Something About Cari - Ep. 2: Bait and Switch

Summary

Dateline Originals – "Something About Cari"
Episode 2: Bait and Switch
Original Air Date: February 4, 2026
Host: Keith Morrison

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Episode Overview

In this gripping second installment of "Something About Cari," host Keith Morrison delves deeper into the mysterious disappearance of Carrie Farver and the increasingly bizarre and menacing events that unfolded in the weeks and months after she vanished. Through candid interviews, authentic texts and emails, and emotional family testimony, the episode illustrates a true crime case full of psychological twists, relentless harassment, profound grief, and growing suspicion. What began as a seemingly standard missing person case quickly evolves into a mind-bending saga involving identity theft, cyberstalking, and psychological torment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dave Krupa's Tumultuous Relationship with Carrie Farver

• Shift from Affection to Alarm: Dave Krupa describes an instant connection and "happy haze" after spending the night with Carrie (01:03), only for things to take a severe turn after she unexpectedly suggests moving in together via text. Dave rebuffs the idea; Carrie’s response is explosive and sudden—initiating a barrage of angry texts and cutting off ties.

  • Quote:
    • Dave on the texts: "Fine, I don't ever want to see you again. Go away. I'm dating somebody else. I hate you. On and on and on and on." (01:52)

• Mounting Harassment: Over the following days, Dave is subjected to relentless, vicious texts and emails which also target those around him, especially another woman in his life, Liz Gollier.

2. The Trollish Online Presence & Escalating Threats

• Police Involvement & Online Contact:

  • Dave involves police, sharing his phone activity as evidence of harassment (04:13).
  • Chillingly, Carrie also contacts detectives directly via text, requesting they "leave Dave Krupa out of it" (04:45).
  • Cop replies, only for Carrie to insist not to be found:
    • “She said it was pointless. She didn’t want to be found.” (05:15 – Dave)

• Threatening Messages: The texts grow ominous—Carrie now threatens another woman, Liz, and seems to blame her for “destroying everything.”

  • "I want one person to go away for destroying everything for me." (05:27 – "Carrie" via voice actor)

• Property Damage & Stalking:

  • Liz files a police report for harassment (07:12), and both Dave's and Liz’s property are vandalized—windows smashed, graffiti sprayed.
    • Dave: “All my employees knew all about it and kept a vigilant watch for Carrie around the shop… because these texts and emails were getting much more vicious and threatening all the time.” (07:35)

• Carrie’s Family Remains Skeptical: Nancy Farver, Carrie’s mother, is worried and dubious; she can’t reconcile her daughter’s character with the accusations (08:53).

  • “I got a little callous towards the authorities thinking that I didn’t think they were doing quite as what they should have been doing.” (08:53 – Nancy)

3. The Deteriorating Emotional Toll on Family and Friends

• Missed Holidays & Grieving:
  • Carrie misses Thanksgiving and her father’s funeral, communicating only via odd, almost taunting, Facebook messages.
    • “I am so sorry I missed the funeral.” (09:59 – via voice actor)
    • “Dave Krupa proposed to me. I said yes.” (10:07 – via voice actor)
• Nancy’s Hope & Desperation: Nancy still tries to reach Carrie, extends invitations, and coordinates with police to follow leads—even when one turns out to be a false hope at a homeless shelter (20:23–21:26).
• Max’s Painful Experience: Carrie’s teenage son Max describes heartbreaking holidays and futile efforts to connect with his mother online, employing nickname-based tests to verify her identity, with no meaningful response (26:14–28:44).
  • “The Facebook called me…Short Round, which my mom would use…But the next message called me Little Man. She had never used that nickname for me before.” (26:50 – Max)

4. The Unraveling Narrative of Cyberstalking

• Haunted by Surveillance: Dave is unsettled as Carrie seems to always know his whereabouts and actions:

  • “It was very common for me to get messages… that say, Oh, I see you through your window, you’re doing this. And I’d go, I am doing this. …because somebody knows what I’m doing.” (12:16 – Dave)

• Fake Kidnapping & Feigned Proximity:

  • “Carrie” claims to have kidnapped Liz and sends a photo of a bound woman; also claims to have moved into Dave’s apartment complex, only for the address to be fake (13:09–13:48).

