Something About Cari - Ep. 1: The Family Wedding

Summary

---

Dateline Originals: "Something About Cari" – Ep. 1: The Family Wedding

Podcast: Dateline Originals
Host: NBC News, Narrator Keith Morrison
Date: February 4, 2026
Summary by Podcast Summarizer

---

Episode Overview

Main Theme:
The premiere episode of "Something About Cari" sets the stage for a chilling true crime story centered on the mysterious disappearance of Cari Farver, a devoted mother and computer programmer from a small Iowa town. Told through the eyes of her family, law enforcement, and the men she dated, Episode 1 draws listeners into the confusion, pain, and mounting fear that began the night Cari missed a crucial family wedding in 2012. Gradually, a tale of heartbreak, mental health struggles, stalking, and inexplicable threats unravels, launching an investigation marked by more questions than answers.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Night of the Shooting

• Setting: Council Bluffs, Iowa, December 2015, after dark (00:50)
  • Keith Morrison paints a noir-like scene: “The lights of the city skyline seemed to wink as they picked up the ripples on the river...as if those winking lights knew something” (00:50).
  • A woman, later revealed to be connected to the Farver case, calls 911 after being shot in the thigh.
  • First clue: She identifies her assailant as a woman—unusual in gun violence cases (04:01).
  • Police and helicopters search the area, but no suspect is found.
  • The victim survives, but the motive is as mysterious as the perpetrator’s identity. Morrison hints: “A mystery as opaque as the night-black river began finally to reveal itself in all its confounding weirdness.” (05:03)

2. Introducing the Farver Family

• Rewind to 2012: Listeners are transported three years earlier to the week of a family wedding that would change everything for the Farvers (06:21).
  • Cari’s son Max and her mother Nancy narrate their close-knit relationship with Cari, emphasizing her role as a loving, attentive single mom.
  • Max on their relationship: “Yeah, we were definitely really close. Like after she would bring a guy home to meet me and she would always ask what I thought of him. And I knew that if I said anything bad, she’d...She’d end it right there.” (07:48)

3. The Wedding Cari Never Attended

• Cari and Max had planned to attend the wedding together, something she’d looked forward to, but at the last minute, she failed to show up.
• Max recalls the day: “I never got any texts once the wedding started, I kept texting her, I tried calling her. Nothing.” (09:13)
  • This absence is deeply out of character, especially since Cari’s father, gravely ill, would be at the wedding (09:42).
• Family confusion and worry escalate—“It was all too weird,” says Nancy Rainey of her daughter’s unexplained absence. (16:29)

4. Portrait of Cari

• The episode delves into Cari’s background—a brilliant but sometimes impulsive woman who coped with bipolar disorder and the turbulence it sometimes brought.
  • Nancy Rainey: “She didn’t really want to just go along with what the other girls were doing. She felt like she wanted to do her own thing.” (10:49)
  • Cari’s friend Holly: “She was so shiny...very pretty.” (11:17)
• Cari devoted herself to her son Max—marking his birth with a “Chinese symbol for mother” tattoo. “She reminded me of it, too," says Max. (12:41)

5. Erratic Communication and Growing Fears

• After the missed wedding, Nancy receives unsettling texts—Cari claims she broke up with her boyfriend (“Dave”), is checking herself into a mental institution, and is moving to Kansas with Dave, selling all her furniture.
• Nancy’s alarm: “Absolutely not. I said, either you call me, you come to see me, I’m not doing anything until I hear you. And that’s when the nasty text started coming.” (20:17)
  • The tone of her messages shifts, growing threatening and uncharacteristically harsh.

6. Cari's Mental Health and Family Reaction

• Nancy explains Cari’s struggles with bipolar disorder, manifesting mainly as debilitating depression.
  • “She got real down, real depressed...she would go under the covers and sleep...hibernate.” (17:45)
  • Nancy worries Cari has gone off medication, leading to her erratic behavior.
• Concerned for Max’s safety after threatening messages, Nancy pursues temporary guardianship (22:21).
  • “Just wondering, what am I doing to my daughter?...the lawyer said, now, this is just temporary. Now, if she comes back, you can always undo this.” (22:31)

7. Investigative Trail Begins

• Detectives investigate the claim of selling furniture—uncovering someone forged a $5,000 check from a stolen checkbook belonging to Liz Gollier, who also dated Dave (24:30).
  • Liz becomes a key contact for police, connecting them to Dave.

