that investigators had learned about when Liz wrote the confession in Amy’s name. As it turned out, Liz had also photographed Cari’s hip tattoo. Anthony found that photo while extracting deleted images on the memory card from Dave’s tablet. The foot tattoo was special to Cari, and she had told her mother that the inking process had been very painful. (Some tattoo artists refuse to work on feet because the procedure is excruciating for clients and risk of infection is high.) But Cari had withstood the agony and proudly sported the Chinese symbol for mother.
Mother. It was a role she loved, and, of course, she loved her own mother. How perfectly fitting that this symbol of the thing most sacred to her would be the single most powerful piece of evidence to emerge. Cari’s family and friends were so lost without her. Her mother and son, especially, needed justice before they could move forward with their lives. Cari had gotten the tattoo to honor them, but as she endured the hours of pain at the tattoo parlor, she had no idea that the new symbol she wore would one day bring them peace.
Liz, too, had tattoos, and the inked message on her left bicep was ironic, considering her evil deeds: “True Beauty lies within the heart.” She had fooled many people into believing her heart was pure. Well aware now that the killer’s heart was anything but pure, some wondered if a conviction would result in the death penalty. Each state has its own death penalty laws, and Nebraska is one of thirty states that currently allow it.
Nebraska executes by lethal injection, but in the early part of the twentieth century, the Cornhusker State had preferred to dispatch its killers via hanging. After 1920, convicted murderers sizzled in the electric chair. One of Nebraska’s most infamous killers, Charles Starkweather, who took the lives of eleven people, was electrocuted in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1959. His fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Carol Ann Fugate, was considered his accomplice and also convicted of first-degree murder, though she was spared execution. Carol served seventeen years in the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women in York, Nebraska, and was paroled in 1976.
The death penalty was abolished in Nebraska by legislators in 2015 but reinstated a year later by voters, just in time for Liz Golyar. But fair or not, juries have a tough time stomaching the idea of executing females. While four people have been executed in Nebraska since 1976, none were female. The numbers are conservative, compared to Texas with 474 executions since 1976, including six females. According to Jim Masteller, Liz Golyar was never a candidate for execution. “In our state, in order to obtain the death penalty, you have to have at least one aggravating factor,” he explains, stressing that it’s usually not even considered without several aggravating factors. Nebraska’s Statute 29-2523 lists nine aggravating circumstances that allow prosecutors to seek death, including previous murder convictions, offenders who knowingly create a great risk of death to multiple people, the murder of law enforcement officers, and murder for hire. Liz didn’t fit the criteria, and the most her detractors could hope for her was life behind bars.
The prosecution had a huge responsibility. They knew Liz was dangerous, that she’d killed Cari Farver, and that she’d most likely kill again if allowed to go free. Beadle and Masteller had each successfully prosecuted multiple murderers and excelled at their jobs. This case, however, presented more challenges than most. For one thing, there was so much evidence it was almost impossible to keep it straight. Liz had sent 20,000 texts and emails while impersonating Cari. For the first time, the prosecutors asked a judge to allow a detective to sit with them at trial. Nebraska law allows it, but it’s extremely rare for Douglas County prosecutors to make the request.
When the trial began on the morning of Wednesday, May 10, 2017, Detective Ryan Avis was seated at the prosecution table with Jim Masteller and Brenda Beadle. Avis knew the details of the very complicated case by heart. “He had his laptop in front of him, with the entire case file on it,” Masteller says, adding that whenever they needed a particular photo or other info, Avis located it instantly.
Shanna Elizabeth Golyar not only faced a first-degree murder charge, another count had been added—second-degree arson for the fire at her rental home. Cari’s loved ones packed Judge Burns’s courtroom on the fifth floor of the Douglas County Courthouse. Cari’s friends Amber