5. Evidence & Dead Ends

• Discovery of Carrie’s Vehicle:
  • Dave finds Carrie’s Ford Explorer, reported stolen, months after her disappearance, but police find little—only a mysterious fingerprint that matches no one in their database (18:28–19:18).
• Online Deception Confirmed:
  • Posts and messages continue from Carrie’s accounts, but responses are inconsistent and evasive, never confirming details only the real Carrie would know (27:32–28:40).

6. Impact on the Broader Circle

• Harassment Spreads to Dave’s Dates:
  • A new dating contact, Angela Manor, is cyber-stalked by “Carrie” before even meeting Dave in person, receiving threats to her family and children (32:42–33:07).
    • "The person who was sending them to me was not working. She would just make new accounts. ...I had to talk to my oldest son about safety. He was no longer allowed to walk to and from the bus stop by himself. I lost a lot of sleep." (32:42–33:01 – Angela via voice actor)
• Friends Frustrated and Puzzled:
  • Lifelong friend Amy Long tries fruitlessly to contact Carrie, receiving only ambiguous or generic replies, fueling fears that someone else is controlling her digital presence (29:35–30:20).
    • "Most of the time, I didn’t get a response. Every now and then there would be a response that would say, I’m taking a break right now. Don’t worry, I just need my time right now.” (29:41–29:50 – via voice actor)

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• The Relationship Sours Overnight:

  • Dave: “As soon as I text her back, I get a text back that says, fine, I don't ever want to see you again… On and on and on and on and on.” (01:52)

• Law Enforcement’s Own Digital Encounter:

  • Voice Actor as “Carrie”: “I would really appreciate if you could leave Dave Krupa out of it.” (04:45)

• Mother’s Despair at Police Inaction:

  • Nancy Farver: “I got a little callous towards the authorities … I didn’t think they were doing quite as what they should have been doing.” (08:53)

• Christmas Without Carrie:

  • Max Farver: "At our house, instead of everyone just kind of going at once, we go by age…just going from me to grandma just seemed wrong." (16:45)

• Relentless Digital Torment:

  • Dave: "I would get 50, 60. A day… my phone completely useless. It would just be dinging so much I couldn't answer." (11:04)

• Chilling Surveillance:

  • Dave: “I see you through your window, you’re doing this. And I’d go, I am doing this. Okay, great.” (12:16)

• Max’s Attempt to Prove Identity:

  • Max: "I asked my mom to name my best friend when he was a little kid. ...And what was the response? …Nothing. I never got a response to that one." (28:26–28:44)

• Devastating Effects on Dave:

  • Dave: "It locked me down socially… I was exceptionally paranoid… I gained 30 pounds. Oh, my God. In about three months, I was drinking till I. Till the bar closed and going to work at six o' clock in the morning." (31:21–32:10)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Dave and Carrie's Relationship Crumbles: 01:03–03:31
• Police Involvement, First Texts from “Carrie” to Cops: 04:13–05:32
• Harassment and Property Damage Escalates: 05:52–07:59
• Carrie’s Family’s Doubt and Grief: 08:44–09:59
• Carrie Misses Major Family Events, Posts Odd Updates: 09:59–10:23
• Dave and Nancy Try to Track Carrie (Homeless Shelter Episode): 19:49–21:44
• Max’s Attempts to Verify Carrie’s Identity: 26:14–28:44
• Impact on New Acquaintances (Angela’s Story): 32:10–33:11

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Conclusion & Cliffhanger

The episode leaves listeners enveloped in uncertainty—Dave, Nancy, Max, and Carrie’s friends are tormented by continued electronic contact but no physical trace of Carrie herself. As hope dwindles and the digital harassment intensifies, suspicion spreads and grief deepens.

Keith Morrison teases that the true identity behind the harassment, and the full horror of what happened to Carrie Farver, remains just out of reach, promising explosive revelations in future episodes:

“But understand what was going to happen next. Unlikely. Very unlikely… Did it feel that way? A little bit, yeah." (34:22 – 34:25)

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"Something About Cari" continues to unravel one of the most bizarre and psychologically harrowing missing person cases in Midwest history, blending emotional testimony, chilling harassment, and haunting mysteries that persist long after the episode ends.