8. Dave Krupa’s Perspective & Relationship Timeline

• Winter, 2012: Police interview Dave, Cari’s brief romantic interest.
  • Dave recounts their relationship as intensely passionate but purposefully non-committal.
  • “As a man, I want companionship. So I’m always looking for a girlfriend, but never a committed relationship.” (32:10)
  • Of Cari: “She was extremely intelligent. She was much smarter than I am, just in general. She had a brain on her.” (32:50)
• The week before the wedding, Cari stays at Dave’s Omaha apartment for several nights while on a big work project. Dave describes their last morning together as a scene from a “50s TV show”: “...kiss on the way out the door, you know, like, huh, see you later honey...” (34:46)
  • Hours later, a text. Dave: “By 10 o’clock, I receive a text from her that says, do you want to move in with me? Very weird. Very. What is going on here.” (35:41)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the original crime scene’s unusual nature:
  • “The shooter was a woman. The fact that flew in the face of all those statistics that law enforcement collects about gun violence.” – Keith Morrison (04:05)
• On Cari’s deep maternal bond:
  • “Oh gosh. She goes, you’re all mine. I don’t have to share you with anybody.” – Nancy quoting Cari at Max's birth (12:17)
• On sudden, chilling texts:
  • “You’re coming with me. You have no choice. I’m the adult here and what I say goes.” – Max reading his mother's sudden message (20:52)
• On living in confusion and fear:
  • “Every time that my name got called in the intercom, I’d kind of glance in the office real quick just to make sure that it was okay to go in, because if it wasn’t, I was supposed to go get him [my big cousin] and have him come with me because he wasn’t gonna let anyone take me.” – Max on fear for his safety at school (21:18)
• On dating Cari:
  • “She turns to me and she said, look, if we’re going to have sex, that’s all it is, period. There’s nothing more to it...Of course, my eyes lit up and I’m like, ping. I hit the Powerball.” – Dave Krupa (31:28)
• On the relationship’s potential:
  • “That’s why I say with Terry it was potential. That long term it might have been different.” – Dave Krupa (34:58)

---

Key Timestamps

• 00:50 — Atmospheric introduction and the city park shooting
• 04:01 — Victim identifies shooter as a woman
• 07:48 — Max describes his close relationship with Cari
• 09:13 — Max recounts Cari missing the wedding
• 10:49 — Nancy and Holly offer reflections on Cari’s character
• 17:15 — Nancy receives unsettling texts from Cari
• 20:17–21:13 — Nancy and Max on escalating threats and fears for Max’s safety
• 22:21–22:50 — Nancy secures temporary guardianship of Max
• 24:30 — Police learn about the fake $5,000 furniture check and Liz Gollier
• 27:21 — Detectives interview Dave Krupa
• 29:04–34:55 — Dave recounts meeting, dating, and cohabiting with Cari
• 35:41 — Dave receives a strange text from Cari: “Do you want to move in with me?”

---

Episode Tone & Takeaway

True to Dateline’s brand, episode one is a careful blend of empathy and suspense, with Keith Morrison’s narration balancing warmth and gravitas. Through family voices, chilling messages, and a tangle of relationships, the episode paints Cari as a layered, real person—flawed, loving, and increasingly vulnerable. The mystery—where is Cari, and what happened to her—emerges as much more than a missing persons case; it’s a web of identity, mental illness, technological manipulation, and ultimately, violence.

---

For Next Time

The episode closes with Dave facing detectives and a mysterious text from Cari, setting up the next installment’s deeper dive into “the confounding weirdness” of the case.

---

Note: Ad segments and non-content sections have been excluded. This summary preserves the speakers’ language and immersive storytelling style of the episode.

