Something About Cari - Ep. 6: Something… About Liz

Summary

Dateline Originals: "Something About Cari"

Episode 6: "Something… About Liz"

Release Date: February 4, 2026
Host: Keith Morrison, NBC News

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Episode Overview

This episode of Dateline's podcast miniseries "Something About Cari" takes a hard look at Liz Golyar—the woman charged and ultimately convicted of the murder of Cari Farver—even as it scrutinizes her defense, her past, and the broader implications of her earlier possible misdeeds. Episode 6, "Something… About Liz," focuses on Liz’s trial, her celebrated defense attorney, the bombshells from her pre-crime life, and how a previous tragedy in her orbit raises complex questions about truth, justice, and manipulation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Liz Golyar’s Trial and Defense

• Attorney James Martin Davis: Renowned Midwest defense attorney, took on Golyar’s case with vigor. Known for his charisma and his willingness to defend unpopular clients.
  • “Everybody, no matter how nasty people might think they are, deserves a robust defense.” (Keith Morrison, 02:28)
• Bench Trial Strategy: On Davis' advice, Liz chose a judge over a jury, aiming to avoid the emotional sway her alleged deceptions might have had on laypersons.
• Prosecution’s Evidence: No body was found. The state relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, alleged digital manipulation, and a deleted photo from Liz’s SD card, possibly showing Cari’s decomposing tattooed foot.
• Davis’s Defense: Emphasized the absence of physical evidence and challenged speculative leaps made by the prosecution.
  • “You may have smart cards and you may have phones, but you don't have a body and you don't have a cause of death from a medical examiner. ... Their belief, their speculation, their notion that this is what happens, that can't convict.” (James Martin Davis, 03:27)
• Direct Witness Examination: Davis questioned all those closest to the case, including Carrie’s partner, ex-partner, and mother; underscored that none had firsthand knowledge of the murder.
  • “You don't have any firsthand knowledge about what happened to Carrie Farver ... do you?” (James Martin Davis to Dave Krupa, 04:17)

2. Verdict and Aftermath

• The Verdict: The judge delivered a guilty verdict on all counts—first-degree murder and second-degree arson—stressing the overwhelming evidence despite the missing body.
  • “Carrie Farver did not voluntarily disappear ... she was murdered. ... [The defendant] intentionally killed Carrie Farver with deliberate and premeditated malice.” (The Judge, 06:21)
• Emotional Reactions: Carrie’s family, particularly her mother Nancy and son Max, finally found some closure, despite the enduring pain of not knowing how or where Carrie’s body was disposed.
  • “It was just a total relief to me.” (Nancy Farver, 07:51)
  • “Not knowing is the worst part, but at least ... well. And now not knowing where she is.” (Nancy Farver, 08:18)

3. Liz’s Version & New Revelation

• Liz’s Refusal to Comment: While Liz declined to speak for this episode, Dateline read from her 2017 correspondence denying any involvement and expressing supposed sympathy for Carrie’s family.
• A Shocking Claim: Liz claimed to empathize as she too “lost a child,” prompting the Dateline team to investigate this previously unknown part of her life.
  • “I can say in my heart that I would not have hurt her. I know all too well their pain, since I myself have gone through a loss of a child.” (Liz Golyar, 09:21, letter to producers)

4. Unearthing Liz’s Past—A Story of Another Death

• Author Leslie Rule’s Investigation: True crime writer Leslie Rule, daughter of famous author Ann Rule, stumbled onto news from Michigan tracing back to Liz: her five-month-old son Cody died in 1998, and Liz’s boyfriend Glenn Hur was convicted of the child’s murder based largely on a confession and letters—possibly forged.
  • “I had never seen anything like this before. Liz Goliar is a sadistic sociopath. ... I just couldn't believe that she would be bumping along in this normal life and all of a sudden commit this violent act. And I thought, there has to be something in her past.” (Leslie Rule, 13:45-15:29)
• Phyllis Hur (Glenn’s mother) described Liz as an “unwilling” mother and raised doubts about her motives and capability as a parent. (18:14)
  • “At first I was pretty sure that having this child was not on the top of her list of things she had wanted to do in her life.” (Phyllis Hur, 18:14)
• Cody's Death: Cody was left in Glenn’s care; later found unresponsive. Diagnosed as shaken baby syndrome. Glenn confessed during a police interview under questionable circumstances.
  • “You shook the baby, didn't you Glenn? ... I broke and I shook him, but no, I did not mean to kill that child.” (Police Interview Transcript, 27:00)