Transcript

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[Keith Morrison]

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[Keith Morrison]

Dave Krupa, a man raised in a strict Southern Baptist household who'd done a 180 on the subject of monogamy, hated the whole idea of it. Sounded like he was almost, almost ready to use the L word as in love, to describe his feelings for Carrie Farver. But as the mechanic told the detectives, as suddenly as a blown rod through an engine block, it all came to a sudden stop. Because, well, on that morning of November 13, just three hours after walking out the door in his happy haze, having hit the Powerball, as he put it, with a woman who seemed to fear commitment as much as he did, his phone chirped text message. It was like a needle in a big fat balloon.

[Dave Krupa]

By 10 o' clock, I receive a text from her that says, do you want to move in with me or should we need to move in together? Or something along those lines, really. But immediately I text her back, no, I'm not. We've known each other two weeks. It's not gonna happen. As soon as I text her back, I get a text back that says, fine, I don't ever want to see you again. Go away. I'm dating somebody else. I hate you. On and on and on and on and on.

[Keith Morrison]

Weird.

[Dave Krupa]

Very weird.

[Keith Morrison]

Very.

[Dave Krupa]

What is going on here? But I was at work. It was very busy. I didn't have time for that nonsense. So in the back of my mind I'm thinking, phew, I dodged A bullet there.

[Keith Morrison]

But Dave hadn't dodged a thing. And now he was confused. The man who liked his sex life uncommitted had apparently once again found a woman who expected way more than he was ready to give, wanted to lock him down, and now was acting like a woman scorned because he told the cops. Ever since he told Carrie she couldn't move in with him. On the eight days that followed, she'd been making his life miserable, refusing to answer his calls, responding to text messages with a non stop staccato of angry, often misspelled messages in return. Carrie. Now that name. Just like the old movie about the possessed prom Queen from the 1970s. It sounded like Dave's personal horror show. So this is the woman from hell

[Dave Krupa]

now, all of a sudden? Yeah, or in the course of a couple of hours. Wow.

[Keith Morrison]

I'm Keith Morrison and this is Something about Carrie, a podcast from pig. Episode 2 Bait and Switch. Dave Krupa hadn't seen Carrie since the morning he left her at his place eight days before. As he told those cops with their policeman eyes, hey man, I don't know

[Dave Krupa]

where she's at, but I've got nothing to do with it. It's. Yeah, you know, I'm backpedaling as fast as I can. I don't know where she's at and I don't want to know where she's at at that point. I just want her to go away.

[Keith Morrison]

And to back up his claim, Dave said he had nothing to hide. Showed detectives his cell phone, showed them all the texts and emails Carrie had sent him. Do you think they believed you when you said you didn't know where he was?

[Dave Krupa]

I'm 100%, they believe me.

[Keith Morrison]

And then the strangest thing. One of the detectives phones lit up. It was a text to the cop from Carrie. We had a voice actor read the messages from Kerry.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

I would really appreciate if you could leave Dave Krupa out of it.

[Keith Morrison]

What in heaven's name was going on? So what was a cop to do in this bizarro world? Reply, of course. So he typed out these words, here's Corporal Ryan Avis.

[Dave Krupa]

We can't stop looking into it. We need to locate you and the missing person and tree won't be taken out until someone talks to you in person to where we know you are. Okay.

[Keith Morrison]

Did she respond to that?

[Dave Krupa]

She said it was pointless.

[Keith Morrison]

She didn't want to be found.

[Dave Krupa]

Exactly.

[Keith Morrison]

And then another text, more ominous this time.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

I want one person to go away for destroying everything for me.

[Keith Morrison]

Twilight Zone material But who? Who did she want to go away? The only thing Dave could figure was that woman who'd awkwardly showed up the night Carrie first went to Dave's place. For some reason, Carrie seemed to be blaming her for interfering somehow. And who was it?

[Dave Krupa]

So I go out the security door, and there's Liz.