Transcript

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Neighborhood.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Oh, no.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Is your money just lying around? Switch to Huntington Bank. And your money's always doing something like auto saving for special events, tracking your teen spending and helping protect your parents from fraud. Let's get more from money. Switch to Huntington Bank. Welcome. Eligibility requirements apply. Some features may require enrollment.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

The lights of the city skyline seemed to wink as they picked up the ripples on the river. And the muted hum of city sound drifted across the Missouri to the Iowa side. As if those winking lights knew something. As if that hum was gossip. A jet plane descended to EPRI Airfield. Broke the spell. Because of course, cities don't really know secrets or when something is about to happen. Though something certainly was any minute now. It was unusually mild for Midwest evening, so late in autumn. Snow was sparse and threadbare in the park on the Iowa side of the Missouri River. It was the first week of December in the year of our Lord 2015. Just past 6:30pm quite dark now and then. No question what that was. It was followed by this.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

91 1. Must get a severe emergency. Oh, yeah, I've been shot in the lady.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

It was a woman in pain, obviously. She told the 911 operator she had come to the park alone in her car.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Parking lot on the west hand side. I have a little red Toyota and I'm laying next to it. Okay. Is the assailant still nearby?

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

I don't think so.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

I kept on burning. Okay, okay, okay. We're getting help started. Okay, ma'.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Am. The woman said the bullet had gone clean through her thigh. In one side and out the other. Through and through is what first responders call that kind of wound, so a quick response would be crucial.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Is there any serious bleeding? Oh, my God. Oh, Jesus.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And the shooter or shooters? Long gone, said the woman.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

You know who did it? No.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

An attacker roaming free with a gun in a city park. Well, that gets him immediate attention. So the dispatcher quickly called in squad cars from the Council Bluffs, Iowa Police Department.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Hold on. I know it's radio traffic. Okay, you're not gonna hear me for a second.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Oh, Jesus.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

An agency assist came from across the river. A helicopter from the Omaha PD was in the air with its spotlight scouring a city park the size of 150 football fields for any sign of a suspect. Back and forth it flew, looking for whoever had fired the shot. Looking essentially for a drop of water in a pitch black pond.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

How many people were there? Oh, I don't know. I only heard one.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

About whom the victim offered at least one clue.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Do you know if it's a male or female? Female.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

The shooter was a woman. The fact that flew in the face of all those statistics that law enforcement collects about gun violence

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

area. We don't have any toxic information.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Officers arrived. This is a recording from their dash cam.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Where'd you go? Who is it?

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Who is it asking their questions as the victim was bundled into an ambulance. Did you run down the trail? And why fire at this victim, an unassuming mother of two who'd made her living as the owner of a business that cleaned houses. She had just gone to get 5 minutes peace in a quiet place and got a bullet in the leg. She would live, by the way. But the shooter. Okay, we need to know which way she went. Yes. And? Well, we imagine them looking for a woman with a gun in the dark in that giant park by the river across from the hum of the city with its sparkling towers, a mystery as opaque as the night. Black river began finally to reveal itself in all its confounding weirdness. Had you ever encountered a thing quite that elaborate before?

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

No, nothing.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Nothing like this.

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

This is a unique case, to say the least.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Here was harassment, stalking, assault, arson, and of course, murder.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

All I heard was, open up police.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And what was that like?

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Traumatizing. I was freaked out.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And of all the smart investigators who worked on the case, couldn't connect the dots. Well, perhaps it was understandable. Detective 101 rarely covers this sort of diabolical scheming. But whatever the reason, it went on and on and on for years. You're on edge as to what's going to happen next. Until that night by the river.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

They shot off a couple of dogs. They only hit you in one.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

I think.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

This night.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

I don't know.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Finally, it began to make some sort of sense. The best part of it was being able to tell her, we've arrested somebody for the murder of your daughter. That was what made working this whole case worth it. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Something About Carrie, the podcast from Dateline episode One the family wedding to begin three years before that shooting in the park. The question was simple and urgent. Where was she? It was a question that 14 year old max Farver had been asking for days now about his mom. There was a family wedding to attend in Des Moines, Iowa. Max's uncle was getting married. Max was to be an usher. Third week of November 2012. Max, with his mop of dark hair and his good manners and his all around kindness, was as close as could be to his mom, Carrie farver. She, the 37 year old computer programmer had been planning her road trip with Max for weeks. They were going to make it fun. Drive from home in a tiny farming town called Macedonia to the big city two hours away, singing along with their favorite playlists. You two were pretty close. They were close all right. The kind of you and me against the world thing. A single mom and her only child is her son. It's like that, right? Almost like one person in a way?

