Chapter 137: The Case Against Liz Golyar-The Twisted Case of Cari Farver Part 2

0:00 Every story has a beginning, but not everyone has an ending. In the shadows of headlines and buried police reports lay the voices of the missing, the murdered, and the forgotten, waiting to be heard and have their stories told. This is the Book of the Dead, a true crime podcast where we remember forgotten victims of heinous crimes, reopen cold cases, re visit haunting disappearances, and uncover the truths buried beneath the years of silence. I'm your host, Courtney Liso, and every week we turn to another chapter, one victim, one mystery, one step closer to justice. Brought to you by Darkast Network INDEP Podcasts with the twist.

1:13 Hey they're Rainbow Warriors. It's me CJ. I'm the host of Rainbow Crimes formally called Beyond the Rainbow Sure Crimes of the LGBTQ. Please join me as I release episodes about LGBTQ plus crimes committed by and against members of the community. I've covered cases from all around the world, such as lesbian corrective rapes in South Africa, the infamous Australian gay beat murders, and honor killings in the Middle East. I've covered many cases in the United States, some well known such as Matthew Shepherd, Brandon Tina, and Larry King.

1:53 I've told of serial killers such as her baumb Eister, Patrick Kearney, and Randy Kraft, but the case pieces I prefer to report on are the lesser known cases like Alex Van Dolson, Lisa linnstone In Gray Hanish. I'm gretty raw and uncensored. Not everybody's cup of tea, but surely someone shot of tequila. Give Rebo Crimes a listen and decide. By the way, my listeners aren't only LGBTQ, but from all walks of life. And remember it's not a crime to be gay or tolive your truth pless you're a murderer.

2:40 Hello, Hello, Welcome to the next chapter in the Book of the Dead. Last week I told you the story of Carrie Farvar, a thirty seven year old woman who was reported missing in November of twenty twelve after failing to show up for different family events. In addition to this, while no one had managed to lay eyes on Carrie, people were receiving alarming and disturbing messages from her, specifically her mother, Nancy Dave Krupa. The man she had been dating during the two weeks prior to her disappearance, and a woman named Liz Golier who was also dating Dave over two and a half years. Tens of thousands of messages were sent, Liz's home in Dave's workplace were vandalized, and Liz's home was even set on fire, killing her four pets in the blaze. But still, while Carrie claimed responsibility, no one had seen any sign of her. Her house looked as if she had simply gone out for the day, and her car had been found in pristine condition outside Dave's apartment the January after the last sighting of her. Finally, in twenty fifteen, and investigators were curious about the case of the woman who was actively stalking multiple people, but no one had any idea where she was. As they

4:11 started looking into her case, it became clear that Carrie Farvar was likely dead and the person pretending to be her was none other than Liz Golier. As they uncovered more evidence that alluded to the fact that Liz was possibly responsible for Carrie's death, they feared that someone else was going to get hurt. On December fifth, twenty fifteen, the Pottawatamee County Sheriff's office received a phone call that a woman had been shot in Big Lake Park in Council Bluffs, Iowa. This was where Dave Croupa's ex girlfriend, Amy Flora lived, and Liz Goliar had just hours earlier told police that she believed Amy was the stalker and Dave's gun had been stolen. As police raced to the scene, convinced that Amy was their victim, they were baffled by who they found bleeding in the parking lot. Their gunshot victim was not Amy Flora, it was Liz's golier. Liz had been shot in the leg, and as she is receiving medical attention, she's asked what happened. According to court records, While her account of what happened would vary over the next few hours and days, she was insistent that Amy Flora was the person that shot her. Police went to