5. Investigation into Glenn’s Conviction

• Letters Used as Evidence: At trial, Liz presented jailhouse letters supposedly written by Glenn, potentially implicating her in dropping the baby but also providing a confession to shaking. His learning difficulties cast doubt on their authenticity.
  • “My son can't even spell those words, let alone write those words ... I don't even think he knows what most of those words are.” (Phyllis Hur, 32:23)
• Forensic Handwriting Expert: Wendy Carlson found Glenn did NOT write the incriminating jailhouse letters—evidence pointed to Liz as author. (40:55)
• Controversy of Shaken Baby Syndrome: Modern science questions its diagnostic validity; new research offers alternate explanations (e.g., accidental falls, infections).
  • “We're not going to use the term shaken baby anymore. We're going to use the term abusive head trauma.” (Dr. Ashley Saucier, 35:57)
• False Confession Concerns: Legal expert Stephen Drizen suggests police interrogation “scripts” and scientific fallacies have contributed to wrongful convictions in similar cases.
  • “This could very easily be a false confession. ... False confessions happen in shaken baby cases more than almost any other kind of criminal case.” (Stephen Drizen, 37:27–39:18)
• Did Liz Manipulate the Case?: With evidence surfacing that Liz may have authored damning letters and manipulated the legal outcome, the question lingers if she avoided blame by framing Glenn—a pattern mirroring her later framing attempts related to Carrie Farver.

6. Lasting Impact and Reflections

• On Glenn Hur: Now free, Glenn bears the burdens of his conviction, struggles to find work, and avoids public comment, traumatized by both the crime and prison.
  • “If I don't have to think about that, my life goes on.” (Phyllis Hur for Glenn, 33:58)
• Vindication for Carrie Farver’s Family: After years of being haunted by Carrie's disappearance, her family finds some solace in justice, though questions and pain endure.
  • “She would have wanted people to say, this was not me.” (Nancy Farver, 44:22)
• Max’s Tribute: Carrie’s son, now a software engineer, credits his mother for his love of computers.
  • “She was the one that really got me to understand computers. ... I think she'd be pretty proud of you. ... I hope so.” (Keith Morrison & Max, 44:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “But what about that deleted photo found on an SD card once used in Liz's cell phone? The one that prosecutors said showed a decomposing human foot bearing a tattoo of a Chinese symbol, just like the tattoo Carrie Farver had on her foot. How in the world would Liz's defense explain that?”
  – Keith Morrison, 04:49

• “You may have smart cards and you may have phones, but you don't have a body and you don't have a cause of death from a medical examiner. What we have is their belief, their speculation, their notion that this is what happens, that can't convict.”
  – James Martin Davis, 03:27

• “Liz Goliar is a sadistic sociopath. She doesn't care about anybody's feelings but her own. She's violent. She manages to manipulate everybody around her.”
  – Leslie Rule, 13:45

• “My opinion in this case, I'm completely confident that Glenn did not write those documents in question. Glenn's handwriting is more crude than what the handwriting is in the question documents.”
  – Wendy Carlson (handwriting expert), 41:07

• “Everything bothers me about this case. The road to reopen this conviction is extreme, difficult, but not impossible. ... If he is innocent ... he shouldn't bear the burden of a murder conviction for the rest of his life.”
  – Stephen Drizen, 42:01

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 01:02–03:44: Davis lays out Liz’s defense, questions witnesses
• 06:01–07:37: The judge’s verdict and emotional reactions in court
• 09:21–10:25: Liz’s letters and startling claim about losing a child
• 12:15–17:00: Leslie Rule discovers Liz’s past in Michigan and details of Cody’s death
• 27:00–32:57: The jailhouse confession, trial, and disputed letters
• 34:19–41:41: Modern science challenges shaken baby diagnosis; handwriting expert findings
• 42:01–44:22: Reflections, broader questions about both cases, and ongoing consequences

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Tone & Language

Keith Morrison and guests maintain Dateline's signature narrative style—measured, probing, and skeptical, often laced with empathy for victims and a quietly relentless pursuit of truth. This episode, while deeply tragic, is propelled by intrigue and a sense of justice seeking, never sensational but always engaged.

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In Summary

Episode 6, “Something… About Liz,” deftly completes the arc of the series’ central mystery: not just how Carrie Farver came to be murdered, but how Liz Golyar—a manipulator with a dark past and a penchant for framing others—created chaos and grief long before and well beyond a single crime. The story is meticulously reconstructed with new evidence, expert assessments, family testimony, and hard questions about the limits of the justice system when confronted by a cunning sociopath. The episode delivers closure for Carrie’s family but opens new wounds and uncertainties about an older, unresolved tragedy linked to Liz.

Transcript

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[Keith Morrison]

It has to be said, Liz Golia was a fortunate woman. Leaving aside, of course, the raw fact of having been charged with murdering Carrie Farver. Oh, and of trying to burn her own house down. No, her good fortune came in the person of a brilliant, charismatic and highly regarded defense attorney named James Martin Davis, one of the preeminent attorneys in all the Midwest, according to the people who judge these things. Gone from us now, sadly, he died in 2021. Heart attack right there in the courthouse. But when Liz Gollier went on trial, vilified as she was, by trial time, Martin was all in. And maybe the most dangerous place around was between him and a TV camera when he stood up for Liz, as he did here before the judge in court.

