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Woman Murders Man's New Lover, Then Frames Her as Terrifying Stalker: "I See You"
Liz Golyar's deadly plan against Cari Farver involved using digital technology to impersonate her victim for three years.
Some murders are so meticulously orchestrated, it’s truly chilling.
The disappearance and death of Cari Farver is one such case. Not only was she brutally murdered, but the killer then decided to impersonate her for years — until they were finally caught.
Here's what to know about a young woman who unwittingly got caught up in a deadly triangle.
Who was Cari Farver?
A single mom with a son in high school, Farver, 37, was happily working as a computer programmer in Omaha in 2012. Her office was just an hour from her home in Macedonia, Iowa.
While she had a history of dealing with bipolar disorder, Farver was “in a good place” that same year when she met Dave Kroupa in the Omaha auto repair shop he managed, reported ABC News. The two then started dating.
Kroupa lived close to Farver’s office, so when she was assigned a challenging work project, he invited her to stay at his place. It was at his apartment building where Shannon Elizabeth “Liz” Golyar, who Kroupa had also dated, first laid eyes on Farver, according to ABC News.
What happened to Cari Farver?
On Nov. 13, 2012, Farver left for work. Later that day, Kroupa got a text from her in which she said she wanted to move in with him. It struck him as odd. Neither were looking to get serious, and they had only been dating a short time — just two weeks, reported People.
Kroupa declined in a text. Farver responded: “I hate you. … Go away,” according to the ABC News report.
Farver never returned to Kroupa’s residence, but angry texts kept coming. Farver’s mother also got strange texts, including one in which her daughter said she had a new job in Kansas. Farver never returned her worried mom’s calls, according to PEOPLE.
When Farver was a no-show for a Nov. 16 family wedding, her mom reported her missing to police, ABC News reported. But Kroupa continued to get unsettling, stalker-like messages: “I see you. You’re sitting in your chair ….” read one missive.
Golyar, who was on-and-off with Kroupa, claimed she also received threatening communications.
“We’d be hanging out on a Saturday and both of our emails would start blowing up at the same time,” Kroupa told People.
In January 2013, Kroupa reported seeing Farver’s Ford Explorer parked near his apartment. Police lifted a fingerprint from inside it, but didn’t find a match in available databases, according to ABC News.
Then, just months later, a fire at Golyar’s house killed her pets and Golyar said she suspected Farver was responsible. By 2014, other people in Kroupa’s life began getting ominous messages — including Kroupa's children, People reported.
How was Liz Golyar caught?
In 2015, a new team of detectives took on the case and Golyar soon became their focus.
Both Kroupa and Golyar had agreed to have the content of their phones downloaded in 2013 for the initial investigators. But the new team found images of Farver’s vehicle on Golyar’s phone. They also matched the fingerprint in Farver’s car to her and secured a warrant to search Golyar’s residence, where they found some of Farver’s belongings there, according to ABC News.
The new investigators devised a way to get Golyar to agree to let them download her cell phone data again — where evidence led them to see that Golyar had digitally impersonated Farver for three years.
Evidence also revealed that “Farver was stabbed in her vehicle, her body was wrapped in a tarp, then later burned and put in the garbage,” per caselaw.com.
Golyar was finally identified as the real villain in the case, not Farver, as Kroupa had long believed, PEOPLE reported.
On Dec. 22, 2016, Golyar was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Just a year later, she was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
A Plan to Kill, a new Oxygen True Crime series, covers similar stories of murderers who work overtime plotting their crimes and cover-ups. Watch it when it premieres Oct. 27 at 7/6c on Oxygen True Crime.
