Bait and Switch

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Something About Cari – Episode 2: “Bait and Switch”

Host: Keith Morrison (NBC News)
Date: December 2, 2025

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Main Theme and Purpose

This episode dives deep into the baffling and menacing case of Cari Farver, a single mom who vanished from America’s heartland after a new romance with Dave Krupa. In a gripping narrative led by Keith Morrison, listeners are taken through an escalating pattern of harassment — bizarre texts, stalking, vandalism, and suspected arson — that spirals into psychological torment for Cari’s family, friends, and boyfriend. All leads appear to point to Cari herself as the perpetrator, but investigators and loved ones can’t shake the feeling that something is desperately "off."
The episode builds steadily towards the “mind-bending twist” that will challenge everyone's assumptions about what really happened to Cari.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Disappearance and the First Signs of Trouble

• Dave Krupa’s Perspective on Cari ([01:26])
  • Dave, once averse to commitment, finds himself surprisingly smitten with Cari after a whirlwind romance.
  • Suddenly, just hours after a seemingly great night, Cari sends Dave a text proposing they move in together. When Dave declines, an avalanche of angry messages follows.

  "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." — Dave Krupa [02:15]

• Dave’s Relief Turns into Nightmare
  • Initially, he believes he has "dodged a bullet," but the harassment only intensifies: angry texts, refusal to answer calls, erratic behavior.

  "It sounded like Dave's personal horror show. So this is the woman from hell." — Keith Morrison [02:59]

2. Victim or Villain? The Stalking Intensifies

• Unrelenting Harassment ([03:54–07:26])
  • Dave shows police the increasing barrage of texts and emails from 'Cari'.
  • A surreal moment: a detective receives a text from Cari during their interview.
  • Police and Dave become convinced Cari is stalking not only him but his ex, Liz Goliar, too. Liz’s possessions are vandalized, and graffiti appears ("whore from Dave"), intensifying suspicion against Cari.
• Cari Becomes a Suspect
  • Police reports in multiple jurisdictions label Cari a stalker, even as her family reports her missing.

3. Harassment Expands to Friends and Family

• Impact on Dave’s Life ([07:58–12:39])

  • Ramped-up harassment: windows smashed, cars vandalized, Dave’s workplace under siege.
  • Threatening, obsessive texts refer to Liz, Carrie’s perceived romantic rival.

  "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. Okay, great. And I'd haul ass outside..." — Dave Krupa [12:39]

  • Disturbing escalation: a message says Cari has kidnapped Liz, with a photo of a bound woman (mostly unrecognizable).

• Carrie’s Mother, Nancy’s, Perspective ([09:16–09:37])

  • Nancy is skeptical authorities are doing enough as harassment stories mount. Her desperation is palpable.

  "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." — Nancy Farber [09:16]

4. Family Despair—Cari’s Absence and “Presence”

• Painful Holidays ([16:19–18:51])
  • Emotional interviews with Nancy and Max, Cari’s son, about the pain of holidays and life events passing without Cari’s presence.
  • Nancy and Max describe the emotional toll: “I was really worried... He did a lot of crying at their house. That bothered me, of course.” — Nancy Farber [17:44]
  • Dave shares how the ordeal changed him, including drinking heavily and significant weight gain ([31:41–32:23]).

5. The Search for Answers — False Hope and Cold Leads

• The Shelter Hoax ([20:12–22:38])

  • Months after the disappearance, a message to Dave claims Cari is homeless and at a local shelter. Nancy rushes there, only to find Cari was never present—yet another heartbreaking dead end.

  "Well, then, you know. Then your hopes are dashed again. You just think, where can she be?" — Nancy Farber [21:49]

• Social Media Manipulation

  • 'Cari' posts defensive and erratic messages online, sometimes sounding rational, other times lashing out at Liz.
  • Nancy agonizes over every digital trace — is Cari alive, in crisis, kidnapped, or has someone stolen her identity?

  "There was this hope that maybe she's still out there... and maybe one day soon she'd walk back in the door and explain everything." — Keith Morrison [23:25–23:35]

6. Testing Identity: Max’s Heartbreaking Message ([26:34–29:00])

- Cari’s son Max receives messages from ‘her’ on Facebook but becomes suspicious when the nickname differs (“Little Man” instead of “Short Round”).
- Max tests ‘Cari’ with personal questions. He gets no reply—deepening his heartbreak and suspicions.