[James Martin Davis]

I know they've got all this bizarre behavior and they've got all this circumstantial evidence, but it doesn't show. My client, on that day in this jurisdiction, took a knife and stabbed Carrie Farber to death.

[Keith Morrison]

Savvy as he was, he'd recommended, and Liz agreed, that she be tried by judge alone. No jury figured a jury might get caught up in the emotions stirred by Liz's long, devious campaign. But a judge, a judge would adhere to the facts and the law and the facts before the court. Well, there wasn't even a body, was there? And for that matter, said James Martin Davis, no case. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Something About Carrie, a podcast from Dateline. Episode six, Something About Liz. James Martin Davis seemed to revel in the defense of unpopular people. He'd made his considerable reputation that way, everybody, no matter how nasty people might think they are, deserves a robust defense. And in the case of Liz Goliar. You might not like her, said Davis to the judge. But liking or the lack of it, was quite irrelevant. Facts were what mattered. And this case, he said, was little more than speculation.

[James Martin Davis]

You may have smart cards and you may have phones, but you don't have a body and you don't have a cause of death from a medical examiner. What we have is their belief, their speculation, their notion that this is what happens, that can't convict.

[Keith Morrison]

One by one, he questioned the main players. You've already met them, of course. Carrie's mom, Nancy Farver, Carrie's brief boyfriend, Dave Krupa, Dave's ex, the mother of his children, Amy Flora. The hoodwinked, the victimized, also callously fooled attorney Davis looked them all in the eye and put them on the spot about the alleged murder of Carrie Harver. Here's Davis questioning Dave Krupa about Liz.

[James Martin Davis]

And she never told you she was going to assault Carrie Farber, did she? No. You don't have any firsthand knowledge about what happened to Carrie Farver back in November, December or anytime thereafter, do you?

[Ray Strahan]

Nope.

[Keith Morrison]

And so it went, one after the other. Here's Davis sowing doubt as he questions Amy Flora.

[James Martin Davis]

You don't have any firsthand knowledge that Carrie was killed or assaulted at all, right?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

No, I don't.

[James Martin Davis]

And if she was, it took place on any of those dates, right?

[Phyllis Hur]

Right.

[Keith Morrison]

But what about that deleted photo found on an SD card once used in Liz's cell phone? The one that prosecutors said showed a decomposing human foot bearing a tattoo of a Chinese symbol, just like the tattoo Carrie Farver had on her foot. How in the world would Liz's defense explain that? Well, in the same sort of way.

[James Martin Davis]

Even if you assume it's her foot, that doesn't tell us the cause of death. It doesn't tell us the manner of death. It doesn't tell any of us that Liz Golar caused this death. It doesn't prove whether she was murdered at all.

[Keith Morrison]

In the end, if you're wondering, Liz Goliar, when asked by the judge if she wished to testify, to take the witness stand in her own defense, said no, she would not. An answer much preferred by James Martin Davis. And then the two week trial was over and the judge stepped down from the bench and retired to his chambers to deliberate. A day later, he returned.

[Judge]

Thanks, everyone. Please receive it.

[Keith Morrison]

Every seat in the courtroom was filled. The room fairly bristled. With anxiety, Kerry's son Max waited for the words. It was nerve wracking. And then, solemnly, in the deliberate manner of moments like this, the judge read his verdict.

[Judge]

The court finds, after careful consideration of the evidence, the contention that the state has not met its burden because the body of Carrie Farver has not been recovered has been refuted and overcome by the overwhelming amount of evidence presented by the state during this trial. Carrie Farver did not voluntarily disappear and drop off the face of the earth. Very sadly, she was murdered. The court finds beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally killed Carrie Farver with deliberate and premeditated malice on or about November 13, 2012, here in Douglas County, Nebraska. The court further finds beyond a reasonable doubt that during the defendant's twisted plot of lies, deceit and impersonations through digital messaging, the defendant caused damage to her residence by intentionally starting a fire. Therefore, the court finds and adjudges the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree under count one, and arson in the second degree under count two.

[Keith Morrison]

Guilty on all counts. Just a few rows behind Liz, Carrie's mother, Nancy wiped away silent tears and then began sobbing. She'd finally heard the longed for words.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

From the judge saying that Carrie did not vanish off the face of the earth and she just didn't vanish into thin air. It was just a total relief to me.

[Keith Morrison]

But if she hoped to hear as she sat in that courtroom, hear where Liz disposed of Carrie's body, Nancy hoped in vain that secret Liz was able to keep to herself.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And that's. That's awful. Not knowing is the worst part, but at least, well. And now not knowing where she is. We don't know.