[Keith Morrison]

The woman was Liz Gollier. Remember her? She's the check writing, furniture buying woman who told police where to find Dave. Except Liz swore up and down to police she never wrote such a check. In fact, she said somebody stole her checkbook, and so the thief must have written it. Kind of made sense to police. Carrie, perhaps, in the throes of a mental health crisis, steals Liz's checkbook and then forges a check for five grand just to mess with the woman who once shared a bed with Dave Krupa. But that wasn't the only way Carrie messed with her, said Liz when she went out to her garage to a car she found scrawled on the wall the words whore from Dave. Well, that sealed had to have been Carrie. All of it. Detectives are used to strange things, but this, though, this was among the strangest of all detectives. Doty and Avis.

[Dave Krupa]

Very out of the ordinary.

[Keith Morrison]

Yeah, like maybe she'd had a breakdown or something, a psychotic episode.

[Dave Krupa]

And that would be the only answer.

[Keith Morrison]

Ten days after Kerry's disappearance, Liz filed a police report in Omaha. And that meant Carrie Farber was now a suspected stalker. But the stalking or harassment, whatever it was, didn't stop. It got worse. Dave told police that graffiti was sprayed on his car and on his place of work, his garage.

[Dave Krupa]

But, like, all my employees knew all about it and kept a vigilant watch for Carrie around the shop and around the parking lot and the bar next door. They all had a description of her and knew who she was and the tobacco shop next to them. And my apartment managers, where I lived and the maintenance guys, everybody had their eyes open because these texts and emails

[Keith Morrison]

were getting much more vicious and threatening all the time.

[Dave Krupa]

And at the apartment complex, I lost two or three windows, and frankly, they were tired of paying for them, you know?

[Keith Morrison]

Really? So smash Mendoz more than once. Oh, yes.

[Dave Krupa]

Yeah.

[Keith Morrison]

What was it like to come home and find that that was. I mean, would she leave a note or something? Or just.

[Dave Krupa]

I would get a text or an email that said, ha, ha. I did this with a picture of what happened.

[Keith Morrison]

But back home, across the Missouri river from Omaha, in Pottawatomie County, Iowa, Carrie was still just missing, and her family was very worried. Carrie's mother heard about the threatening texts, the harassment, the police report filed against her daughter. Didn't sound like her.

[Max Farver]

Carrie.

[Keith Morrison]

Unless Carrie had had some sort of psychotic break, Nancy's protective instinct had her doubting everybody.

[Nancy Farver]

I got a little callous towards the authorities thinking that I didn't think they were doing quite as what they should have been doing.

[Keith Morrison]

But did you get the feeling you just wanted to get in there and storm the barricades and make something happen?

[Nancy Farver]

Yeah. But again, I didn't know how much I could do. And I didn't know where to start.

[Keith Morrison]

By that time, it had been almost two weeks since I'd seen Carrie. Thanksgiving was a day away. When Nancy sent her a message on Facebook. She invited Carrie to be at the usual big family dinner. She wrote this. I've got a roast in the crock pot and we will eat about six. We're going to Dad's for Thanksgiving and eating about noon or one. We love you, Carrie. But Carrie didn't respond to that one. Didn't show up for Thanksgiving dinner either. And then just a couple of weeks later, Nancy's ex husband, Carrie's father, died of cancer. Carrie didn't attend the funeral. Instead, she apologized on Facebook.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

I am so sorry I missed the funeral.

[Keith Morrison]

And also made another bizarre post on Facebook.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

Dave Krupa proposed to me. I said yes.

[Keith Morrison]

What in heaven's name was going on? Nancy once again called the Potawatomi County, Iowa Sheriff's office. And after that, detectives called Dave. Here is that phone call.

[Dave Krupa]

Dave, have you. Have you heard any more about what's going on with Carrie or. Or anything? Well, she's been steady texting and emailing and whatnot this whole time. Okay. She's letting everybody know that you guys are engaged now. Are you guys getting married?

[Keith Morrison]

No.

[Dave Krupa]

Hell no. I saw it on Facebook too. Okay, but you still been getting text messages and stuff from her? Oh, yeah. Okay, so I tried to talk to her a little bit. Then 8, 10 email or 8, 10 text messages later. Gets crazy, dude. So, okay, then I won't talk to her for a couple of days and I'll start over.