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

Yeah, we were definitely really close. Like after she would bring a guy home to meet me and she would always ask what I thought of him. And I knew that if I said anything bad, she'd. She'd end it right there. I knew she would.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Max and his mom loved reading together, watching Disney movies. She nicknamed him Short Round from the Indiana Jones films. On the subject of your mom, what springs to mind first when I just say that?

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

How much she kept track of me and made me keep my grades up.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Carrie was fierce, bright, determined. But there was something else about her too, and it mattered. In her life and in our story, Carrie was not always her own best friend. Two husbands had come and gone. Sudden decisions had sometimes gone wrong. Behaviors were frequently unpredictable. But this weekend, the third weekend in November 2012, was to be about mother and son, the two of them. Carrie had booked a hotel for the weekend with two queen sized beds and seemed to be looking forward to it. When pickup time arrived, Max waited and waited, but Carrie failed to show. So Max had to get a ride to the wedding from his grandmother.

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

And I never got any texts once that like the wedding started, I kept texting her, I tried calling her. Nothing.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Do you remember what you were feeling at that point?

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

I was worried. You couldn't really enjoy the wedding knowing something was going on.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

It was all so confusing, especially since the wedding date had been moved up several months because Carrie's dad, the groom's dad, was on hospice suffering from stomach cancer. Was she close with her dad?

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

Oh yeah, very, very close. So yeah, she wouldn't have missed that.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

That must have been a weird night.

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

That was a very weird night.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Very weird.

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

Because people kept asking where she was. And I couldn't give an answer.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Nor could he for a very long time. Something wasn't making sense. Family was important to the farmers. To carry her son, Max, their family went back generations in southwestern Iowa. Carrie's mom, Max's grandmother, was herself born and raised on a farm just outside Macedonia. A sweet and even tempered woman. Stolid, Midwestern. Nice. Her name is Nancy Rainey.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

It's a very small town. I think there's only around 250 people that live there now. It's very. It's just home. It's quiet there. It's not a lot that happens.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Nancy had always known there was something a little different about Carrie. She was all business about school, but

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

yet she didn't really want to go with the norm. She didn't want to just go along with what the other girls were doing. She felt like she wanted to do her own thing. And sometimes that.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

That doesn't always go well.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

It always go well.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Yeah, school was easy for her, but then, so were boys. Enticed by Carrie's big hazel eyes, her mischievous grin, a natural beauty that came effortlessly, said her friend Holly Drummond.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

She was so shiny. She was. I mean, she was very pretty.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Guys were just drawn to her.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And she liked it.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Yeah, she did. Why shouldn't she?

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

But there was that other something about Carrie. The tendency to sometimes make dubious choices.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Well, you know, like I said, you

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

know, she was a Carrie. Carrie knew how to have fun.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Like the time when Carrie was away at college and there was this guy, one of a parade of guys.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

I mean, she made it sound like.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

She made it sound like a romantic movie.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

But the romance didn't last. Even when Carrie found out she was pregnant again, her mom, Nancy. Did it come as a surprise?

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Yes. Yeah.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

She named the baby Maxwell. Everybody called him Max. Carrie's friend, Holly.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

I got to the hospital after work.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

She had had him laying in her lap, and she said, oh, gosh. She goes, you're all mine. I don't have to share you with anybody.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And she marked the occasion, did Carrie, by getting a tattoo on the top of her left foot. A very unusual tattoo. The Chinese symbol for mother. That tattoo was for you.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

Yep.

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

She reminded me of it, too.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

But now, how painful it was when she stood him up, skipped out on the wedding and the special trip they'd planned. He told himself she'd be back, she would get over whatever it was that kept her away. And he watched the driveway for her and tried to calm himself. No idea that his life was already utterly changed.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Every day on donorschoose.org teachers ask for the books, supplies and learning materials their students need.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Because every day teachers show up for their students.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

But who's going to show up for teachers?