[Keith Morrison]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Where she went, where she put her.

[Keith Morrison]

Body, could never bury her.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

No.

[Keith Morrison]

Still, Nancy and Carrie's son Max couldn't grieve really, until they knew Liz would be held responsible. And now. Grief. They did.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

It'll never go away, but at least we can deal with it now. Have to deal with it.

[Keith Morrison]

As for Liz, the defendant has remanded.

[Judge]

The custody of sheriff and she can be removed from the courtroom.

[Keith Morrison]

She was let out in handcuffs, blank of face, not a whisper of emotion of any kind. Again, her lawyer.

[James Martin Davis]

She knew from the beginning that if she was convicted of first degree murder, there's only one penalty in Nebraska and that penalty is life in prison without parole.

[Keith Morrison]

We contacted Liz Goliar, or tried to, at the Nebraska Correctional center for Women, where she's now 50 years old and has so far served 8 1/2 years of her life sentence. We asked if she'd care to comment. She did not get back to us, but after her trial in 2017, Liz did respond to our producers. They saved her letters, of course, and we dug them out of the file. And in those letters, Liz denied killing Carrie Farber and said that she felt bad for Carrie's family. She wrote, I can say in my heart that I would not have hurt her. I know all too well their pain, since I myself have gone through a loss of a child. Wait, Liz lost a child? Well, this was news to us. And given what we now knew about Liz Goliar, it seemed like something we should look into, because right away I.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Felt a hunch that something wasn't quite right.

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[Keith Morrison]

Perhaps you should think of what Comes now as a kind of prequel, a sort of origin story, like the stories attached to blockbuster movies Star wars or Harry Potter or Silence of the Lambs, for example. A tale to help make sense of the whole strange business that unfolds so dramatically later. We titled our podcast Something About Carrie. But really, of course, it was always something about Liz, especially this part, the prequel. Liz Gollier had already begun serving her prison sentence of life without parole in Nebraska when a novelist and author Began casting around for ideas for a new book. The author's name, Leslie Rule.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I was looking for a case of a dangerous female, and I specifically searched for a love triangle murder, because jealousy brings out the very worst in a sociopathic female.

[Keith Morrison]

Leslie Rule was busy earning a reputation for a keen eye and attention to detail, and also a deep empathy for victims of crime. Oh, and of all things not quite normal, like the murder of Carrie Farver and the long, cruel trail of Liz Goliar's deceit, which she studied very carefully and then corresponded with Liz and finally came to this realization.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I had never seen anything like this before. Liz Goliar is a sadistic sociopath. She doesn't care about anybody's feelings but her own. She's violent. She manages to manipulate everybody around her.

[Keith Morrison]

Leslie's first true crime book was about Liz. A tangled web, it's called. But you might say true crime was already in her blood, because Leslie's mom was the late Ann Rule, One of America's preeminent true crime authors. Ann Rule wrote more than 30 true crime bestsellers. And she began her career with a book detailing how in 1971, she'd worked with a young man at a suicide crisis center in Seattle, A man whose name very few had heard of at the time. A 25 year old by the name of Ted Bundy. Yes, that one. The serial killer later executed in 1989. Ann Rule's book on Bundy was called the Stranger Beside Me.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

My mom thought that she could spot a sociopath. She'd soon learned that she couldn't and that nobody can, because their mask is so perfect that if they don't want you to see who they really are, you won't see it unless they lift the corner of the mask.

[Keith Morrison]

Liz Goyer's mask, of course, had long been lifted. But that mask, Leslie thought, is what allowed Liz to get away with murder for years. But as she went about her work on this book, month after month, Leslie had a nagging itch, this feeling about Liz.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So I'd been working on the book for a couple years, and my deadline was looming, But I felt like there was something missing. I just couldn't believe that she would be bumping along in this normal life and all of a sudden commit this violent act. And I thought, there has to be something in her past.

[Keith Morrison]

It was just a hunch that Liz Gollier's past held more secrets. So Leslie began combing through newspaper archives nationwide for any connection to Liz. And she looked and looked until she found something in of all places, Michigan. A yellowed picture from a newspaper called the Battle Creek Enquirer.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I looked at it and I thought, is that Liz? Because there was A photo of 22 year old Liz and she was in court at her boyfriend's trial.

[Keith Morrison]

Liz's boyfriend's trial. What was this all about?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

He had been accused of killing her five month old infant. It was actually the kind of thing that I expected to find because I had sensed so strongly that there must be more in her past.

[Keith Morrison]

So Leslie began taking a closer look. The boyfriend's name was Glenn. Her she tried to reach him. No dice. So she called Glenn's mother.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I was a little bit apprehensive because I didn't know how she was going to react to the call.

