of vandalism and theft had yet to result in an arrest.
Two separate law enforcement agencies in two different states were conducting two entirely different types of investigations, and neither agency was aware of the other’s case. Iowa had Cari’s missing person case, while Nebraska was investigating the vandalism and theft of checks. Neither Iowa nor Nebraska investigators had reason to believe they were dealing with serious matters. Police in Iowa suspected Cari had left on her own accord. As for the Nebraska police, they figured Liz’s complaint about the break-in was an isolated incident. It wasn’t yet clear that the two cases were connected and that they involved a devastating crime. The cases were as muddled as two jigsaw puzzles jumbled together with half of the pieces lost. Neither police agency should be blamed for failing to piece the mess together quickly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, three days after Nancy reported Cari missing, the case was assigned to Pottawattamie County Deputy Sheriff Randal Phyllips. By 2012, he’d worked in law enforcement for a dozen years and had handled his share of missing persons reports. “A lot of the missing persons cases we get are going to involve kids that are a little defiant, got grounded for something, got the Xbox taken away, and they just don’t want to be home,” he notes, adding that those cases are usually resolved quickly.
But Cari was no runaway teen. She was a grown woman and devoted mother with a promising career. Had she met with foul play? Phyllips hoped it was a simple case of miscommunication and that they could locate her quickly. He left her a phone message and also sent texts. She did not respond.
Teaming up with Corporal Rob Ambrose, Phyllips reviewed Cari’s thin file and then interviewed her supervisor at West Corp. Coworkers had last seen her exactly one week earlier on Monday, the twelfth. Several people had left the building at the same time as Cari that night, and they’d chatted as they walked to their cars. She gave no indication anything was wrong. She’d smiled and said she’d see them in the morning but had not shown up for work the next day.
A couple of days later, the supervisor had received a resignation text, allegedly from Cari, informing her she was moving away and had a new job in Kansas. Cari had lived in Iowa and worked in Nebraska. Had she now moved to yet another state? Investigators hoped that technology would provide the answers. If she was still in possession of her phone, she could possibly be located via cellular tower triangulation. At the time she disappeared, approximately 300,000 cellular towers across the United States were interacting with over 300 million cell phones. All cell phones in use regularly interface with the closest towers, sending signals known as pings. With the cooperation of carriers such as Verizon and Sprint, investigators can track those pings, following them like trails of breadcrumbs.
Though Nancy felt Deputy Rhyster dismissed her concerns, he had made an effort to find her daughter through her cell phone. He’d set the wheels in motion for Verizon to grant permission to the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office to access the pertinent files, and the pings revealed that Cari’s phone was still in Omaha. On Sunday, November 18, police had reviewed the information and zeroed in on an area a few blocks north of the intersection of West Center Road and 114th Street. The surrounding territory included residential neighborhoods and a busy business district. Police searched the area but saw no sign of Cari or her black Ford Explorer.
By the time Deputy Phyllips had taken over the case on Monday, the pinging revealed that though the phone was still in the same general area, it had traveled about half a mile to the west. The investigator noted that thirteen texts had been sent in the last twenty-four hours. The last one was at 11:00 that very morning, and at that time Cari’s phone’s pings pointed to a location north of West Center Road, near “the start of a residential area.” The pinging still did not pinpoint an address but indicated a neighborhood.
Deputy Phyllips knew Cari was most likely using her Explorer for transportation. “We drove around a lot of the residential streets looking for the vehicle. We also drove through all the parking lots of any apartment complexes and businesses that were in that general area.” They didn’t find Cari’s car, but had been somewhat reassured after learning her