7. Friends Fear the Worst and The Harassment Reaches New Victims

• Friend Amy Long’s Account ([29:31–30:39])
  • Amy speaks of their close bond, but her messages rarely get answered or, when they do, are brushed off by someone who is uncharacteristically cold and secretive.
  • Amy fears untraceable dangers from dating websites where Cari met Dave.
• Harassment Moves On ([32:28–33:53])
  • Dave is subject to threatening vandalism (“Dave loves fat whores” carved into his car) and receives chilling threats (“I should cut your heart out like you did to me”).
  • Others, like Angela Manor—a woman who never even met Dave—are harassed, and her children threatened, just for connecting with Dave online.

8. The Episode’s Cliffhanger

• Dave and Liz Cope Together ([33:53–34:01])
  • Dave and Liz, both targets, bond over the shared torment, showing each other harassing messages and seeking solidarity—unsure of who could ever understand.
• Preview of Escalation
  • The episode ends with hints that the psychological terror soon turns to violence—arson and possible murder—setting up the jaw-dropping twist to come.

  "The first time I was briefed on this case, my first impression was this is the story for a made for TV movie..." — Dave Krupa [34:16]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Dave Krupa on the onset of harassment:

  “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.” ([02:15])

• Keith Morrison’s wry comparison of Cari to a horror villain:

  "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." ([02:59])

• Nancy Farber on her despair with the authorities:

  "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." ([09:16])

• Max tries to prove the Facebook account isn’t his mother:

  "Max asked his mom to name his best friend when he was a little kid... I never got a response to that one." ([28:45]–[29:03])

• Psychological disintegration and paranoia:

  "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..." — Dave Krupa ([31:41])

• The foreshadowing of greater violence:

  "The first time I was briefed on this case, my first impression was this is the story for a made for TV movie..." — Dave Krupa ([34:16])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:26 – Introduction of Dave Krupa’s relationship with Cari and first signs of trouble.
• 02:15 – Dave describes the abrupt turn in Cari’s texts.
• 03:54–07:26 – The intensity of harassment and escalation to vandalism.
• 09:16–09:37 – Nancy's growing frustration and helplessness.
• 16:19–18:51 – Holiday hardships for Max and Nancy.
• 20:12–22:38 – False hope at the shelter.
• 26:34–29:00 – Max’s Facebook test and resulting heartbreak.
• 29:31–30:39 – Amy Long’s friend perspective and online silence.
• 31:09–32:28 – Dave details the impact on his life.
• 33:01 – Angela Manor’s experience with harassment.
• 33:53–34:16 – Dave and Liz bond over shared victimization; episode cliffhanger.

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Conclusion & Takeaway

Episode 2 of Something About Cari is a chilling examination of how digital identities, obsession, and manipulation can unravel lives and confound reason. Through a blend of firsthand interviews and harrowing digital evidence, Morrison and his guests paint a portrait of escalating terror and uncertainty, all building towards a twist that promises to upend every assumption.

For anyone fascinated by true crime and the dark side of digital communication, this is essential, edge-of-your-seat listening.

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Transcript

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[Dave Krupa]

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[Keith Morrison]

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[Keith Morrison]

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[Dave Krupa]

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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 going to 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. Very weird. 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. 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.

[Keith Morrison]

Wow. 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 she 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 Carrie.

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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 entry 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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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. Who was it?

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

The woman was Liz Gaulier. 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. 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. Yeah. What was it like to come home and find that? I mean, would she Leave a note.

[Dave Krupa]

Or something or just I would get a text or an email that said, haha, I did this with a picture of what happened.

[Keith Morrison]

But back home across the Missouri river from Omaha in Potawatoma 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. Carrie. Unless Carrie had had some sort of psychotic break, Nancy's protective instinct had her doubting everybody.

[Nancy Farber]

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 Farber]

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 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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

I am so sorry I missed the funeral.

[Keith Morrison]

And also made another bizarre post on Facebook.

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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 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 anything? Well, she's been steady texting and emailing and whatnot this whole time.

[Keith Morrison]

Okay.

[Dave Krupa]

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, it gets crazy, dude. So, okay. And 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, all day long. It at one point rendered my phone completely useless. It would just be digging so much I couldn't answer a phone or send a text.

[Keith Morrison]

Make you want to change your phone number, wouldn't it?