5:43 Amy's home to confront her about the accusation, but when Amy opened the door with her young son and it was clear that her car had not been used in a while as it was cool to the touch, she was quickly cleared of any involvement of the accusation Deputy Ryan Avis told ABC quote, I found it highly I found it highly suspicious that the day before she felt the need to tell me that Dave Croupa's gun had been stolen, and less than twenty four hours later she shot. It was pretty quickly determined that most likely Liz Golier had shot herself. While it was clear that Liz had orchestrated the shooting to incriminate Amy, likely because the police were closing in on her, they still had a lot of evidence they needed to gather to show that Liz was responsible for whatever had happened to Carrie. So far, all they could prove was that Liz was impersonating Carrie and had been stocking Dave Krupa. Liz had given investigators permission to do a second data extraction on her phone the day before the shooting, and forensic analyst Tony Caba began sipping through it to find anything else that could help aid in building a case against her. Ung the various email addresses tied to Liz, but using variations of Carrie's name, he found that Liz was using apps to schedule messages to show up while she and Dapor together in order to make it appear to him that Carrie

7:14 was sending them. Kabba told ABC quote she was able to send messages pretending to be Carrie and they would arrive while she was sitting on the couch next to Dave. From Dabe's point of view, Liz couldn't have sent it because she was sitting next to him at the time. After determining that Carrie was spending the majority of her time forty to fifty hours a week creating and sending messages, he said quote, this seemed to be a full time occupation for her, trying to stock people and send the messages. A couple of weeks after the shooting, Liz was brought in for another interview, and she expressed frustration that Amy wasn't being fully investigated. Detectives Doughty and Avis told Liz that they believed her, but they needed hard proof that Amy was responsible for the stalking, the messages, and for what had happened to Liz. Coincidentally, almost immediately after this meeting, they started receiving forwarded messages allegedly written by Amy claiming she had shot Liz at Big Lake Park. According to ABC, they pressed Liz to keep talking to Amy in order to get more information. Days later, there sent another email from Amy, this time detailing an alleged confession to the murder of Carrie Farber. According to the Omaha World Herald, a portion of the emails sent in late December twenty fifteen read, I attacked her with a knife. I snapped

8:47 her three or four times in the chest and stomach area. I took her out and burned her. I stopped her body in a garbage bag with crap. While this email was damning in and of itself and what investigators believed to be a clear confess, it still wasn't exactly what they needed. Between December twenty one, twenty fifteen, and February twenty fourth, twenty sixteen, Gullier forwarded more emails to the police from Amy, with the messages detailing the fire started at Liz's home and alleged confession to the shooting of Liz, and various details of Carrie's murder, some of which they found to be inconsistent, but what was always consistent was the stabbing, wrapping her body in a tarp and burning it before disposing of her remains. One of the emails also mentioned specific tattoos that Carrie had, one being a Yin and Yan tattoo on her hip. She got to match her ex husband, as well as a tattoo of the Chinese character for mother on her foot, according to court records. In late February, after Liz questions why Amy hasn't been arrested, investigators tell her that they need a little bit more information that only the killer would know.

10:01 While they were telling Liz that Amy was their prime suspect, she seemed completely unaware that she was really their target. After this conversation, another email came through, and this time it contained a key detail where Carrie had been killed. Quote, I drove carry out to the woods and she was still begging for her life, crying, wanting me to let her go. Investigators believed that the vehicle that Liz had driven had been Carrie's Sport Explorer, so they took a third look at the car on February eighteenth, and this time they find the evidence they had needed all along.

10:41 The forensics technician removed the sea covers and found on the passenger seat the foam had been stained with blood. Upon further testing, the blood was determined to belong to Carrie. Farber. With this new evidence, Stdy and Avis are positive that Carrie was murdered and she had likely been killed in Omaha based on reports in the original missing person stile that showed Carrie's phone pinging in Douglas County a few days after she had disappeared. Based on this cold case's homicide Detective Dave Schneider and the Omaha Police Department were brought in to help work the investigation. Detective Schneider brought Liz in for questioning regarding the disappearance and murder of Carrie Farvar, showing her all of the evidence that had been gathered up until that point, the photos of Carrie's car, the different email accounts, the IP addresses that pointed to all the places she had lived, but Liz denied everything.