[Keith Morrison]

In fact, Dave said the hail of texts and emails seemed to be getting thicker.

[Dave Krupa]

I would get 50, 60. A day.

[Keith Morrison]

A day?

[Dave Krupa]

Oh, yeah. Yeah, all day long. It at one point rendered my phone completely useless. It would just be dinging so much I couldn't answer a phone or send a text.

[Keith Morrison]

Make you want to change your phone

[Dave Krupa]

number, wouldn't it did that a couple of times.

[Keith Morrison]

You did. And they still kept coming they did. Dave did see moments of clarity, though occasionally, Carrie's text seemed almost normal.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

I know I ruined it. I tell myself, don't be crazy. This guy was nice to you. But something takes over.

[Keith Morrison]

But mostly, the emails and text messages were angry rants about perceived romantic rivals. One in particular, Liz Goliar.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

She is a. You shouldn't be with someone like that. I hope we can see each other soon.

[Dave Krupa]

Really?

[Keith Morrison]

They thought, see each other? Like everything was just normal again. Then Dave's confusion only deepened when he started noticing something else. Very creepy. Carrie seemed to be watching his every move.

[Dave Krupa]

It was very common for me to get messages, emails from whatever that say, oh, I see you through your window, you're doing this. And I'd go, I am doing this. Okay, great. And I'd haul ass outside, go looking for somebody, because somebody knows what I'm doing.

[Keith Morrison]

Even more disturbing, Carrie messaged Dave that she had taken his extra apartment key and had been letting herself in when he wasn't there. Liz got unsettling emails, too.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

I'm out in your garage, so what should I do to your car? I see my handiwork is still on the wall.

[Keith Morrison]

Included with that email, a photo of Liz's car to prove Carrie was there. And then things got really bizarre, because in a text message to Dave, Carrie claimed that she had upped the ante. Now by actually kidnapping Liz.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

You will do exactly as I say, and then I will let her go. Do it. Or say goodbye to her.

[Keith Morrison]

And there was another photo, too. A woman bound with ropes. You couldn't really see her face. But was that is? Dave didn't believe it, but I told her, B.S.

[Dave Krupa]

that's Crockett crap. I don't believe you. Go away. Leave me alone.

[Keith Morrison]

But no. Instead, she texted she was moving to an apartment building near Dave's place.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

Yes, a couple buildings away. Why does that bother you? I'm only doing month to month till I find something else.

[Keith Morrison]

Dave told the cops. Of course, they went looking for Carrie.

[Dave Krupa]

And the building number was correct. But the apartment number did not exist.

[Keith Morrison]

So what was she up to? Carrie was still nowhere to be found. But near the apartment complex, Dave found something that wonder of wonders, he knew belonged to Carrie. And Doug.

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[Keith Morrison]

It was Christmas 2012. Six weeks after Carrie Farver vanished, departs unknown back in Macedonia, Iowa. Carrie's now 15 year old son Max had watched his birthday come and go without a peep from his mom and now was spending the holidays with his grandmother, watching the snow gather in ever higher piles and wishing with all his heart that his mom would just walk back through the door and end the torture. What was it like at Christmas time without her?

[Max Farver]

That was hard. That was hard.

[Keith Morrison]

Christmas had once been a magical time of year for Max in Macedonia. A celebration of his amazing bond with his mother, of little things like their family's gift opening traditions.

[Max Farver]

At our house, instead of everyone just kind of going at once, we go by age and do rounds at Christmas and just going from me to grandma just seemed wrong.

[Keith Morrison]

Well, it was wrong and you kind of had to bottle it up, didn't you?

[Nancy Farver]

Kind of.

[Keith Morrison]

It was heartbreaking too for Carrie's mom, Max's grandma Nancy. And of course she was worried, very worried about Max.

[Nancy Farver]

He didn't show his emotion too much to me because he could. He knew that I was.

[Keith Morrison]

You were worried.