[Keith Morrison]

But Leslie was pleasantly surprised when Glenn's mom picked up the phone. Her name is Phyllis. Her and Phyllis was as she told.

[Phyllis Hur]

Us, I was just shocked. I didn't have a clue.

[Keith Morrison]

As surprised as if the angel Gabriel himself had landed on her shoulder. About Liz's murder conviction and subsequent life sentence, that is. And after Leslie filled in Phyllis about the whole story in Nebraska, well, it was Phyllis's turn. And what a story. That was the one Phyllis told Leslie. It all started, said phyllis, back in 1998 when her son Glenn met Liz Golia. Back then, Glenn was 21, Liz was 23 and had a newborn baby named Cody. The baby's dad was mostly out of the picture. Phyllis ran a foster home, so she knew a thing or two about motherhood.

[Phyllis Hur]

We had a total of 12 children at any given time in our home.

[Keith Morrison]

And Phyllis's assessment of Liz as a parent, it wasn't the most charitable, I have to say.

[Phyllis Hur]

At first I was pretty sure that having this child was not on the top of her list of things she had wanted to do in her life.

[Keith Morrison]

But then Phyllis son Glenn had his own issues.

[Phyllis Hur]

At about 18 months old, Glen had pneumonia. His temp shot way up over 107 degrees. We put him on medication for seizures finally because he was having what they call brain seizures and his brain didn't function.

[Keith Morrison]

So Glenn grew up with learning disabilities. He flunked kindergarten, could read or write only to a sixth grade level by the time he finished school, according to his mom.

[Phyllis Hur]

But otherwise he was an absolutely wonderful, happy go lucky kid.

[Keith Morrison]

Phyllis said Glenn helped out with all the foster kids, grew up knowing how to take care of babies. And when he met Liz, he took care of her too, in a way. He helped her get a job at the convenience store where he worked. And sometimes Liz and the baby stayed over with Glenn and all seemed okay, at least. And then one day, it happened. Glenn drove Liz to work. Cody in the back seat. Phyllis picks up the story.

[Phyllis Hur]

He had dropped her off. And then he came and got me because he had my van. We went shopping at the supermarket.

[Keith Morrison]

That is when Phyllis noticed that baby Cody was not his usual self.

[Phyllis Hur]

Cody cried a lot. I mean, he was a fussy baby for the most part. And that day he was very quiet. I took Glenn home, dropped him off. In fact, I changed the baby, fed the baby, because the bottles were already made up. And then Glenn was said he was simply going to put the baby down to take a nap.

[Keith Morrison]

Phyllis ran some errands, and several hours later, she stopped by Glenn's house. It was just before 5pm Glenn was.

[Phyllis Hur]

Sitting on the couch. And I went in and I said, oh, where's Cody? And he said, taking his nap. And I said, okay. And I went in and Cody was on the bed. I went to pick him up and realized he was not breathing. So I said, Glen, call 911. Cody's not breathing. And he just looked at me like, what? And I said, right now. Call 911.

[Keith Morrison]

Within minutes, a police car arrived. An officer scooped up baby Cody, headed for the emergency room with the family not far behind.

[Phyllis Hur]

I said, we gotta stop and get Liz from work. I'll never forget because I went in and said, yeah, you gotta go to the hospital. Cody is being driven to the hospital. He's having problems and complications, and he may have died. And I'll never forget because she looked at me and said, I gotta work. I almost got this feeling of, really. And I said, that's your kid in that police squad car right there. You need to go now. And her boss looked at me and said, get her to the hospital.

[Keith Morrison]

They followed the police car to the emergency room. And at the hospital, Liz called the baby's father, Ray Strahan.

[Ray Strahan]

I picked up the phone and Liz was very short and to the point. She's like, your son's in the hospital. You might want to get up here. And that's kind of how she sounded, you know. And I was like, holy crap, what the heck's going on?

[Keith Morrison]

Ray rushed to the er, where he saw Cody.

[Ray Strahan]

He was lifeless. The hospital didn't have the machines to keep him alive, so they were manually keeping him alive for breathing and all that stuff.

[Keith Morrison]

Doctors did a CAT scan, found bleeding in Cody's brain and behind the baby's eyes. Two signs doctors determined of shaken baby Syndrome. Before long, no surprise, as it standard in situations like this, police officers and child protective services workers showed up. And Ray heard that Glenn had been babysitting that day.

[Ray Strahan]

I was really enraged. I had so much anger built up because I already knew at that point that he was the one that did it.

[Keith Morrison]

Did it meaning, said Ray, that he, Glenn, caused the injuries that put Cody in the hospital. And Ray was even more. More upset when he saw Liz clinging to Glenn.

[Ray Strahan]

Why are you hugging him? It just angered me even more.

[Keith Morrison]

Cody was sent to a neonatal intensive care unit a half an hour away. Liz and Ray went. Glenn and his parents did not. The baby fought for his life through the evening. And then a doctor appeared in the waiting room.