11:38 She had no Internet access, had no idea what they were talking about. As she's being questioned, Dodi and ABIs obtain Warrens to search the apartment Liz was currently staying in and the home of Todd Butterbaugh, the tech guy who worked for the Sheriff's office, with whom Liz had lived with and used his Internet to send most of the harassing messages. As police searched the apartment. They found quite a few items of interest, LG cell phones, a specific black and white shower curtain that was identified to be the same one purchased at the Family Dollar with Carrie's debit card four days after her disappearance in November of twenty twelve, a red Sony video camera, a Nikon coolpit's digital camera, as well as various SD cards. In March, just a few weeks later, police searched the storage unit that Nancy, Carrie's mother had moved her daughters things too.

12:35 In the storage unit, investigators found the user manuals to both the camquarder and the digital camera, as well as the receipt from the store they were purchased from in October of twenty twelve. According to ABC, investigators determined that Liz had broken into Carrie's home at some point after the murder and had taken what she wanted. They also viewed the footage on the camquarder and found and a clip of Carrie talking about someone vandalizing her car, dated two days before she vanished. According to Lover's Soccer Killer, Nancy recalled Carrie mentioning the damaged workr It had been spray painted all over, and she had spent a long time with her son cleaning all of the paint off.

13:21 Carrie and Nancy had at some point assumed it was some kids playing a prank, but it seemed in hindsight, much more sinister than some juvenile joke. After over a year of tracking down every piece of evidence they could, the police finally had enough to make an arrest. On December twenty second, twenty sixteen, Liz Gollier was arrested and charged with first degree murder in the death of Carrie Farverr. Even with an arrest being made, though, there was still a battle to be fought. While the evidence against Liz was strong, it was still a case built entirely uncircumstantial evidence, and since they had never found Carrie's body, the prosecution would have to work hard to build a case for murder.

14:05 Douglas County Prosecutor Brenda Beadle said, quote, this was by far the most difficult case I've ever tried. Most homicides are dark. This one was bizarre to the point where it would take some convincing to make somebody believe that it actually happened. There's no way that someone would let their dog die in a fire that they started. There's no way that someone would shoot themselves in the femur. Liz's attorney, James Martin Davis, was aware of the problem the prosecution had, but he was also acutely aware that if a body was found, his client was guaranteed to be convicted. To try and expedite the process, they wave the right to have a jury hear the case, opting for a bench trial instead. He said, quote, not only was there no body, there was no crime scene, there was no murder weapon, there was no proof that she even died. We waved the jury trial to move it up so I could try this case, hopefully before they'd find a body. According to an article for A and E, weeks before Liz's trial was to begin in February twenty seventeen, Dave Krupa brought investigators an old tablet he had owned, an old tablet he had owned at the time he had been dating Carrie and Liz. Inside was a micro SD card, and Tony Kava was able to recover over thirteen thousand photos and text messages that had been sent to and by Liz Golier. The SD card was determined to have originally been used in an LG cell phone

15:35 that belonged to Liz and had had its data extracted in twenty thirteen. Hundreds of the photos found on the phone were also the same as once found on the SD card. As Kava sipped through the As Kava sipped through these photos, he found something alarming. In addition to various pictures of what seemed to be a blue and gray tarp, there was an image of a quote flesh colored object with a Yin Yang symbol on it. Another image had a similarly colored object with the Chinese character on it. A forensic video analyst compared the images to the tattoo that Carrie's ex husband had, as well as to photos Nancy supplied, and determined that bold tattoos were strikingly similar to the ones Carrie was known to have, according to court records. A forensic pathologist determined that the image with the Chinese character was a photo of a human foot that had partially decomposed, but she was unable to tell how long the decesion had been dead. Based on the photo alone, this was the strongest circumstantial evidence investigators had in conjunction with the email's confessions that pointed to Liz Golier as having murdered Carrie Farver. In May of twenty seventeen, Liz finally went to trial, and in their opening statement, the prosecution set the motive as Liz doing whatever was necessary to get the man that she wanted.

