The Family Wedding

Summary

Podcast Summary: Something About Cari — The Family Wedding

Host: Keith Morrison (NBC News/Dateline)
Date: December 2, 2025
Episode: 1 — "The Family Wedding"

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Episode Overview

This episode of Something About Cari dives into the mysterious disappearance of single mom Cari Farver from the heartland of America. Just weeks into a new romance, Cari vanishes, sparking a bizarre series of events: taunting texts, stalking, arson, threats, and ultimately, murder. Host Keith Morrison sets the stage for a story that’s as confounding as it is heartbreaking, marked by shocking twists, unreliable clues, and a family grasping for answers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Shocking Night in the Park

• Timestamp: [01:28]–[06:42]
• Morrison begins with a gripping recount: a woman is shot in the leg in a park near the Missouri River, and a massive manhunt ensues after she calls 911.
• The shooter, notably, is identified as a woman, contradicting law enforcement assumptions about gun violence statistics.
• This event is presented as the case's turning point—when its years-long confusion began to untangle.

Quote:
“It was a woman in pain, obviously. … The shooter was a woman, a fact that flew in the face of all those statistics that law enforcement collects about gun violence.”
— Keith Morrison ([03:01] & [04:43])

2. Years of Torment: Stalking, Arson, and Fear

• Timestamp: [05:55]–[06:42]
• Morrison outlines the bizarre and escalating events following Cari’s disappearance: stalking, harassment, arson, and murder.
• Friends and family lived in constant suspense—unsure what horror might come next.

Quote:
“Here was harassment, stalking, assault, arson, and, of course, murder.”
— Keith Morrison ([05:58])

3. The Disappearance: The Family Wedding

• Timestamp: [06:44]–[08:24]
• The episode shifts three years earlier—to the weekend of a family wedding in November 2012, which Cari misses without explanation.
• Cari’s absence is immediately alarming to her son, Max, and her mother, Nancy, as she never would have skipped such an event, especially with her father gravely ill.

Quote:
“She wouldn't have missed then.”
— Max Farver ([10:20])

4. Cari’s Background: Unpredictability and Struggle

• Timestamp: [08:42]–[12:12]
• Morrison explores Cari’s life: fiercely loving and determined, yet prone to impulsiveness and troubled choices.
• Max and Nancy discuss Cari’s mental health, failed relationships, and how her unpredictability shaped their lives.

Quote:
“Carrie was fierce, bright, determined. But there was something else about her too. And it mattered.”
— Keith Morrison ([09:02])

5. The Relationship with Her Son, Max

• Timestamp: [08:26]–[09:57]
• Cari’s bond with Max is central—she’s a devoted single mother, sharing everything from music to life decisions with him.
• The emotional blow of her standing Max up for the wedding is underscored.

Quote:
“We were definitely really close. … She would always ask what I thought of him. And I knew that if I said anything bad, she'd end it right there.”
— Max Farver ([08:26])

6. Early Clues and the First Red Flags

• Timestamp: [15:53]–[21:22]
• After Cari misses the wedding, Max and Nancy receive strange, unsettling texts from her.
• A text to Nancy claims Cari quit her job, moved to Kansas with her boyfriend Dave, and sold all her furniture.
• Nancy’s instincts tell her something is wildly wrong, especially when the messages become aggressive.

Quote:
“I said, absolutely not. I said, either you call me, you come to see me, I'm not doing anything until I hear you. And that's when the nasty text started coming.”
— Nancy Rainey ([21:22])

7. The Role of Mental Health

• Timestamp: [18:24]–[19:58]
• Nancy reveals Cari’s diagnosis of bipolar disorder, noting past bouts of severe depression and concern she might have gone off her medication.

Quote:
“It's just frustration and just helplessness. … It scared me. Tremendously scared.”
— Nancy Rainey ([18:25], [18:33])

8. Escalating Fears & Protective Instincts

• Timestamp: [21:41]–[23:36]
• Max recalls feeling unsafe, believing someone might try to take him from school.
• Nancy files for temporary guardianship to protect her grandson from possible abduction by Cari or the mysterious Dave.

