went into Carrie's house and stole those items from her house and has kept them for years after.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

On Carrie's camera, investigators find video taken just two days before Carrie was killed. She had just discovered that her Ford Explorer had been vandalized.

[Leslie Rule]

And it's the last known video of Carrie.

[Debra Roberts]

Okay, so Thursday night, apparently somebody here in the whopping metropolis of Macedonia, Iowa, decided Max's Explorer was not the. The right color. Somebody thought they were quite the artist.

[Leslie Rule]

Investigators now believe it was Liz who vandalized the car.

[Narrator]

Finally, they have enough. They arrest Liz. Douglas county prosecutor Brenda Beadle takes the case.

[Debra Roberts]

This was by far the most difficult case I've ever tried. Most homicides are dark. This one was bizarre. There's no way that someone would let their dog die in a fire that they started. There's no way that someone would shoot themselves in the femur.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

Liz Goliar's defense attorney is James Martin Davis.

[Debra Roberts]

James Martin Davis is somewhat of a legend in Omaha, Nebraska, A very, very well known defense attorney.

[Detective]

Not only was there no body, there.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

Was no crime scene, There was no murder weapon.

[Detective]

There was no proof that she even died. We waived the jury trial to move.

It up so I could try this.

Case, hopefully before they'd find a body.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

In waiving the jury trial, Davis is requesting that the trial be presided over by a judge as the fact finder instead of a jury.

[Narrator]

There's one more startling piece of evidence that prosecutors have.

[Detective]

Dave remembered he had a tablet that was in storage for the past couple years.

[Dave Krupa]

Had been in a box for I don't know how long, you know, a year and a half probably. And I don't even know why I thought about it.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

It had a micro SD card in it. It looked blank. If you plugged it into your computer, it would look like there was nothing there. But there was deleted information. That SD card, it turns out it had been in Liz's phone. It had thousands and thousands of deleted images that. That she thought were gone. But we were able to retrieve them.

[Narrator]

One of those images is the last and biggest piece of evidence against Liz Kolger.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

I came to a photo that no one had seen before. And I wasn't sure what I was looking at first, but it turned out to be a human foot. Human foot with a tattoo.

[Leslie Rule]

And the foot was decomposing, so this person was dead.

[Detective]

We were able to figure out that Chinese tattoo was a symbol for mother.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

What we discovered is that Carrie Farver had that tattoo on her foot.

[Debra Roberts]

This is a bizarre and twisted case of a fatal attraction.

[Detective]

And you're gonna not hear a single.

Eyewitness saying, yeah, we saw her kill.

Her, we saw her stab her.

[Debra Roberts]

The prosecution truly did a massive, masterful job laying out everything they had, sending.

[Narrator]

The messages, vandalizing, creating chaos, all of it. Was Liz.

[Leslie Rule]

Of course, key to the prosecution. Those messages sent over years and years of Liz impersonating Carrie and pretending Carrie was alive to her mother and her son.

[Narrator/Investigator]

It's so evil, it's so harsh for this family to see these and get hope.

[Detective]

I would think to myself, without disclosing.

My feelings to the client, I thought, holy Christ, this is despicable.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

But it doesn't mean that they're first.

[Detective]

Degree, cold blooded murderers.

[Debra Roberts]

How could this person do this to my daughter? For what reason? For what earthly reason can you do this to anybody?

[Narrator]

And with no body, no weapon, no direct evidence for really, could Liz Goyer actually get away with it?

[Leslie Rule]

This is one of the few cases that went to trial with no body, no murder weapon, no witnesses. It's a hard case to prove. It's a hard case to make, and it's even harder to get a conviction.

[Narrator/Investigator]

Even with the photo of the foot, the case was still largely circumstantial, and Liz had opted for a trial by judge, meaning there was no jury. Certainly the motive was there, but they were still worried.

[Leslie Rule]

The web Liz Gollier was weaving, well.

[Debra Roberts]

She got caught in it.

[Leslie Rule]

Instead of being the spider, she became the insect.

[Narrator]

The judge made his decision. Liz Goyer's charade was over.

[Dave Krupa]

Carrie Farver did not voluntarily disappear and.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

Drop off the face of the earth. Very sadly, she was murdered.

[Narrator]

Liz Goyer, guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. No possibility of parole.

[Debra Roberts]

I'm glad it's over with and she can't marry anybody else anymore.

[Dave Krupa]

Nancy and Terry's son were foremost in my mind. You know, they're unfortunately the ones that have to live with the repercussions.

[Leslie Rule]

Since 2017, Liz Gollier has been at the Nebraska Correctional center for women.

[Narrator]

In 2020, ABC News reached out to Liz Goliar for an interview. She declined, but she had exchanged letters with author Leslie Rule.

[Debra Roberts]

Liz wants out of prison. She's claiming that the real killer is still out there.

[Narrator]

I will not stop fighting until I am set free and they find the right person. Family and friends can now concentrate on remembering Carrie, not on what Liz did to her.

[Police Officer/Investigator]

It's almost like murdering the victim twice, because first she actually murders her as a human being. And then she's murdering her reputation and her memory. It's so fundamentally evil to me.

[Dave Krupa]

Dodie, Avis, Chava, they're all heroes, those guys.

[Debra Roberts]

They mean the world to me. I can't thank them enough. They're my boys.

[Narrator]

The three have set up the Carrie Farver Memorial Scholarship for students who are studying computer technology. After all, it's what brought Carrie justice at last.

[Digital Forensic Expert]

It was important for us to clear Carrie's name because she was accused of stalking, she was accused of harassment, and she didn't do any of those things. And that's not who she was.

[Debra Roberts]

I just want people to remember her as the fun loving, talented, smart woman that she was. If I could talk to Carrie right now, I'd say, I love you. I'm so glad that you were in my life, and I miss you terribly. You can watch fresh episodes of bad romance from 2020 on Monday nights at 10pm right after the Bachelor. And of course, tune in on Fridays at 9 for all new episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening.

[Dave Krupa]

Well, the holidays have come and gone.

[Debra Roberts]

Once again, but if you've forgotten to.

[Detective]

Get that special someone in your life.

[Dave Krupa]

A gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending.

[Detective]

Their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless.

[Debra Roberts]

So here's the idea.

[Detective]

You get it now.

[Debra Roberts]

You call it an early present for next year.

[Narrator]

What do you have to lose?

[Dave Krupa]

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[Debra Roberts]

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