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Because appreciation shouldn't stop at thank you.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

It means taking action. Books for the classroom, supplies for students,

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

support teachers can count on. Show our classroom heroes the appreciation they deserve.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Donate [e-mail] local

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

and Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it makes sense, means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Oh, no.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. You ever feel like your money is just lying around? Switch to Huntington Bank. And your money is always doing something.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Like what?

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Like automatically pushing more to see savings so you can take that trip. I like trips. Who doesn't? It even tracks your progress. You're almost there.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Wow.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

I better pack. And it charts your spending so you know which vacation hat you can afford. How does it know I like hats? Let's get more from money, switch to Huntington Bank.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Welcome.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Eligibility requirements apply. Some features may require enrollment.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

In the days after that wedding, Carrie missed on November 17, 2012, Max tried unsuccessfully to figure out what happened to his mother. What was she doing that was more important than him, than the wedding?

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

I wasn't sure what was going on,

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

except maybe, thought Max, maybe it had something to do with a new guy in his mom's life. A guy Max had heard of, but only knew as Dave. Dave who lived in Omaha in an apartment that happened to be very close to Kerry's office.

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

I just had heard of a Dave. That was about it.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

But she didn't talk about him?

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

No, usually things like that she didn't really talk to me about. She didn't plan on bringing him home to family or anything.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Wasn't that kind of relationship?

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

Yeah, no, it wasn't. It was just kind of an in between thing. Nothing real serious. So she didn't bother with bringing him home because she knew it wouldn't be a long term relationship. And I knew that she was going to stay with someone in Omaha just Because she'd be working from like 8am to 8pm and she didn't want to drive 45 minutes home, go to sleep, drive 45 minutes back, which seemed normal to me. Sure wasn't weird.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

So you wanted to stay with your grandma?

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

Yeah, no real big deal. I. I had stayed with her in the past a few times. Like, not often. Yeah. But often enough that it wasn't weird to me. I had my own room.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

So. Max had spent that week before the wedding with his grandma Nancy. And now, well, Carrie's mom, Nancy said she had no idea either. None at all. This is just too weird.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Yeah, it was all too weird.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Except Nancy had already been handed a clue of sorts of. It was a text message from Carrie that week before the wedding. Nancy didn't tell Max about it, didn't want to worry the boy. And anyway, she was worried enough for both of them. For one thing, Carrie's text said she'd broken up with her boyfriend, the mysterious Dave. Perhaps that was unclear, but then, Dave was the one she'd been talking about. Do you know how to reach this guy? Or even what his last name was? But that was classic Carrie. And that wasn't what worried her. It was this. The text also said she was thinking about checking into a mental hospital.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

I didn't know how to start looking for. So what is that, like, it's hell. It's just frustration and just helplessness.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

That would scare you?

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Yes, it scared me.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Tremendously scared, said Nancy, because after College, in her mid-20s, Carrie had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, what used to be known as manic depression. Carrie's condition manifested mostly as extreme, debilitating depression.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

She got real down, real depressed when she did that. She just would go under the covers and sleep, and she just, you know, she'd hibernate. She'd close herself off from everything, but

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

it was tormenting her, really.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

It's hard for a mother to watch

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

her dad go through that. Yeah, it is. And to, you know, talking to her and just trying to get it out of her, you know, what can I do? And there's really nothing that I can do or say. She's got. She's the one that has to help herself.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Carrie's medication helped keep her stable, but now her mom wondered had she gone off her medication, and that's maybe right off the rails. So when she failed to make her date with Max to drive to the wedding, Nancy contacted the county sheriff's office to file a missing persons report. For good measure. She also reported Carrie's Ford Explorer stolen though. Who knew really? Did somebody steal it? Or was Cary at that very moment driving off to some imagined new life?

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

They took down all the information, of course, and they couldn't, they didn't really offer too much.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Well, I guess they thought what, She's a grown woman, she can leave if

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

she wants to leave, right?