[Nancy Farver]

I was really worried. But I found out from his girlfriend's mother that he would go over to her house after school and stuff. To his girlfriend's house. And her mother told me that he did a lot of Crying at their house. That bothered me, of course,

[Keith Morrison]

also bothered. And kicking himself daily, forever hearing the name Carrie Farver. Dave Krupa. He the last person she saw before all the madness. He was still getting text messages from her. Texts that were driving Dave crazy. The blizzards hitting Omaha as fall slid into winter were nothing in comparison. And worse, said Dave, the skin crawling feeling that Carrie was stalking him, spying on him, was always like a ghost. When he looked, she was gone. And then one day, January 2013, about two months after Carrie was last seen, Dave was making the short drive from work to home in west Omaha.

[Dave Krupa]

I'm coming through the parking lot, and I noticed the truck there because it still had all the snow on it. And when I got up close, I'm like, oh, it's an Explorer. Oh, it's the right color. So I called the sheriff and said, I'm pretty sure I found her truck.

[Keith Morrison]

He had. All right. It was Carrie's suv, the black one she brought in for him to fix when the two locked eyes for the first time. The one Carrie's mom had reported stolen when she made the missing persons report. Somehow everyone who'd been looking for Carrie had missed her. Ford Explorer covered by snow as it was. Potawatomi County Sheriff's Office, Sergeant Jim Doty. They impounded it.

[Dave Krupa]

We had a crime scene tech process it, and it was really clean.

[Keith Morrison]

They did a thorough investigation.

[Dave Krupa]

Yeah, they dusted it for prints, and they found a fingerprint inside and recovered that.

[Keith Morrison]

That fingerprint was found on a mint container in the cup holder of the suv. They ran the prints through the national database. They didn't get a hit, though. Then, as winter turned to spring in April, now five months after the craziness with Kerry began, there was a sudden bit of hope. It started with another text by Carrie to Dave.

[Dave Krupa]

She texted me saying, you know, she had nowhere to go. She's homeless, she has no money. She's downtown at a shelter. Can somebody please, oh, can you call my mom and tell her I'm here and come get me? And I didn't respond for quite a while, an hour or two, I think, because I thought, it's just more crap. Finally I thought, well, if I don't respond, then what kind of person am I? You know, maybe she's finally ready to come in and, you know, I don't want to be the reason something bad happens.

[Keith Morrison]

Nancy's phone rang.

[Nancy Farver]

Terry was at this homeless shelter in Omaha and that we were to go pick her up.

[Keith Morrison]

What was happening in here when you.

[Nancy Farver]

Oh, just Flutters. I mean, I. My heart was just racing like crazy.

[Keith Morrison]

The shelter was about an hour away. Nancy, who hadn't seen her daughter or heard her voice for close to half a year, was too wrought up to drive. So she asked her brother to take her.

[Nancy Farver]

Oh, I was so tense, and it was just, you know, trying to catch your breath and just.

[Keith Morrison]

Did you rehearse what you'd say?

[Nancy Farver]

Oh, where have you been? Yeah, and I, you know, it's. I don't care where you've been, to your home.

[Keith Morrison]

A sheriff's detective met Nancy at the shelter. He had a photo of Kerry with him.

[Nancy Farver]

The investigator went into the shelter and showed the picture and wanted to know if there had been anybody there like her. And they said, no, she hasn't been here.

[Keith Morrison]

What's that like?

[Nancy Farver]

Well, then, you know. Then your hopes are dashed again. You just think, where can she be?

[Keith Morrison]

There's a feeling that comes with realizing you're on a wild goose chase.

[Nancy Farver]

Yes, I went home and I thought, I can't live with this anymore. This is just too much.

[Keith Morrison]

Nancy sat down and sent a message to Carrie saying they came to the shelter to find her. But where was she? No response. But not long after, Carrie wrote this post on Facebook.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

I am a grown woman, and if I feel like leaving home, I have the right. I asked my son Max to come with me, but you didn't want to. So when I am ready to come back home, I will. I love you all very much, but I need time still to sort things out.

[Keith Morrison]

Almost rational, if a little defensive. At least it was more like the old Carrie her mom knew. But then. Well, then there were more posts like this one.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

Liz is the hoe that took my boyfriend away from me.