[Dave Krupa]

Did that a couple of times.

[Keith Morrison]

You did. And they still kept coming.

[Dave Krupa]

They did.

[Keith Morrison]

Dave did see moments of clarity, though occasionally, Carrie's text seemed almost normal.

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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, or 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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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, you will.

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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 crock 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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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. Limu emu.

[Narrator/Commercial Voice]

And Doug, here we have the limu.

[Keith Morrison]

Emu in its Natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Ferry unwritten by.

[Dave Krupa]

Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates Excludes Massachusetts.

[Narrator/Commercial Voice]

Tis the season of gifting and holes to deck and the who's in Whoville were in love with new tech. Where can we find Sonos and Samsung and Nintendo? They shouted. Would they find it in one place? This they questioned and doubted when suddenly a who yelled Walmart's the place to start. And each who added headphones, TVs and games to their carts. With Walmart, their shopping was done in a flurry. They cried out who knew? And oh, ordered their gifts in a hurry. Shop the latest tech gifts in the Walmart app.

[Keith Morrison]

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a.

[Dave Krupa]

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[Keith Morrison]

Yeah.

[Dave Krupa]

Give it a [e-mail] com switch upfront.

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

Payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow 135 gigabytes of network busy taxes and fees extra. Cmno.com.

[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?

[Dave Krupa]

That was hard. That was hard.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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 Farber]

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 Farber]

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

[Keith Morrison]

You were worried.

[Nancy Farber]

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. Potawatoma 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. Recovered that.

[Keith Morrison]

That fingerprint was found on a mint container in the cup holder of the suv. They ran the print 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 Kerry 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 Farber]

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 Farber]

Oh, just flutters. I mean, 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 Farber]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Did you rehearse what you'd say?

[Nancy Farber]

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 Carrie with him.

[Nancy Farber]

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 Farber]

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 Farber]

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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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'm 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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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.

[Nancy Farber]

And they said, yeah, we. Well, we'll check it out. You know, that kind of thing.

[Keith Morrison]

They said they did, but nothing came of it.

[Nancy Farber]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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.

[Narrator/Commercial Voice]

And Doug Here we have the Limu.

[Keith Morrison]

Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds.

[Narrator/Commercial Voice]

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[Keith Morrison]

Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera.

[Dave Krupa]

They see us.

[Keith Morrison]

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[Keith Morrison]

Max Farber and his grandmother Nancy were trapped in this constant anxiety week after 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.

[Dave Krupa]

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.

[Dave Krupa]

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.

[Dave Krupa]

Yeah, so that kind of got to me at first, so. So I. I didn't reply for a couple days in that one.

[Keith Morrison]

Yeah. But then Max 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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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.

[Dave Krupa]

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?

[Dave Krupa]

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.

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

She was the one person that I 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.

[Keith Morrison]

And so during those months when Carrie was missing, Amy tried everything to get Carrie to talk to her.

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

I'D send messages to Kerry's cell phone. I'd send her Facebook messages, and 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.

[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, all kinds of very unpleasant possibilities.

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

I was always afraid that she was going to come across the wrong person. 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. He'd been sent photos to prove it. Woke up one morning to find a message scratched on his car in huge.

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

Letters, Dave loves fat whores.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Gary followed that up with, I should.

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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]

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, and 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.

[Keith Morrison]

Oh, my God.

[Dave Krupa]

In about three months. I was drinking till I. Till the bar closed and going to work at six o' clock in the morning.

[Keith Morrison]

Wow. There 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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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 (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

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? Right?

[Dave Krupa]

Exactly. 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.

[Dave Krupa]

This case, my first impression was this is the story for a made for TV movie, 911. Do you need police, fire or medics?

[Voice Actor (reading messages from Carrie and others)]

Fire. I just walked into my house and 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.

[Dave Krupa]

Yeah.

[Keith Morrison]

Did it feel that way?

[Nancy Farber]

A little bit, yeah.

[Dave Krupa]

I was blown away. Absolutely blown away. I didn't know what to think. He felt like the road 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 Gorfayne 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, Limu Emu and Doug.

[Narrator/Commercial Voice]

Here we have the Limu Emu in.

[Keith Morrison]

Its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds of with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at libertymutual. Com. Liberty Liberty. Liberty. Liberty Savings Ferry. Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.