Shivangi Sinha
In November 2012, Cari Farver abruptly vanished from Omaha, Nebraska; yet, many people continued to receive messages from her phone. These texts claimed she had started a new life in Kansas, while numerous individuals reported being stalked and harassed through those very messages. It wasn’t until December 2016, when Shanna “Liz” Golyar was arrested, that the truth emerged: Golyar had murdered Cari and had been impersonating her for years to carry out various crimes. ABC’s ‘20/20: A Tangled Web’ explores the details of the case and the shocking revelations that followed.
Liz Golyar Alleged She Was Being Harassed by Cari Farver
Shanna Elizabeth “Liz” Golyar was born in 1975 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Little is known about her early life except that she lost both of her parents when she was young and entered the foster care system with her siblings. She was separated from most of her family and raised by foster parents. She eventually married and had children, but her life was far from smooth. On August 25, 1998, her second child, Cody Nathaniel Golyar, was born, but he died on January 30, 1999. The five-month-old’s cause of death was determined to be shaken baby syndrome. At the time, Liz was in a relationship with a man named Glenn Herr, who was later sentenced to prison in connection with the infant’s death.
Liz eventually built a life of her own and later settled in Omaha, Nebraska. In early 2012, she met Dave Kroupa, who had recently relocated to the city, and the two began dating. They both agreed that their relationship would not be exclusive or monogamous. Liz was running her own cleaning business, shared many interests with him, and since she lived in a house with her two kids and several pets, nothing about her seemed unusual or alarming. After about six months of spending time together, Liz stopped by Kroupa’s apartment to pick up some of her things. She arrived unannounced and, for roughly ten seconds, had a brief encounter with Cari Farver, the woman Kroupa was on a date with that day.
On November 13, 2012, Cari disappeared, and just a few days later, Liz reported that she had begun receiving harassing messages from her. Many of the texts Kroupa received from Cari’s phone also revolved around Liz. The latter claimed that her garage had been vandalized and that obscene words had been spray-painted inside it, which she reported to the police in November 2012. She continued to see Kroupa on and off during this time, while he received threatening emails directed at Liz. In August 2013, Liz’s house caught fire, and her pets — two dogs, a cat, and a snake — were killed. She again pointed to Cari as the suspect. Soon, the situation spiraled into something far more shocking than anyone had anticipated.
The Evidence Against Liz Golyar Confirmed That She Was the Real Perpetrator
By early 2015, new detectives took over the case and quickly noticed a pattern. Cari Farver had vanished only after coming into contact with Liz Golyar. Back in 2013, Liz had signed a consent form allowing investigators to examine the contents of her phone. When detectives reviewed it again, they found a photo of Cari’s Ford Explorer that had been taken a whole month before the police officially located the vehicle. Records also showed six calls from Liz’s phone to Cari’s home number. Additionally, a picture that had been sent from Cari’s phone, showing a woman tied up, turned out to have originated from Liz’s phone. Raney Farver, Cari’s mother, recalled receiving a text from her daughter’s phone saying that Cari had sold all her furniture and that someone would come to pick it up.
A photo of the supposed cheque was sent along with it, but investigators later discovered that it had been signed with the name Shanna Golyar. The police grew even more suspicious when they discovered that the fingerprint found inside Cari’s car actually belonged to Liz. As investigators were piecing these findings together, in December 2015, Liz showed up at the police station claiming that she now suspected Dave Kroupa’s ex-partner and the mother of his children, Amy Flora, of harassing her. She agreed to let the police search her phone and even mentioned that she knew Kroupa’s gun had been reported missing. The following day, Liz called the police again, saying she had been shot in the leg while walking alone at night in Big Lake Park in Council Bluffs. She named Flora as the person she believed had attacked her.
The police discovered that she had created numerous fake email accounts under various versions of her name. She was also using an app that allowed her to schedule messages in advance, which explained how she was able to send texts from Cari’s number while Cari was with Kroupa. By mid-December, the police called her in for an interview, during which she pushed them to arrest Flora. They then asked Liz to make contact with her supposed suspect and pretend that she needed their help. Almost immediately afterward, Liz began fabricating emails and providing false details about the crime. Posing as Flora, Liz confessed in emails that Cari Farver had been stabbed to death in her car.
Liz Golyar is Serving Her Life Sentence at a Nebraska Prison Today
The IP addresses of these emails were traced back to Liz Golyar, and she was confronted with this evidence. When the seat covers from Cari’s car were torn up, a pool of blood was found on the seats, and they matched Cari’s. Investigators also executed a search warrant at Liz’s home, where they recovered several of Cari’s belongings, including her digital camera. Among the photos, they found an image of a foot with a tattoo that matched Cari’s. On December 22, 2016, Liz was formally charged with first-degree murder and taken into custody.
Liz’s trial began in 2017, where all the evidence and testimony were presented against her. In August 2017, she was convicted of first-degree murder and second-degree arson. She received a life sentence, along with an additional 18 to 20 years for the arson charge. Now 50 years old, she is incarcerated at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women in York County, Nebraska. Despite the overwhelming evidence, she continues to insist she is innocent, claiming she was framed and is not responsible for any of the crimes.