17:01 Brenda Beadles said, according to k ETV, quote, this is a bizarre and twisted case of veiled attraction. It's about an obsessive woman that would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Her life was violently cut short by this defendant's twisted, obsessive, reprehensible act of violence. The prosecution introduced over forty pieces of evidence, most of it showcase the lynx Liz went to in order to make it seem as if Carrie was sending the text and emails. While Liz's attorney admitted that her behavior was definitely strange, none of the digital evidence proved that Liz had killed anyone. He also pointed out that there wasn't a witness to any crime. According to KAETV, he said in his opening statement, quote, You're not going to hear a single eyewitness say yeah, we saw her kill her, We saw her stab her.

17:52 Not a single eyewitness even saw my client with the victim. In this case. However, there was evidence that Liz and Carey were a quainted in some way, a story which Liz had fabricated for multiple people. There was the message that she had sent to Nancy Rainey with the image of the check where she had supposedly purchased Carrie's bedroom furniture. She told Todd Butterbo they were friends, and when she sent the letter of resignation to Carrie's employer, she put herself down as a referral to take her position and had even applied to the job. According to three News Now, the message said quote, I won't be coming back. I am taking a job in Kansas. Sorry for the short notice.

18:34 I am sending someone out to you to fill the position. Her name is Shanna Gollier. Though the blood evidence found in Carrie's car was damning, Davis attempted to discredit it as well. According to the Omaha World Herald, he didn't deny the blood was Carrie's, but suggested it was possibly menstrual blood, though Nancy Rainey testified that that was impossible. Carrie had had a hysterectomy eight months before her disappearance. Either way, Davis argued it was an evidence of a stabbing. Neither were the photographs of the decomposing foot in thigh found on Liz's s D card. They were strange and disturbing, but not an admission of murder. Among the various witnesses he testified, including Tony Cabba, Deputies Dodi and Avis, and Dave Krupa, Amy Flora also testified and read thirteen of the emails allegedly sent from her hotmail account. According to the Omaha World heralds Amy testified she was not the one who sent these messages. The prosecution also argued that it didn't matter who the messages were signed by. They could prove with digital evidence that the emails were written and sent by Goliard, and they were considered a confession.

19:53 Beatles said, quote, they're her words. We didn't put those words in her mouth. She put those words on paper, and we've proved one hundred times over that those words are hers. In his rebuttal, according to the Omaha World Herald, Davis insisted the prosecution was cherry picking the emails. Quote, the state says, because she did all these bizarre things, she must be guilty, but the state is avoiding the fact that there's a complete absence of direct evidence that shows somebody was murdered. All were left with is the prosecutor's theory, what they believe, not what they can prove. After the ten days of trial, on May twenty fourth, twenty seventeen, Douglas County Judge Timothy Burns found Shanna Elizabeth Golier guilty of first degree murder and second degree arson.

20:43 This decision was based on the quote overwhelming amount of evidence presented by the state that the defense simply could not refute. According to the Omaha World Herald, judge Burns said, Goliard quote spun a twisted plot of lies, deceit, and in person nations through digital messaging to keep Farvar alive online and distract authorities. Carrie Farvard did not voluntarily disappear a job off the face of the earth. Very sadly, she was murdered. Interestingly enough, Liz's attorney gave praise to Beetle and fellow prosecutor Jim miss Stellar for how they handled the case and the work that they did. Quote. In my three or four decades of practicing law, It's one of the most powerful presentations of circumstantial evidence that I've ever seen. I can't quarrel with the judge's verdict in this case. He ruled based on all the evidence.