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Nancy of course, told the deputies about Carrie's struggle with bipolar disorder. And here's what they told her, said Nancy.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Well, she's probably offer medicine and you know, these things happen and so there's that happens a lot.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

It felt like a brush off. So Nancy just kept trying to reach Carrie. Called her again and again and again, but her daughter just wouldn't pick up. And then sudden relief. Nancy got another text message from Carrie. Short lived relief. There were at least some answers, but not exactly the answers Nancy had been hoping for. Carrie wrote that she had quit her job in Omaha and was on her way to Kansas to a brand new home and a brand new job. And Dave was with her. They were moving in together. Oh, and Carrie said she had sold her furniture. All of it. She attached a photo of a $5,000 check from the buyer. Carrie wanted Nancy to let the buyer pick up the furniture from the home where Carrie and Max lived out in Macedonia. Clean it out. Well, you can just imagine how Nancy reacted to all that.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

And I said absolutely not. I said, either you call me, you come to see me, I'm not doing anything until I hear you. And that's when the nasty text started coming.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Why did she say that?

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

And that I was a bad mother. She said, I'm going to take Max. You're going to. We're going to leave.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

After the wedding, Max received texts from Kerry too, letting him know of her plans. Max was well aware that his mom took medication for her bipolar disorder, of course. But this new aggressive tone suggested she'd stop taking it.

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

You're coming with me. You have no choice. I'm the adult here and what I say goes.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

I just trying to imagine what it was like to be you in the middle of that situation.

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

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 let me go with them.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Them meaning maybe this Dave guy. If Carrie sent him.

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

I was thankful to have my cousin as one of the teachers at school because he's a big guy. He's probably six two, 280, 300 pounds. Wow. So I every time the that my name got called in the intercom. I'd kind of glance in the office real quick just to make sure that it was okay to go in, because if it wasn't, I was supposed to go get him and have him come with me because he wasn't gonna let one take me.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And frankly, the way his mom was acting, Max didn't want to go anywhere with her or her friend Dave.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Max was upset because he didn't know this person either.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Never met him, no.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

And I thought, there's no way he's going to take. She's going to take him with this person that I don't even know. I've heard all of these horror stories about people having these personality changes and going off the deep end. And I thought, I've got to do something about Max. I've got to keep him safe.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Nancy took a drastic step. Two weeks after the wedding, she got temporary guardianship of Max. That must be so weird.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Oh,

[Max Farver (Carrie's Son)]

fraught.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Yes. And just wondering, what am I doing to my daughter? If we were doing this, the lawyer said, now, this is just temporary. Now, if she comes back, you can always undo this. I said, okay.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Meanwhile, surely the sheriff could find her daughter, get some help, right? She showed them Carrie's text about the furniture. The phone company told investigators the texts were coming from a cell phone in Omaha. Officers went to the address and found no sign of Carrie or her car. They found nothing at all. Sergeant Jim Doty and Corporal Ryan Avis of the Pottawatomie County Sheriff's Office joined the investigation much later. Said the obvious step was to find the person who'd written carry a check for that furniture. That was a woman Nancy had never heard of. Her name was Liz Gollier. Liz was a mother of two. She also lived in Omaha. Here's Corporal Avis. They called her, left a voicemail, which she returned that call the next day. Liz jumped at the chance to help, maybe because she knew a thing or two about the mysterious Dave. In fact, she too had once gone out with Dave. And on again, off again sort of thing. Well, anyway, just as you'd expect in a story this strange, Liz told the cops that check she'd supposedly written to buy Carrie's furniture. That wasn't her. She didn't write any check for $5,000. But somebody had recently broken into her house. And what was one of the things the thief or thieves took? It was her checkbook. Liz had a lot more to tell those law officers, too, and we'll get to that. But the most important thing she told the deputies who were remember searching for Carrie was how to contact Dave, the man seemingly in the middle of all this mess with the now very in the wind, Kerry Farver. 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. Yeah, definitely a person you want to talk to. And detectives didn't know it yet, But Dave, a 36 year old tattooed auto mechanic who worked at a shop in west Omaha and who had, some would say, an extreme fear of commitment, was about to tell them a story that might have rivaled a Harlequin romance novel in chapter one. Anyway, the rest of the story is certainly not what they expected. Not at all.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Oh, no.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Is your money just lying around? Switch to Huntington bank. And your money's always doing something like auto saving for special events, tracking your teen spending, and helping protect your parents from fraud. Let's get more from money. Switch to Huntington Bank. Welcome. Eligibility requirements apply. Some features may require enrollment.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Hey, want a cookie? Oh, I know you just ate, so

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

you're craving something a little sweet.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Besides, one cookie isn't going to kill you.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

How about half?