[Ray Strahan]

Every slide on one or two o' clock in the morning, he came out and he said, I'm sorry to say I've pronounced him dead. So I mean, he gave us opportunity to go in there and see Cody before they were to pull him off the machine. And just watching your son's body just completely relax, it's like he. It was so awful, you know, I wouldn't wish that on any. Anybody, even my enemy.

[Keith Morrison]

And then the doctor said something else. Something about what happened to Cody. Something that made Ray's blood boil. He said Cody's death was clearly a case of shaken baby syndrome.

[Ray Strahan]

And he said that what had happened to him was the equivalency of what the greatest boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali, went through in his boxing career. Your son went through in about 30 seconds, you know, the brain slapping against the skull, basically turning it into mush is what it did. Bleeding all over the brain.

[Keith Morrison]

You can imagine. It was a quiet ride back to Battle Creek, where Ray dropped off Liz back at Glenn's parents house. Phyllis, her, Glenn's mother, she came in.

[Phyllis Hur]

And she simply said, cody passed away. Glenn was in the living room and she went in and sat on the couch. And she told him then also. And that was about it. There wasn't a lot of emotion, just very to the point.

[Keith Morrison]

But before that night could end, the night of Cody's death, someone would have to answer a few questions. Questions about what police were calling a case of murder. Foreign.

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[Phyllis Hur]

This is Olympic figure skating medalist Adam Rippon. Are you wondering who you should root for at the 2026 Winter Olympics?

[Keith Morrison]

You're gonna have great days.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

You have rock bottom days. That's part of being a mom, being an Olympian.

[Phyllis Hur]

Check out my new favorite Olympian wherever you listen to your podcasts.

[Kate Snow]

Hey everybody, it's Kate Snow. I'm an NBC News anchor and host of the new new podcast the Drink with Kate Snow. So here's the deal. I sit down with all kinds of celebrities, actors, musicians, athletes for a casual conversation over a drink of their choice. It's always about their journey, the successes, the struggles, the lessons they learned. I thought I knew all about self help superstar Mel Robbins, but in our candid conversation, she got really honest about a business decision that almost bankrupted and how she was able to pull herself out and then build an empire. Trust me, you're going to learn something. I always do. I hope you'll listen. Just search for the Drink with Kate Snow wherever you get your podcasts and follow Now.

[Keith Morrison]

The police car pulled into the dark driveway just before 5am Baby Cody had been dead only four hours, but officers from the Emmett Township, Michigan Public Safety Department wanted to talk to Liz Goliar's boyfriend, Glenn Hur. The interview took place in the back of a squad car. It lasted 37 minutes. In it, Glenn repeatedly said he would never harm a child and denied shaking. But then the officer said that he was thinking that Glenn was probably tired and stressed and that Glenn got angry when Cody cried and that Glenn shook the baby without realizing how hard he had shaken him. And then the officer asked this question, quote, you shook the baby, didn't you Glenn? End quote. Well, the interview transcript said Glenn started crying then and said, quote, yes, I broke and I shook him, but no, I did not mean to kill that child. End quote. And before the sun even rose in the Michigan sky that cold winter morning, Glenn Hur was arrested and charged with second degree murder. After Glenn's mom Phyllis talked to the officer about arresting her learning disabled son.

[Phyllis Hur]

I thought, are you crazy? This kid would no more shake a child to the extent that it would take to end a child's life than anything. No, this is wrong. They could have asked him a thousand questions and especially if they push things and he would have got confused easily and thinking that he was saying all the right things. This is what they want me to say. This is what they want to hear. And then I'm out of here. And that's not what happened.

[Keith Morrison]

Two days later, the autopsy came back. Liz Goliar's baby Cody, the pathologist found, died of acute intracranial hemorrhage due to shaking. It was indeed a homicide. Glenn Hur sat in jail for 10 months awaiting his day in court. And when his trial began in December 1999, Cody's father, Ray Strahan listened to the judge's opening remarks to the jury.

[Ray Strahan]

He came out and said, Mr. Glenn Hur is on trial for second degree murder of a five month old baby. And every one of the jury members jaws just hit the floor. And I was thinking to myself, this guy's gonna thrive.

[Keith Morrison]

But Glenn's defense attorney, in his opening statement said a thing that sounded explosive. There was evidence, he said, that Liz caused Cody's death, Liz and not Glenn, because he charged Liz, dropped Cody the night before he died while Glenn was at work. Here's Glenn's mom, Phyllis.

[Phyllis Hur]

Glenn had gotten a phone call to go home because Liz told him that she dropped the baby. So he left and took off. His boss said, yeah, go, go.