21:37 The ruling came as a vast relief to Carrie's family, especially to Nancy and Max, who were glad it was finally over. Though they could not bury Carrie, they had been able to see her get justice. Nancy did say that she wanted to at least know why Liz did what she had done, since Carrie's relationship with Dave was so casual and so new. She told the Omaha World tild quote, it would be nice if Golier would say she was sorry, but she deprived my grandson of his mother. But I don't know that there's really anything she could say to me. Because Carrie's gone, nothing will bring her back. Liz was sentenced on August fifteen to a mandatory life sentence for the first degree murder charge, plus an additional eighteen to twenty years for arson to run consecutively with a life sentence. Of course, Liz did appeal a year later, arguing a few points. She argued that there was insufficient evidence to find her guilty of arson in murder. Her attorney failed to effectively represent her by not adequately advising her to the right to a jury trial, failing to move to sever the charges against her, failing to file any pre trial motions, leaving objections to the vast majority of evidence introduced by the state, failing to put on any sort of defense and or investigate potential witnesses and alibis, failing to call an expert to rebut the pathologists test stimony, failing to adequately advise Goliar on her right to testify a trial, and being so unprepared for trial and unfamiliar

23:08 with the case that he referred to Golier and Farvar by the wrong names, according to court records, While the court agreed that under Nebraska law, first degree murder applies when a person kills another with purpose and premeditation, the state was able to use the circumstantial evidence to prove, even without her body, that Carrie Farvar had been killed beyond a reasonable doubt. Carrie had not been seen since November thirteenth of twenty twelve. Her bank account had not been used since that time, barring the few days after when Liz was confirmed to have accessed Carrie's account, the photos of the tattoos, and the emails, specifically the one saying, according to court records, I attacked her with a knife.

23:50 I stabbed her three to four times in the chest and stomach area. I then took her out and burned her. I killed Farvar because she wouldn't leave Krupo alone. I even went out to Farvar's place got some of Farvar's clothes and other things to make it look like she ran away. One email described driving with Farvar in her vehicle and then stabbing her multiple times in the stomach, and this email stated she was alive after the stabbing end quote, begging for her life, while Goyer spent the whole time watching the life train out from her body. Another email described the yinnan yang tattoo on her thigh in order to prove quote I'm not lying about offing that crazy bitch. All of it was sufficient to prove that Liz had murdered Carrie. As for the ars in charge, there were multiple points of origin found indicating that the fire had been set intentionally. Liz had motive to set the fire to bolster her ruse and she admitted in messages posing as Carrie that she had set the fire herself.

24:48 In this case, the circumstantial evidence was again more than enough to set the burden a proof. Regarding the accusations about lack of efficient counsel, the court also disagreed Liz herself had waived her right to a jury trial twice and said that she understood the impact her decision could have on her case. The charges of arson and murder should not have been severed, as they were both connected by Liz's efforts to cover up Carrie's murder, and for her other claims, she failed to provide the necessary evidence to prove her points as valid. Ultimately, the court concluded that her attorney represented her effectively and nothing was done to negatively impact her trial. The sentencing and verdict would stand. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, this was not the first time that Liz Golier was connected to murder uncovered by Leslie Roll.

25:40 When she was in the process of writing A Tangled Web, she learned that Liz's five month old son, Cody, had died on January twenty ninth, nineteen ninety nine. According to the autopsy, the baby had suffered a brain hemorrhage brought on by vigorous shaking. The cause of death was determined to be shaken baby syndrome. The prime suspects were twenty one year old Liz Gollier and her boyfriend at the time, twenty one year old Glenn Her. According to an article for The Sun, while her would ultimately confess after hours of interrogation, he claimed a trial that Liz had called him crying the night before, saying he needed to come home, that she had dropped the baby. However, would seal to speed were letters that Liz presented during her testimony that she claimed to have been written by her, saying, as my wife to be, I need you to come back up here and tell my attorney that on Thursday, the twenty ninth of February, the reason you called me from work at eight thirty pm was because you had dropped Cody from about four feet, which then caused Cody to stop breathing. So then you shook Cody, not to do any harm, but to get him to start breathing again.