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Just a bite.

[Nancy Rainey (Carrie's Mother)]

Bite it.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Bite it, bite it. Food noise isn't fair, but Mochi Health is your affordable glp. One source that puts you on a path to successful weight loss by quieting food noise. Bite it.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Shh.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Learn [e-mail] Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists. Results may vary.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

There's an old saying in police work goes something like this. Good people wonder who's coming to the door. Bad people know who's coming. But in Omaha, Nebraska, auto mechanic Dave Krupa seemed to have no such worries when a co worker at the auto shop told Dave that he had visitors. It was a winterish morning, a week after Kerry's vanishing act, four days after that wedding she'd missed. November 21, 2012.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

I think I was out back and one of the guys was like, hey, the police are here looking for you. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay. You know, I didn't know. Well, at first I didn't think anything of it. I thought, oh, maybe there's an abandoned car in the parking lot or something. I didn't realize it was detectives. I'm thinking it's a black and white, you know?

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

But nothing was black and white that morning. Not when those detectives appeared out of the blue. It just showed up.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

Oh, yeah. There was no warning the first time they came. They just showed up to the shop.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

The detectives wanted Dave to step outside. One started things off and then tells

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

me, hey, do you know Carrie? Yeah. Okay, so where is she now? No idea.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Dave claimed Carrie up and left about a week ago, and now her whereabouts were a mystery. That's what Dave told the detectives anyway. Not that the investigators seemed to buy it.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

He was drilling me with them policeman eyes, them ones that are like, you know, we feel like you're in the principal's office and where were you at

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

6:30 on that morning?

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

And, yeah, and that was how he approached me was as if I'd already done something and he already knew it, and it's time to deal with it, you know? And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, slow down.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Because Dave Krupa had a story to tell. And what a story. It was about a relationship that began quite sweetly, innocently, and now somehow it apparently ended very, very badly. It all started about three months earlier, back in the late summer, said Dave, when Carrie stopped at his garage looking for someone to repair her Ford Explorer.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

She walks in, I see her, we meet eyes, and just for a moment, I kind of stop and I go, well, hello. You know, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, wow, she's gorgeous. But I'm at work representing the company I work for. That's off the table. It's not a possibility.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And so properly restrained by the mere prospect of doing something improper. When Carrie drove away, Dave went back to work. But then, a couple of weeks after Carrie stopped into the garage, it seemed like fate. Dave went on a dating website, as he was wont to do. And there she was. Her profile, her picture, her name. Carrie. He started typing.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

I just said, hey, I know you. Ha ha. And she replied, same thing.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And one day, not long after, Dave looked up from his work at the garage and Carrie, in the flesh, was

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

looking right at him without saying anything. There's kind of some sparks flying. We're looking at each other like we're both trying wanting to say something. And we did, and we Exchanged phone numbers.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Dave said, how about dinner? And he knew she'd say yes. It was October 29, two weeks before she disappeared, said Dave. They met at Applebee's that first evening. The food didn't matter much, and we

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

were very, I would say, enthralled with each other.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And then both caught up in that glow. They went to Dave's place. But timing. Dave wasn't exactly what you'd call a one woman man. And moments after he ushered Carrie into his apartment, the doorbell rang. It was one of his ex girlfriends. She'd stopped by to pick up some things she left in his bedroom closet. Awkward. But Carrie, proving to Dave just how cool and how different she was, just laughed, volunteered to show herself out.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

She said, ah, I. I get it. It's not a big deal. I'm gonna go home. You call me when you're done dealing with this mess.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