[Keith Morrison]

But prosecutors go first, of course, to present a case that is. And one of the first to testify for the prosecution was Liz. And Liz made quite an entrance. Author Leslie Rule.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Liz was the star witness in the case against her boyfriend. And she showed up in a long skirt that kind of dragged on the ground and a wig. She was in disguise because she was wanted. She actually had a warrant out for her arrest for the unlawful use of her roommate's car.

[Keith Morrison]

The judge, however, having been informed of the circumstances, assured Liz she would not be arrested if she testified and told the truth about what happened to little Cody. But did she? Here was her story. Liz told the jury that when Glenn dropped her off at work that day with Cody in the car, Cody was just fine. And then Liz produced six letters she said she'd received from Glenn while he was in jail. Letters presented as evidence or if you will, a series of jailhouse confessions. Though knowing what you now know about Liz and Carrie and all the lying, the subterfuge, the murder, will you hear the following as confessions or something else altogether? In one letter to Liz, Glenn wrote in part, I need you to come back up here and tell my attorney that the reason you called me home from work was because you had dropped Cody from about 4ft, which then caused Cody to stop breathing. So then you shook Cody not to do any harm, but to get him to start breathing again. Then in a second letter, supposedly also from Glenn, different tone altogether. There was this. Hi, honey. Hey. What I said in the letter to you about what to say that you dropped Cody, forget about it. That is wrong of me to ask you to say something like that. I'm just so scared. And when Glenn's mom, Phyllis, heard what was in those letters, I said, I.

[Phyllis Hur]

Don'T know who wrote that letter, but my son can't even spell those words, let alone write those words, you know? I said, I don't even think he knows what most of those words are.

[Keith Morrison]

Given his long standing, learning disabilities, that is. But as author Leslie Rule couldn't help.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But see, no expert was called into court to verify that the handwriting on those letters was Glenn's. In fact, the prosecutor asked Liz to verify that Glenn had written the letters.

[Keith Morrison]

And Liz testified that, yes, the handwriting was indeed that of her boyfriend, Glenn Hur.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Glenn's attorney looked at the faces of the jurors, and as he later told reporters, I knew it was over. Glenn was sitting beside him, and Glenn didn't speak up. Glenn didn't say, no, I didn't write those letters. I don't think Glenn even understood the significance of those letters. So when he and his attorney went on a break and discussed Glenn admitting to guilt, he didn't object to that.

[Keith Morrison]

Even though the trial was only in its second day, Glenn Hur pleaded guilty to second degree murder and went to prison, where he spent nearly nine long years. He got out in 2009. We wanted to talk to Glenn about all of this. Of course we did. But his mom explained that Glenn didn't want to talk to us.

[Phyllis Hur]

He said, you know, I have to deal with other issues. Prison was not a fun place. And he said, when I have to think about that, then I have nightmares and other issues. If I don't have to think about that, my life goes on. And he wants his life to go on. And I understand that.

[Keith Morrison]

But given what we now know about Liz Goliar, we were not quite ready to let it go. And so we set about learning things. First, that diagnosis that got Glenn convicted of murder, it isn't considered settled science anymore. Not at all. The theory of shaken baby syndrome was this. If a child showed three symptoms. Swelling in the brain, bleeding on the brain, and bleeding behind the eyes, also known as the triad. There was only one cause, violent shaking. And remember, Cody had two of those three. Just no brain swelling in his case. But in any case, over time, certainty about the whole shaken baby syndrome idea has crumbled. And as Dateline reported in our recent podcast, the Last appeal. Well, shaking a baby can obviously cause catastrophic damage. New research proved the triad of symptoms could be explained by other things, too, like a fall, an infection, a loss of oxygen. And that new research has led to new definitions. Here to explain is Dr. Ashley Saucier, a physician in Louisiana, board certified in pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine.

[Phyllis Hur]

In 2009, the AAP American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement that said, you know, we're not going to use the term shaken baby anymore. We're going to use the term abusive head trauma.

[Keith Morrison]

Cody said Dr. Saucier had certainly suffered a serious head trauma, quite possibly when Liz, as Glenn's family and defense attorney claimed, dropped Cody the night before his death.

[Phyllis Hur]

The head injury that Cody sustained the night prior to his death, I think absolutely could have contributed to this happening.

[Keith Morrison]

But Dr. Saucier reviewed Cody's hospital records obtained by Dateline and found other possible explanations for his death possibilities like a bleeding abnormality or an infection that triggered sepsis.

[Phyllis Hur]

I find it upsetting that only one diagnosis was made, and that was shaking, so that this intracranial bleed was only the result of shaking.

[Keith Morrison]

Next, we wondered about Glenn Hur's interview with the police before his arrest. Remember, Glenn said, quote, I broke and I shook him, but no, I did not mean to kill that child. End quote. We asked Stephen Drizen to read the transcript of Glenn's police interview. Drissen is a clinical professor of law at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in Chicago. He's testified in courts across the country. He is one of the nation's leading experts on false confessions. To begin with, the first thoughts you had when you read through that transcript.