26:57 Please Shanna, this is what will set me free, because they are trying to pin it on me. I love you with all my heart and soul. Liz was the only person to verify the handwriting of these letters. While her was found guilty and sentenced date eight and a half to twenty five years in prison for the murder of baby Cody, his family maintains that Liz talked him into confessing. Phyllis, her his mother, says that her son suffered from brain damage as a child and was susceptible to being influenced to do things. He also struggled to read and write, so she doubted he wrote the letters to Liz. While Phyllis strongly believed that Liz was responsible for Cody's death and talked her son into taking the fall, Cody's father, Raymond Strayan, believed slightly differently. He said, quote, I believe she influenced what happened. I wouldn't say that she framed him, but I want to say she manipulated him.

27:58 After Glenn and I found out she was seeing us both at the same time, I can see her telling him, if you get rid of mine and Ray's son, then you and I can be together forever. I don't put one hundred percent of the blame on Glenn, but I put the majority of it on him. Because he's the one that did it. Ray also said that during his relationship with Liz, she displayed in a ray of alarming red flags. She was jealous, possessive, and obsessed with receiving attention, no matter what kind. She'd even allegedly go so far as to harm herself to get the reaction she was looking for. When Cody was brought to the hospital, Ray said that Liz, who he simply described as an okay mother, didn't act the way one would expect. While she had cried, when her arrived, she threw herself at him even though he was a suspect in harming the baby, and his CPS worker even suggested that Liz needed to go to a behavioral health clinic. According to the CPS worker, Liz wasn't acting right, and she didn't specify why. Even days after her son's death, Liz reportedly seemed fine, as if she hadn't just lost her child, which disturbed Phyllis and Ray.

29:10 After Liz's conviction, Anthony Caaba, Dodie and Avis wanted to do something to honor Carrie. According to GAYETV, Caaba said quote, it wasn't fair what happened to her. It wasn't fair what happened to her family, and this seemed like a good way to help people in her name, even though she's not here to do it. So they started the Carrie Farvard Memorial Scholarship, and the scholarship pays one thousand dollars to students attending Iowa Western Community College and studying information technology. It's the same school Carrie attended. After the Netflix documentary came out, the donations flooded in, reaching ninety two percent of their goal within weeks of the documentary.

29:50 Caabas said that it was really about making sure that Carrie was the center of the story, not the crime itself. Quote. I want people to know when they want, I want them to remember Carrie, and I want them to remember her family because Carrie didn't deserve anything that happened to her. She was a wonderful mother, She was in a really good place in her life. She had a career that she loved, very proud of her son, and it's just it was a tragedy what happened to her. But then her family had to live with it too for years. After four years of ruining her reputation after her murder, Carrie's name was finally cleared after the work investigators did to prove Liz Gallier had masterminded the entire thing. Liz is currently still incarcerated with no chance of being released, and Dave, thirteen years after Carrie's disappearance, has started finally talking about his experience. Stocking can happen to anyone. This case is a prime example of that. And in a time where technology is constantly advancing, it's far easier for tracks to become While Carrie's martyr is an extreme example of what unbridled obsession can become, it's not out of the realm. The possibility vet who you meet online and keep yourselves safe. As always, I thank you so much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful week and stay tuned because you get another early episode next

31:25 week when I have a special guest back on the podcast to talk about her new book. And with that, I will see you in the next chapter of the Book of the Dead. Bye, guys. Another page closed, But the story isn't over for the families left behind. The pain doesn't end when the headline stayed. And for the victims, we owe them more than silence For our on solved cases. If you have any information, please reach out to local authorities or visit our show notes for links and resources. Someone out there knows something, Maybe it's you. Thank you for listening to the Book of the Dead. If this story moved or spoke to you in some way, talk about it, share it, keep their names alive. Until next time, I'm Courtney Liso. Stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant, and remember the dead may be gone, but their stories will not be forgotten.