Quote:
“I was thankful to have my cousin as one of the teachers at school because he's a big guy … he wasn’t gonna let me want to take me.”
— Max Farver ([22:23])

9. A Tangled Web: The “Furniture Sale” and Meeting Liz

• Timestamp: [23:55]–[26:32]
• Investigators track down Liz Gollier, a woman whose stolen checkbook was used in the supposed sale of Cari's furniture.
• Liz had also dated Dave (the same boyfriend), further complicating the relationships.

10. Meeting Dave Krupa: The New Boyfriend

• Timestamp: [28:32]–[34:55]
• Detectives visit Dave Krupa, Cari’s recent boyfriend, who at first seems unconcerned but soon reveals he last saw Cari about a week before her disappearance.
• Dave describes the beginnings of their relationship: an immediate spark, agreements about keeping things “no-strings,” but growing closeness over time.

Quote:
“She turns to me and she said, 'Look, if we're gonna have sex, that's all it is, period. There's nothing more to it.' And asked me, 'Are you good with that? … My eyes lit up and I'm like, ping. I hit the Powerball.'”
— Dave Krupa ([33:11])

11. The Timeline of Cari’s Disappearance

• Timestamp: [34:55]–[36:59]
• Dave explains Cari had stayed at his apartment for several days before her disappearance.
• On the morning of November 13, 2012, she was fine—he kissed her goodbye as he left for work.

Quote:
“I gave her a kiss on the way out the door … this beautiful lady was gonna be in my house when I got home. I don't know who wouldn't smile about that.”
— Dave Krupa ([36:29])

12. The Post-Disappearance Anomalies: Strange Messages

• Timestamp: [37:24]–[37:47]
• Hours after Cari went missing, Dave receives an odd text from her, asking if he wants to move in together—completely out of character from their earlier arrangement.
• Dave shares with police how quickly everything went sideways, foreshadowing many more bizarre developments to come.

Quote:
“By 10 o'clock, I receive a text from her that says, 'Do you want to move in with me?' … Very weird. Very. What is going on here?”
— Dave Krupa ([37:24])

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Memorable Quotes

• On the oddity of the case:
  “Had you ever encountered a thing quite that elaborate before? No, Nothing. Nothing like this.”
  — Keith Morrison & Max Farver ([05:55])

• On Cari's complex character:
  “She was a Carrie.”
  — Nancy Rainey ([12:15])

• On family’s resilience:
  “She had had him laying in her lap and she said, 'oh gosh, … you're all mine. I don't have to share you with anybody.'”
  — Nancy Rainey ([12:56])

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• The shooting in the park: [01:28]–[06:42]
• Max remembers his mom missing the wedding: [08:26]–[10:26]
• Discussion on Cari’s mental health: [18:24]–[19:58]
• Nancy gets guardianship of Max: [23:26]–[23:36]
• Interview with Dave Krupa about relationship and last sighting: [28:32]–[36:59]
• Strange texts after disappearance: [37:24]–[37:47]

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Overall Tone & Style

Keith Morrison delivers his trademark, suspenseful storytelling, with a touch of tenderness and dry wit. The episode flows naturally between first-person recollections, empathetic interviews with family, and police procedural, alternating between confusion, mounting dread, and the longing for answers.

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Takeaway

The Family Wedding sets the stage for a mind-bending true crime story—one as much about loss and love as it is about deception and psychological torment. The narrative weaves together family heartbreak, small-town bonds, and the unnerving possibility that not everything—or everyone—is what they seem. The cliffhanger surrounding the strange texts and Cari’s fate promises many more twists in episodes to come.

Transcript

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[Keith Morrison]

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[Max Farver]

Do you mean they have all the brands I adore?

[Keith Morrison]

They have Nintendo, Nespresso, Apple and more.

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[Keith Morrison]

The lights of the city skylines seemed to wink as they picked up the ripples on the R and the muted hum of city sounds drifted across the Missouri to the Iowa side, as if those winking lights knew something. As if that hum was gossip. A jet plane descended to EPRI Airfield. Broke the spell because of course cities don't really know secrets or when something is about to happen. Though something certainly was Any minute now. It was unusually mild for Midwest evening so late in autumn. Snow was sparse and threadbare in the park on the Iowa side of the Missouri River. It was the first week of December in the year of our Lord 2015, just past 6:30pm Quite dark now and then. No question what that was. It was followed by this. 900 one must get a severe emergency. Oh yeah, I've been shot in the lake. It was a woman in pain, obviously. She told the 911 operator she had come to the park alone in her car in the park. Damn.

