not creeping around in the shadows, knife in hand, ready to leap out and attack her family.
Four days after Jessica’s second harassment report, Liz filed another complaint with the Omaha Police Department. Sergeant Brett Schrage was working the front desk at the Southwest precinct that day. He reviewed some of the threats on Liz’s phone and advised her to save them and apply for a protective order.
The bully was finding new ways to terrify. On May 11, the same day that the stalker had sent Jessica her own address, and Dave had received the email threatening Liz and her “ugly kids,” a memorial for Liz appeared on Remembered.com, a website where grieving families can post photos and bios of their deceased loved ones.
The nut sent Dave a link to the memorial. He was shocked to see a photo of Liz with “June 28th 1975 to May 11th, 2013” printed beneath it. The obituary read: I didn’t know her very well expect [sic] that she was a whore and a man stealer. It continued with run-on sentences and atrocious grammar and punctuation mistakes: She kept stealing my man she is unable to get her own man that she has to keep taking everyone else’s men. Thank God she is gone you rid dines [sic] to you. Apparently, the writer had meant to type: Good riddance to you, but didn’t use her computer’s spell-check feature. Either that, or the errors were deliberate.
While Liz was not dead, she told Dave she was scared to death. According to the obituary, she died on May 11. That’s today, Dave realized as he studied the memorial. Liz was still alive, but the day was not over. Could someone be planning to end her life that day? Nah! It was a ridiculous idea. He figured the ugly words were empty threats. It was quite a leap from keying a car to murder. A few hours later, at nearly 2 A.M. on May 12, Dave received an email with the subject line: How do I find a hit man, contract killer? It began: I am trying to hire someone to get rid of that whore Liz for us. You told me before you wanted her gone. I can’t do it myself because the cops will figure it out. It went on to ask if they should also have Liz’s kids killed, and ended with: I love you, Dave, and I am glad you’re in this with me. I hope to see you soon. Your beautiful Cari.
It was more nonsense, but Liz appeared frightened. Dave tried to reassure her. It was B.S., he insisted, just like when the stalker had claimed she was locked in a car trunk. “Liz, she’s just trying to scare you,” he told her. He hoped he was right.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I love you. Don’t ignore me, or I will tear out
your whore’ s eyes and slit her throat . . .
—TEXT FROM STALKER TO DAVE KROUPA,
JUNE 23, 2013
ON MAY 18, 2013, the Facebook impostor uploaded a new profile image, originally posted by Cari on her real page. It was a photo of Cari with her dad about a month before he died. Denny looked sickly and gaunt as his daughter wistfully rested her head upon his shoulder. The accompanying text, riddled with grammar errors, was disturbing to Cari’s friends and relatives, and none of them believed she had written it: I have answered enough questions to prove myself to everyone, it began before angrily declaring that she was indeed Cari and wanted to be left alone. I left on my own free will, and I am sick of everyone giving me a hard time for doing what I needed to do. Particularly painful to Max was the claim he had refused to go with his mother. The post ended with: I love you all very much, but I need time still to sort things out.
It wasn’t just Cari’s family who was going out of their minds with worry, her friends, too, were devastated and lost. They spent countless hours combing the Internet for a sign of Cari. Nancy’s heart went out to Cari’s friend, Joy Norstrum, when she showed up at her door, so excited she was practically bursting. She thought she had located Cari through a recently posted online video and couldn’t wait to show Nancy. They turned the computer on, and Joy accessed the video. It was definitely made by Cari, but while Joy had assumed it was recent, Nancy recognized it as one