[Stephen Drizen]

Of the interview, my first thought was, this could very easily be a false confession. There's a certain script that we see again and again in shaken baby cases. And so that's the script that police officers used in this case.

[Keith Morrison]

So what do you mean by the script?

[Stephen Drizen]

So the first thing that police officers do is they suggest that the science has proven that this child died by being shaken. The next thing they do is they say science also proves that the injuries that the child suffered occurred within a few hours of when the child was shaken. And because in this case, the suspect was the only adult caring for the child in that time frame, the evidence proves that he was the one who shook the child. And so he begins to think about, well, how might I have shaken this child? And police officers provide answers to that question. You were tired. You hadn't slept very well. The night before the baby Was crying. You didn't mean to hurt the baby. You were just trying to calm the baby down. And all they need in this case is for the suspect to say, I shook the baby, so that when they get into court, prosecutors could say he was minimizing the way in which he shook the baby. He must have shaken that baby harder, and the case against him is sealed.

[Keith Morrison]

Drizen said his research has shown that false confessions happen in shaken baby cases more than almost any other kind of criminal case.

[Stephen Drizen]

I mean, you have a beautiful baby who dies, you know, despite your efforts to do everything you can to revive that child. And, you know, you want to provide some answers to the family. And shaken baby diagnosis enabled doctors to to provide an answer. Unfortunately, that answer may have resulted in hundreds, if not thousands of wrongful convictions. We're just beginning to understand how many people have been affected by that faulty diagnosis.

[Keith Morrison]

Finally, given Liz's predilection for impersonating others and also attempting to frame them for her crimes, we wondered about those letters Liz gave prosecutors to introduce at Glenn's trial. Did he really write them, or did Liz write them? We found copies of the letters in a Michigan police file. We gathered them along with those letters that Liz wrote to dateline back in 2017, as well as a handwritten statement that Glenn gave to the police. And we sent them to a certified forensic document examiner and handwriting expert named Wendy Carlson. Carlson has testified in hundreds of court cases. She examined the letters and found.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

My opinion in this case, I'm completely confident that Glenn did not write those documents in question. Glenn's handwriting is more crude than what the handwriting is in the question documents.

[Keith Morrison]

So if, in Carlson's opinion, Glenn did not write the letters, we asked, then, does she believe the letters were written by Liz?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Liz's writing tends to be more in line with the writing in question. Liz tends to be very verbose and writes out a lot of words, and the documents in question have a lot of words per line. She squeezes everything in that she can. And that's something that I found in both Liz's handwriting and in the question document.

[Keith Morrison]

So, given the questions about the letters, Glenn's written confession, and shaken baby syndrome itself, Law professor Drizen believes Glenn's conviction is questionable. If you gave an umbrella statement about what bothers you most about this particular case, what would it be?

[Stephen Drizen]

You know, everything bothers me about this case. The road to reopen this conviction is extreme, difficult, but not impossible. But it's not going to even get reopened unless Glenn wants it to. Be reopened. And he may not want to revisit, you know, the worst moments of his life because if he is innocent, and again, I'm not saying he's innocent, I'm just saying there are a lot of red flags here. He shouldn't bear the burden of a murder conviction for the rest of his life.

[Keith Morrison]

Glenn hur is now 48 years old, married, with two children and a granddaughter. But even a decade and a half after his release from prison, Phyllis Hur tells us that a felony murder conviction has made it tough for Glenn Hur to find a decent job. By the way, the deputy prosecutor in charge of Glenn's case told DATELINE she continues to believe Glenn was responsible for baby Cody's death. But behind it all, the question lingers. Did one successful manipulation lead to another? Did Liz Goliar's testimony that questionable evidence she presented condemn a boyfriend while ensuring that she avoided blame for the death of her own son? We know that years later, her subterfuge besmirched the reputation of a woman she murdered. That was the story that took us to a tiny Nebraskan town called Macedonia, where Carrie and Nancy, her mother, and Max, her son, had made up happy plan to drive to a family wedding and encountered instead a nightmare three years long. And now it's been eight years since we spoke to them for our story. It was important, said Nancy, to finally set the record straight about her daughter, a loving mother and a great, good woman who never abandoned anyone.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And I think it would have been important to Carrie, too, because she would have wanted people to say, this was not me.

[Keith Morrison]

And Car's son Max, he's a software engineer now. Like his mom. She was the one that really got me to understand computers. I'll never type as well as she could, but she, she's definitely a big influence there. Inspired your love of them. I think she'd be pretty proud of you. I hope so. Something About Carrie is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Shane Bishop and Jessica De Vera lapitt are the producers. Brian Drew, Marshall Housefeld and Greg Smith, 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.

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