[Nancy Rainey]

Parking lots. On the left hand side I have.

[Keith Morrison]

A little red Toyota and I'm laying next to his. Okay, is the assailant still nearby?

[Nancy Rainey]

I don't think so.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Max Farver]

Am.

[Keith Morrison]

The woman said the bullet had gone clean through her thigh. In one side and out the other. Through and through is what first responders call that kind of wound, so a quick response would be crucial. Is there any serious bleeding? Oh, my. And the shooter or shooters? Long gone, said the woman. You know who did it? The old hand. An attacker roaming free with a gun in a city park. Well, that gets him immediate attention. So the dispatcher quickly called in squad cars from the Council Bluff's Iowa Police Department. Hold on. I radio traffic, okay? You're not going to hear me for a second.

[Nancy Rainey]

Oh, Jesus.

[Keith Morrison]

An agency assist came from across the river. A helicopter from the Omaha PD was in the air with its spotlight scouring a city park the size of 150 football fields for any sign of a suspect. Back and forth it flew, looking for whoever had fired the shot. Looking essentially for a drop of water in a pitch black pond. How many people were there? Oh, I don't know. I only heard one. About whom? The victim offered at least one clue. Do you know if it's a male or female?

[Babs (Birch Lane Advertiser)]

Female.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

Area.

[Keith Morrison]

Officers arrived. This is a recording from their dash cam. Where'd you go? Who is it? Who is it? Asking their questions as the victim was bundled into an ambulance. Did she run down the trail? And why fire at this victim, an unassuming mother of two who'd made her living as the owner of a business that cleaned houses. She had just gone to get 5 minutes peace in a quiet place and got a bullet in the leg. She would live, by the way, but the shooter. Okay, we need to know which way she went. Yes. And? Well, we imagine them looking for a woman with a gun in the dark in that giant park by the river across from the hum of the city with its sparkling towers, a mystery as opaque as the night Black river began finally to reveal itself in all its confounding weirdness. Had you ever encountered a thing quite that elaborate before? No, Nothing. Nothing like this.

[Max Farver]

This is a unique case, to say the least.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

All I heard was, open up, police.

[Keith Morrison]

And what was that like?

[Nancy Rainey]

Traumatizing. I was freaked out.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

They only hit one.

[Keith Morrison]

I think this night, I don't know. Finally it began to make some sort of sense. The best part of it was being able to tell her, you've arrested somebody for the murder of your daughter. That was what made working this whole case worth it. I'm Keith Morrison and this is Something about Carrie, the podcast from Dateline Episode one the Family Wedding to begin three years before that shooting in the park. The question was simple and urgent. Where was she? It was a question that 14 year old max Farver had been asking for days now about his mom. There was a family wedding to attend in Des Moines, Iowa. Max's uncle was getting married. Max was to be an usher. Third week of November 2012. Max, with his mop of dark hair and his good manners and his all around kindness, was as close as could be to his mom, Carrie farmer. She, the 37 year old computer programmer had been planning her road trip with Max for weeks. They were going to make it fun, drive from home in a tiny farming town called Macedonia to the big city two hours away, singing along with their favorite playlists. You two were pretty close. Or close all right. The kind of you and me against the world thing. A single mom and her only child is her son. It's like that, almost like one person in a way.

[Max Farver]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Max Farver]

Say that, how much she kept track of me and made me keep my grades up.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Max Farver]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Do you remember what you were feeling at that point?

[Max Farver]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Max Farver]

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

[Keith Morrison]

That must have been a weird night.

[Max Farver]

That was a very weird night. Very weird. Because people kept asking where she was. And I couldn't give an answer.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

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

[Keith Morrison]

That doesn't always go well.

[Nancy Rainey]

It always go well.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Babs (Birch Lane Advertiser)]

She was so shiny.

[Keith Morrison]

She was.

[Nancy Rainey]

I mean, she was very pretty. Guys were just drawn to her.

[Keith Morrison]

And she liked it. Yeah, she did. Why shouldn't she? But there was that other something about Carrie. The tendency to sometimes make dubious choices.

[Nancy Rainey]

Well, you know, like I said, you.

