who’d overheard Teresa, prior to the murder, discussing a life-insurance payout for Brian’s death.
Teresa was convicted and sentenced to 18 to 20 years for helping to cover up the homicide.
While JMD lost that case, his winning streaks have broken records. Juries, especially, are charmed by the sense of humor and abundant charisma of the seasoned attorney with the shock of thick, white hair. But JMD’s magnetic personality could do little to distract jurors from his client’s unbelievably cruel deeds. She was not on trial for tormenting Cari’s mother, killing her pets, or cheating on her boyfriends—despicable acts that JMD knew would infuriate ordinary people if her fate was left in their hands. While judges are trained to separate emotion from the law, a jury of her peers “would have jumped out of the jury box and strangled her,” he states. He had wisely advised her to choose a bench trial.
JMD did not have a monopoly on charm. Both Brenda Beadle and Jim Masteller were likeable and attractive people. Masteller was more reserved than Beadle, and his well-trimmed beard and moustache gave him a distinguished air. Brenda, with high cheekbones a model would envy, was a striking blonde and looked smart in a black blazer and skirt as she began her opening statement. “This is a bizarre and twisted case of a fatal attraction. It’s about an obsessive woman that would stop at nothing to get what she wanted, and in this case, what she wanted was a man, and it wasn’t just any man, it was Dave Kroupa.”
That was Liz’s motive, plainly stated by Beadle in her opening line. The prosecution was not required to prove motive in order to convict Liz of murder, but it always made a case stronger when they did. They also didn’t have to know or prove exactly how Cari had died, though the blood found in the car and the references to stabbings in the impostor emails indicated the weapon was a knife. That knife was never found, and while it would have been helpful to have the weapon, it was not a prerequisite for a conviction. Witnesses were waiting to testify about Liz’s maniacal infatuation with Dave and about the things that absolutely had to be proven, such as premeditation and venue.
Beadle promised they would spend the next days “delving into the warped and diabolical actions and behaviors of the defendant. We will attempt to unravel the web of deceit the defendant has spun.” She introduced the cast of characters and outlined the sequence of events that culminated with Cari Farver’s disappearance. She touched on evidence they would present—including the blood found in Cari’s car, the fingerprint on the mint container, and the fact that Liz had referenced a tattoo of Cari’s she could not have legitimately known about. She described Liz’s efforts to make it appear Cari was alive, and her endless harassment of innocent people. The story was so complex, it took over an hour to lay out the basics. Brenda Beadle did an excellent job, simplifying a long and complicated story.
JMD was equally prepared. He wasted no time conceding that Liz would not win any citizen-of-the year awards but stressed that didn’t mean she’d committed murder. “Judge,” he began. “We’ve just heard an hour-and-a-half opening that can be probably titled, ‘Death by supposition and homicide by innuendo.’” The questions prosecutors could not definitively answer were endless, and JMD painstakingly listed them. “Was there a death? Where is the body of Cari Farver? What’s the cause of death? Was it a homicide? Where did the homicide take place? What’s the venue for these charges?”
If Cari was no longer alive, that didn’t mean his client had killed her, and JMD reminded the court that it was the State’s responsibility to prove it was Liz’s fault. “But even if there was a death, they have to prove that death was caused by an unlawful violent or negligent act. What does that mean? An unlawful violent act: That my client killed her either intentionally or during the commission of some other unlawful act. And they have to prove that those acts took place in Nebraska.”
Liz probably felt hopeful when she heard how confident he sounded, but it was hard to guess what she was thinking. Her reactions were minimal throughout the trial, but Cheyann remembers that on breaks Liz would often ask, “How do you think it’s going?” Cheyann tried not to discourage her, even when she felt things weren’t going so well for