Cari Lea Farver (Courtesy Iowa Department of Public Safety)
The official trailer for the Netflix documentary “Lover, Stalker, Killer,” which first aired on Netflix February 9, 2024. The mind-bending film – starring the three investigators who solved Cari Farver’s murder – shot to Netflix’s #1 position the same day it premiered.
Originally premiered Saturday, October 8 at 8/7c on Lifetime
Cari Farver
(Courtesy Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office)
“The Disappearance of Cari Farver” is based on a true story and the subject of Leslie Rule’s bestselling true-crime book, A Tangled Web. Dave Kroupa (Zach Gilford), is shocked when his new girlfriend, Cari Farver (Rebecca Amzallag), starts sending him demanding texts.
When Dave ends the relationship, he finds himself on the receiving end of an onslaught of twisted messages from Cari, who has abruptly disappeared. Dave’s ex-girlfriend, Liz (Alicia Witt) also begins receiving harassing texts from Cari, resulting in a dangerous situation for them both. Meanwhile, Cari’s mother Nancy (Lea Thompson), continually searches for her, keeping the pressure on the police who eventually uncover a shocking discovery.
Tony Kava speaks with Dateline’s Keith Morrison. (Courtesy forensic.coffee)
Anthony “Tony” Kava, the Pottawattamie County IT supervisor who spent thousands of hours on the case — and three days on the stand in Shanna Golyar’s murder trial — is also featured in the film. Kava said the sheriff’s office wasn’t involved in the making of the movie, though he approved of the talented actor they picked to play him: Erik Athavale.
Lifetime Television also donated in Cari’s honor to The Cari Farver Memorial Scholarship at Iowa Western Community College, a scholarship established to keep Cari’s memory and her legacy of kindness alive by supporting students attending Iowa Western Community College in pursuit of a career in information technology.
Pottawattamie County’s IT supervisor worked on the Cari Farver case for thousands of hours. Tony Kava discussed his work with Keith Morrison.
Courtesy Dateline NBC | Sept. 29, 2017
Cari Farver’s friends remember her as a loving mother and supportive friend.
Courtesy Dateline NBC | Sept. 29, 2017
PREVIOUS UPDATES
FB removes convicted murderer Golyar’s fake profile, another remains
July 17, 2019 — COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (KMTV) — The disappearance of Cari Farver in 2012 puzzled investigators, but the murder trial that followed stunned the community. Now, authorities say Facebook profiles she created remain online and they want them removed.
In 2017, Shanna Golyar was sentenced to life in prison for killing Cari Farver because she was dating her ex-boyfriend and using a web of social media lies to pretend [Farver] was still alive.
Digital Forensic Administrator with the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office, Anthony Kava, worked for years on the case and says two profiles used to stalk people and commit the murder remained on Facebook this week. The profiles were used as evidence in the trial.
Facebook previously removed all the fake “Cari Farver” profiles Golyar created, and Kava has asked for two years for Facebook to remove the last two.
Supreme Court rejects appeal in bizarre case of woman who posed as romantic rival after killing her
Nov. 10, 2018 — LINCOLN, Neb. — When Shanna Golyar asked the state’s high court to reverse her conviction and life sentence for first-degree murder, she pointed out that criminal investigators never found a murder weapon, a single witness or most importantly, a body.
Shanna GoylarIn rejecting Golyar’s appeal Friday (Nov. 9, 2018), the Nebraska Supreme Court relied on volumes of circumstantial evidence amassed by investigators in one of the most bizarre romantic obsession murders the state has ever seen.
The 43-year-old woman not only killed Cari Farver for kindling a relationship with the man Golyar was obsessed with, she spent four years impersonating the victim in text messages, emails and Facebook postings. A unanimous Supreme Court ruled that overwhelming circumstantial evidence in the case overcame the lack of a body or doubts about premeditation.
Full Story at the Omaha World-Herald
Iowa woman convicted of killing, impersonating romantic rival asks Nebraska Supreme Court for new trial
Aug. 31, 2018 –LINCOLN, Neb. — The lack of a body, a weapon or even eyewitnesses didn’t allow Shanna Golyar of Persia to escape conviction in one of Nebraska’s strangest homicide cases.