[Keith Morrison]

Know, she was a Carrie. Carrie knew how to have fun. Like the time when Carrie was away at college and there was this guy, one of a parade of guys.

[Nancy Rainey]

I mean, she made it sound like. She made it sound like a romantic movie.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

Yes.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

I got to the hospital after work.

[Keith Morrison]

She had had him laying in her.

[Nancy Rainey]

Lap and she said, oh gosh, she.

[Keith Morrison]

Goes, you're all mine. I don't have to share you with anybody. And she marked the occasion, did Carrie, by getting a tattoo on the top of her left foot. A very unusual tattoo, the Chinese symbol for mother. The tattoo was for you. Yep.

[Max Farver]

She reminded me of it too.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Narrator/Announcer]

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[Keith Morrison]

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

[Max Farver]

I wasn't sure what was going on.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Max Farver]

I just had heard of a Dave, that was about it.

[Keith Morrison]

But she didn't talk about him?

[Max Farver]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Wasn't that kind of relationship?

[Max Farver]

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

[Keith Morrison]

So you wanted to stay with your grandma?

[Max Farver]

Yeah, no real big deal. I had stayed with her in the past a few times. Like not often.

[Keith Morrison]

Yeah.

[Max Farver]

But often enough that it wasn't weird to me. I had my own room.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

Yeah, it was all too weird.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

I didn't know how to start looking for her.

[Keith Morrison]

So what is that like?

[Nancy Rainey]

It's hell. It's just frustration and just helplessness.

[Keith Morrison]

That would scare you?

[Nancy Rainey]

Yes, it scared me.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

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

[Keith Morrison]

But it was tormenting her, really.

[Nancy Rainey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Keith Morrison]

It's hard for a mother to watch.

[Nancy Rainey]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Well, I guess they thought, what, She's a grown woman, she can leave if she wants to leave, right? Nancy, of course, told the deputies about Carrie's struggle with bipolar disorder. And here's what they told her, said Nancy.

[Nancy Rainey]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

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

[Keith Morrison]

What did she say then?

[Nancy Rainey]

That I Was a bad mother. She said, I'm going to take Max. You're going to. We're gonna leave.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Max Farver]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Max Farver]

It was a bit scary because we all thought that someone might come at school to try to get me because the school would legally have to let them, let me go with them.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Max Farver]

I was thankful to have my cousin as one of the teachers at school because he's a big guy. He's probably 6, 2, 280, 300 pounds.

[Keith Morrison]

Wow.

[Max Farver]

So every time the. That my name got called in the intercom, I'd kind of glance in the office real quick just to make sure that it was okay to go in, because if it wasn't, I was supposed to go get him, have him come with me, because he wasn't gonna let me want to take me.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Never met him, no.

[Nancy Rainey]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Nancy Rainey]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

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[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

I think I was out back and one of the guys was like, hey, the police are here looking for you. And I'm like, eh, yeah, okay. You know, I didn't know what was going on.

[Keith Morrison]

What was that like?

[Dave Krupa]

Well, at first I didn't think anything of it. I thought, oh, maybe there's an abandoned car in the parking lot or something. I didn't realize it was detectives. I'm thinking it's a black and white, you know.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Where were you at 6:30 on that morning?

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

And she invited me out to her place, which was like an hour drive outside of town. When I got to her place, we're there 20 minutes making coffee, BSing, and of course, pretty soon we're on the couch and we're getting a little closer. Now at this point, we haven't even kissed. And she turns to me and she said, look, if we're gonna have sex, that's all it is, period. There's nothing more to it. And asked me, are you good with that? Is that gonna be a problem? And of course, my eyes lit up and I'm like, ping. I hit the Powerball.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

And you let them know that this.

[Dave Krupa]

Is the way it's got to be. That was the first conversation. Take her, leave it. That's how it is.

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Than the women you had dated before.

[Dave Krupa]

The majority of them.

[Keith Morrison]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

So when you went off to work that day, you were in a pretty good mood?

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

Weird.

[Dave Krupa]

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

[Keith Morrison]

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

[Dave Krupa]

It was exciting because this, I think, was about as close as we got.

[Keith Morrison]

To having a smoking gun.

[Dave Krupa]

In this case.

[Keith Morrison]

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.

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[Max Farver]

Do you mean they have all the brands I adore.

[Keith Morrison]

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