[Keith Morrison]

Nancy's mind was skittering in every direction like a game of marbles. What if Carrie's disappearance was not what it seemed to be? What if she was being held by a kidnapper? What if somebody stole her identity? Nancy, she was desperate for answers, asked investigators about that very possibility, and they said, yeah, we.

[Nancy Farver]

Well, we'll check it out. You know, that kind of thing.

[Keith Morrison]

They said they did, but nothing came of it.

[Nancy Farver]

And every time something would pop up online or we'd get a text or something, there was this hope that maybe

[Keith Morrison]

she's still out there, and maybe one day soon, she'd walk back in the door and explain everything. But month after month after months, she didn't. The detective seemed to have run out of new avenues to investigate, and the case grew cold. As for Carrie's teenage son, Max. He was tired of waiting. He was about to do something on his own to find the answer.

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[Keith Morrison]

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date? Oh, no.

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[Keith Morrison]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

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[Keith Morrison]

Max harbor and his grandmother Nancy were trapped in this constant anxiety week after week after week, helpless to do anything at all but worry. They were expected somehow to go on day after day, as if the more mundane things of life mattered any more at all, the way they used to a Herculean endeavor for a high school freshman in the spring of 2013.

[Max Farver]

We knew we couldn't do anything about it, so we just kind of let it run its course and hope for the best.

[Keith Morrison]

Carrie had been gone for half a year from their historic farmhouse in Little Macedonia, Iowa, when One day, Max Farver opened his Facebook account and his stomach flipped. There was a message, a name, really, that was all. And it had to be from her.

[Max Farver]

That kind of got to me because the Facebook called me. My message called me Short Round, which my mom would use my nickname, the nickname Short Round. And Shortcake for me, just. Well, until I got to her height. But that's what she used to call me.

[Keith Morrison]

And that's what it said in the Facebook post.

[Max Farver]

Yeah, so that kind of got to me at first.

[Keith Morrison]

So.

[Max Farver]

So I. I didn't reply for a couple days in that one.

[Dave Krupa]

Yeah.

[Keith Morrison]

But then Mike summoned up all his nerve and tried something. He pulled up Facebook, then messenger, found his mom's page and sent her a one word message. All it said was hi. And then he waited. Waited for hours. No answer. It wasn't until the following day that he opened it up again. And there it was.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

Hey, little man. How are you?

[Keith Morrison]

Max took a deep breath, tried to tamp down panic. She had never used that nickname for him before. Little Man. So what did that mean? He waited, paralyzed, couldn't think, couldn't do much of anything. And then finally, 12 days later, max messaged her back. The time had come for to know was this taunting online presence actually his mother. So Max wrote that he had three questions. First question, what was his middle name? Simple enough. Nearly anyone could find that out. Second question, what was the name of the first? Boxer he and his mom had raised. Boxer, as in dog? Things only she would know.

[Max Farver]

Yeah, things only she would know.

[Keith Morrison]

And finally, Max asked his mom to name his best friend when he was a little kid. He hit send. And then. And what was response?

[Max Farver]

Nothing. I never got a response to that one.

[Keith Morrison]

But what did that mean? That she didn't know the answers? That she didn't want to play Max's little game? It was maddening, demoralizing, certainly, for Max and his grandmother. But the long and fruitless investigation had worn down Carrie's longtime friends, too. Like Amy Long, we shared everything. Amy met Carrie in high school. They'd been fast friends for more than 20 years.

[Livy Dunn]

She was the one person that I

[Keith Morrison]

was never afraid to share my secrets with. And she was the same with me. We'd laugh together, we'd cry together. Unconditional love and support. And so during those months when Carrie was missing, Amy tried everything to get Carrie to talk to her. I'd send messages to Kerry's cell phone. I'd send her Facebook messages.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

And most of the time, I didn't get a response. Every now and Then there would be

[Keith Morrison]

a response that would say, I'm taking

[Livy Dunn]

a break right now.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

Don't worry, I just need my time right now.

[Keith Morrison]

But was that Carrie's decision? Or was it some controlling guy pulling her strings? Amy knew that Carrie sometimes used dating websites to meet men. They had talked about that. She'd warned Carrie. Carrie sometimes didn't listen, which raised all kinds of, kinds of very unpleasant possibilities. I was always afraid that she was going to come across the wrong person.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

Dating websites have always scared me.

