not to tell her that Cari was at a homeless shelter. Nancy was thoroughly shaken. Had the phone call been nothing more than a twisted prank? Or had Cari actually planned to meet her at the shelter? Had she asked a man to call Nancy? If so, why did he say he was Dave? What if Cari was behind the phone call? If that were the case, then why did she reach out only to dissolve back into the mist?
Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make people believe that Cari was at the shelter. As it turned out, not only had they phoned Nancy, they had also relayed the same message to Deputy Phyllips. And when Nancy later checked her Facebook page, there was another note, apparently sent before the call from “Dave.” It was from impostor Cari: Mom, I don’t have a phone anymore. I need you to come get me at the Sienna House in Omaha, please. I have no money, no car. I need help. I asked Dave to call you, but not sure he will help . . . Mom, please, I need you.
It was a heartbreaking plea. Nancy’s child did need her—if she were still alive. If Cari was no longer on this earth, Nancy imagined that there had been a moment near the end when her daughter had made that plea. What kind of a person would type those words and send them to a grieving mother? It seemed the hoaxer had a heart of ice.
Deputy Phyllips wasn’t sure what to make of the disturbing wild goose chase. On Monday, April 22, Mark Raney gave him permission to search Cari’s home. The Raneys hadn’t found anything there that could tell them what had happened to their daughter, and they hoped that Phyllips could find answers.
While most missing adults are quickly located, Cari had not been seen in over five months. “This was a little beyond the norm from somebody being gone for just a few days or weeks, so I wanted to take a look at her residence and see if there was anything that stood out that could help us find out where she may have gone,” the detective explains, adding that the text messages allegedly from Cari indicated she’d moved to Kansas. If that were true, he expected to find evidence of Cari’s plans in her home.
With the power shut off, it was hard to see, so the deputy pinned back the curtains on all of the windows to allow the sunlight in. To prevent thieves from taking advantage, the Raneys had put some of Cari’s valuables into storage. Maxwell had moved most of his things to his grandparents’ house. Otherwise, Cari’s home was pretty much as she’d left it. Her yellow coat still hung on the back of a dining room chair, and personal items were scattered over her dresser. It looked as if she had stepped out to run an errand and had not planned to be gone long.
The “systematic search” called for each room to be photographed from various angles. Phyllips followed procedure and opened each closet door and every drawer, documenting everything with a camera. He photographed the full wardrobe of clothing, the rows of neatly rolled socks in a drawer, and the toiletries and medications in the bathroom medicine cabinet. In one drawer he found an empty box for a silver Nikon Coolpix S4100 camera, and he photographed it along with an empty box for a tripod.
He didn’t know if the images would prove to be useful. He realized that Cari’s family feared something horrible had happened to her, but he wasn’t ruling out the possibility that she’d left willingly. Still, he was meticulous in his documentation. There was no telling what might turn out to be significant, so he recorded it all, everything from a deck of cards to crossword puzzles to a small, round container of breath mints.
In addition to taking photos, Phyllips collected potential evidence. “I took a checkbook log, a 2012 day-planner, and a resume she had typed out,” he says, adding that the resume had handwritten notes that might provide a clue. He also collected receipts from Hyatt Tire, and a plastic bag of medication, prescribed to Cari. “All items were secured in the investigations division at the Sheriff’s Office.” Despite his careful combing of the home, he’d found nothing to indicate where Cari had gone. His efforts were not in vain, but it would be a long