and Crime (UNODC). Investigators, aware of the statistics, looked closely at David Kroupa. Not only was he the victim’s boyfriend, he was the last known person to see her. But he’d been nothing but cooperative, and they quickly ruled him out. They found themselves focusing on someone else, a woman whose name popped up so frequently that it had to be more than a coincidence. The first time her name surfaced was just two days after Cari was last seen. On Thursday, November 15, 2012, a West Corp supervisor received a text from Cari’s phone: I won’t be coming back. I’m taking a job in Kansas. Sorry for the short notice. I am sending someone out to you to fill the position. Her name is Shanna Golyar.
Those who knew Cari best insisted she wasn’t one to make capricious decisions and that she’d never move away without her son. And she knew she couldn’t hire her own replacement. West Corp had a rigorous hiring process, first screening resumes of promising applicants before inviting the most impressive in for a series of interviews. “Cari’s” recommendation was especially ludicrous because Shanna had no training in computer coding. A manager at West Corp forwarded the message from “Cari” to his superiors, adding his own comment, “I’m not putting a lot of faith in the recommendation.” Shanna filled out an application a few hours after the text was sent to the West Corp supervisor. Under reference, she listed Cari Farver. She did not get the job.
As detectives studied the endless emails and texts, signs of Liz’s obsession with Dave began to emerge. Both he and Liz had allowed downloads of their phones early on, and investigators now became familiar with the strained dynamics of their relationship as they read the thousands of words that had passed between them. The messages attributed to Cari were strange. They found the email from the January 2013 kidnapping hoax, the one with the attached photo of the bound woman in the trunk that “Cari” claimed was Liz. The metadata on the photo revealed it was taken with an LG spectrum cellphone, model number, VS920, identical to one of the phones Liz owned.
They viewed a YouTube video, allegedly uploaded by Cari, and discovered by one of Cari’s friends who’d forwarded it to police. The video, “My Husband’s Cheating Place,” features an apartment building as the videographer walks toward it. The detectives ran the plate numbers of parked cars, visible in the video, and traced them to residents of Dave’s former apartment complex. The cars’ owners weren’t involved in the case, but the plate numbers verified the video was made outside of Dave’s Omaha apartment. The detectives now knew where that video was made but couldn’t prove who had made it. They needed more information and submitted a search warrant to YouTube.
* * *
Nancy Raney was brokenhearted. Her daughter had been missing for two-and-a-half years, and she was certain something terrible had happened to her. She had tried repeatedly to make authorities listen. In the beginning, when police reported that Cari was breaking into houses and vandalizing property, Nancy had been shocked. Cari had never done such wretched things. But they’d been so adamant, that Nancy had begun to wonder if it were possible. As the weeks melted into months, and Cari’s family and friends continued to be taunted with bizarre texts, Nancy knew the truth. Her daughter was not a criminal. She was a victim.
On May 8, 2015, Detective Doty went to see Nancy. When he appeared at her door, she steeled herself to hear more negative things about her daughter, and she admits she wasn’t very friendly. But then he said something she wasn’t expecting. “I want you to know that I don’t think Cari left on her own.”
All of Nancy’s anger was swept away in a wave of relief. Finally! Someone believed her! Overwhelmed with gratitude, she hugged the detective. When he asked to download the contents of her Samsung cellphone, Nancy granted permission at once. He was particularly interested in the image of the check the texter had sent as proof of payment for the furniture in Cari’s house. That image, of course, had proven to be a picture of a check that Shanna claimed Cari had stolen from her garage. Until now, no one had considered comparing the signature on that check to Shanna’s actual signature. Doty explains, “I looked up several traffic citations, issued to Shanna Golyar in the past, and looked at the signatures.”