So Dave escorted Carrie to the door and then waited impatiently for his previous woman of passing interest to gather up her things and get out the door. After which Dave called Kerry to apologize and regroup.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

And she invited me out to her place, which was like an hour drive outside of town. When I got to her place, we're there 20 minutes making coffee, BSing, and of course, pretty soon we're on the couch and we're getting a little closer. Now, at this point, we haven't even kissed. And she turns to me and she said, look, if we're going to have sex, that's all it is, period. There's nothing more to it. And ask 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.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Because Dave. Well, Dave felt exactly the same way.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

As a man, I want companionship. So I'm always looking for a girlfriend, but never a committed relationship.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

And you let them know that this

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

is the way it's gotta be. That was the first conversation. Take or leave it. That's how it is.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

But with Carrie, he didn't even have to bring it up.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

It was all her. And we hit it off right from there.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Carrie told him she was a computer programmer. Her office was in Omaha, and by happy coincidence, it was just a few blocks from his garage and his apartment, where no strings, no messy commitments. They met often, made love, talked.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

She was extremely intelligent. She was much smarter than I am, just in general. She just. She had a brain on her.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Different than the women you had dated before.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

The majority of them.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

She.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

Well, for instance, what she did For a living, programming. I consider myself a little bit of a computer nerd, but compared to her, I didn't even know what a computer was.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

In some of the more amorous moments, Dave even began to reconsider his no commitment rule. He'd been determined about that rule ever since he broke off a 12 year relationship with the mother of his two children. But after a couple of weeks with Carrie, was he weakening? Would he? All this Dave related to the detectives who'd come to see him. They listened intently as he finally got to the important bit. The strange events during the second week of November 2012, that is the week before Carrie blew off the big family wedding in Des Moines. That week, said Dave, Carrie told him she had a big project at work. So instead of driving all the way home to Little Macedonia, Iowa every night, could she stay at his place? Absolutely, said Dave. And So that Monday, November 12, they began their work week together. And Carrie came over after work. They spent the night together. Someone looking in on that happy scene could be forgiven for assuming they were taking more permanent cohabitation for a test drive. That would be wrong, of course. There's no commitment. Dave would have told them anyway. Next morning, Tuesday, November 13, Dave said he left, as he always did, a few minutes before 6:30am to walk to work at his garage. Carrie had been up early on her computer and Dave said when he left she was still getting ready for work herself.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

They were kiss on the way out the door, you know, like, huh, see you later honey. That kind of thing, you know, it was almost like a. That sort of 50s TV show garbage.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

So that doesn't sound like a guy who's got no attachment.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

Well, I didn't say honey, but that's the way I change products, you know. But she brought that out of me. That's why I say with Terry it was potential. That long term it might have been different.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

So when you went off to work that day, you're a pretty good mood?

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

Oh hell yeah, I was in a great mood. This beautiful lady was going to be in my house when I got home. I don't know who wouldn't spot about that.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

But Dave wasn't smiling now as he met with those detectives because what he would tell them next, oh, you couldn't make it up. A story straight out of left field. Coming up in future episodes of something about Carrie. Dave Krupa's big surprise.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

By 10 o' clock, I receive a text from her that says, do you want to move in with me?

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Weird.

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

Very weird. Very. What is going on here. So in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, phew, I dodged a bullet there.

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Seemed like the friendly cop or the dumb one. I'll be whatever she wanted as long as she kept telling us information.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

It was exciting because this, I think,

[Dave Krupa (Auto Mechanic)]

was about as close as we got

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

to having a smoking gun. In this case,

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Something about Carrie is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Shane Bishop and Jessica De Vera Lapit are the production producers. Brian Drew, Marshall Housefeld and Greg Smith are audio editors. Brittany Morris is field producer, Molly DeRosa is assistant producer, Adam Gorfin is co executive producer, Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer from NBC News. Audio sound mixing by Rich Cutler.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

And Doug there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Hey, everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Narrator (Keith Morrison)]

Oh, no.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Anyways, get a [e-mail], or with your local agent.

[Commercial Voice / Interviewer]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.