[Keith Morrison]

But what Amy and other friends didn't know was that the man Carrie had actually met on that dating site, Dave Krupa, had cooperated with police in every conceivable way. And in fact, Dave had become a victim himself. He had been sent dozens of harassing texts and emails every day he was being watched, had been sent photos to prove it. Woke up one morning to find a message scratched on his car in huge

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

letters, Dave loves fat whores.

[Keith Morrison]

There was no doubt who did it because Carrie took credit in an email.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

I keyed your car, let people know you like fat whores.

[Keith Morrison]

Gary followed that up with, I should

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

cut your heart out like you did to me.

[Keith Morrison]

In the months since Gary disappeared and started this untethered behavior, Dave, the easygoing car mechanic from Omaha, had become a bundle of nerves. What did that do to you personally?

[Dave Krupa]

It locked me down socially. I wouldn't, would certainly not go out of my way to talk to people in general because I didn't know who was going to be who knew her. You know, for all I know, I go have a drink at the bar and I'm talking to you and you're fronting for Carrie and getting my information or whatever. And, you know, I was exceptionally paranoid. I just, I was looking around every corner, you know, drinking more. Yeah, for a while there I was drinking heavily, which is not me. There's never been a time in my life where I was a real drinker and I spent.

[Keith Morrison]

Did your weight change?

[Dave Krupa]

Gained 30 pounds. Oh, my God. In about three months, I was drinking till I. Till the bar closed and going to work at six o' clock in the morning. Wow.

[Keith Morrison]

It was, however, one habit that Dave continued despite his experience with Carrie. He was still casting about for dates on those dating sites where he found a woman named Angela Manor. Within a day or two of meeting online, Dave and Angela became friends on Facebook. And that is when the harassment started. In Facebook messages from, as she could clearly see, Carrie Farver to Angela blocking.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

The person who was sending them to me was not working. She would just make new accounts.

[Keith Morrison]

And from those accounts, threats to Angela's young children.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

I had to talk to my oldest son about safety. He was no longer allowed to walk to and from the bus stop by himself. I lost a lot of sleep.

[Keith Morrison]

If Dave came with that kind of baggage, Angela felt she had no choice.

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

And then within that same day of me unfriending Dave on Facebook, the messages

[Keith Morrison]

stopped just like that. The strangest part, Angela endured all this and never once met Dave Krupa in person. But Angela was not one of Carrie's primary targets. That person is someone you've met before, Someone who knew all about harassment.

[Dave Krupa]

Oh, we'd spend hours talking about it, showing each other texts and emails we got.

[Keith Morrison]

Who else would understand?

[Dave Krupa]

Right?

[Keith Morrison]

Exactly.

[Dave Krupa]

Nobody else did understand.

[Keith Morrison]

But understand what was going to happen next. Unlikely. Very unlikely. Coming up in future episodes of Something About Carrie. The first time I was briefed on this case, my first impression was this is the story for a made for TV movie, 911.

[Dave Krupa]

Do you need police, fire or medics?

[Voice Actor / Advertisement Voice]

Fire. I just walked into my house and

[Livy Dunn]

there's smoke rolling out of it.

[Dave Krupa]

It was basically arson 101.

[Keith Morrison]

People do things like that in our line of work.

[Dave Krupa]

We're never surprised by what people can do.

[Keith Morrison]

It sounds like you're in the middle of a horror movie or something.

[Livy Dunn]

Yeah.

[Keith Morrison]

Did it feel that way?

[Livy Dunn]

A little bit, yeah.

[Dave Krupa]

I was blown away. Absolutely blown away. I didn't know what to think. He felt like the rug got pulled out from underneath him.

[Keith Morrison]

I'd say that's probably pretty close to literally true. Something About Carrie is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Shane Bishop and Jessica Devera Lapid are the 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 as senior executive producer. From NBC News, audio sound mixing by Rich Cutler. And Doug.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

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.

[Keith Morrison]

Hey, everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date? Oh, no.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.