Instead, the 43-year-old Iowa woman is doing life in prison for murder and arson because she wrote dozens of text messages posing as her romantic rival, who disappeared in 2012, never to be seen again.
On Wednesday, an attorney for Golyar urged the Nebraska Supreme Court to erase a guilty verdict and order a new trial in the case.
Full Story at The Daily Nonpareil
Iowa woman sentenced for killing her romantic rival
Aug. 15, 2017 — UPDATE: Shanna Golyar was sentenced to life for first-degree murder Tuesday morning, Aug. 15, 2017.
Golyar was also given an additional 18 to 20 years for arson. She will serve the sentences consecutively.
Judge finds Shanna Golyar Guilty of First-degree Murder
May 24, 2017 — Douglas County District Judge Timothy Burns found Shanna Golyar guilty of first-degree murder and second-degree arson Wednesday morning, May 24, 2017, after 10 days of trial. She will be sentenced to life in prison in August.
Burns said Golyar spun a “twisted plot of lies, deceit and impersonations through digital messaging” to keep Farver alive online and distract authorities.
“Cari Farver did not voluntarily disappear and drop off the face of the earth,” Burns said just before delivering his verdict. “Very sadly, she was murdered.”
Full Story at Omaha World-Herald
Closing Arguments in love triangle murder case
May 23, 2017: OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) — The prosecution and defense each presented their closing arguments in the trial of Shanna Golyar. She’s accused of killing her romantic rival, Cari Farver, who has been missing since November 2012. Investigators have never found Farver’s body.
Deputy Douglas County Attorney Jim Masteller said: “This was a well-planned, well-executed scheme of the defendant to intercept Cari Farver, murder her, and dispose of her body.”
Masteller used a photo of a foot to prove Farver is dead — and that Golyar killed her. The photo was found on a memory card filled with images, including selfies taken by Golyar. Masteller said tattoos on the foot in the photo are identical to Cari Farver’s tattoos. He also said the foot in the photo was decomposing…
Golyar waived her right to a jury trial, so her fate is now in the hands of Judge Timothy Burns. Burns said he will issue his verdict Wednesday morning at 9:00.
From Brandon Scott, WOWT.com, May 23, 2017
Full Story at WOWT.com
Harassing messages from person claiming to be missing woman kept coming for years, man testifies at murder trial
May 16, 2017 — For roughly four years, David Kroupa was harassed daily by a steady barrage of texts and emails, seemingly from a woman he had dated for just two weeks.
Some threatened him or the people he knew. Others would claim that the woman was outside his apartment or workplace, with photos to prove it.
The intimidation affected him physically. He gained 30 pounds and drank every night.
It affected him at work. One day someone called the business phone at his Jensen Tire store every minute, but said nothing. No one could work, and his boss was aggravated.
It affected him emotionally. The mother of his two young children and the other women he started to date were also scared. He would circle his home or work, looking for any trace of the alleged harasser, Cari Farver.
“It made it very difficult to be social,” said Kroupa, 40, in a calm and unwavering voice during his daylong testimony. “I couldn’t even use my phone, it’d be beeping all day long.”
Kroupa unwittingly had found himself at the center of an obsession. But it wasn’t Farver who had become obsessed. It was another woman he had dated, authorities allege, Shanna Golyar.
At Golyar’s trial Monday, Kroupa read aloud a tiny percentage of the roughly 12,000 emails he purportedly received from Farver since he last saw her on Nov. 13, 2012. Authorities say Golyar concocted them.
Read World-Herald reporter Alia Conley’s story here
Trial begins for Iowa woman who prosecutors say killed, then impersonated her romantic rival
May 11, 2017 — To keep authorities from suspecting her in Cari Farver’s alleged slaying, Shanna Golyar took on the digital persona of her romantic rival, Chief Deputy Douglas County Attorney Brenda Beadle argued in her opening statement Wednesday, May 10, 2017.
Golyar, 41, is charged with first-degree murder and second-degree arson in connection with Farver’s disappearance on Nov. 13, 2012. Wednesday marked the first day of a bench trial expected to last several days. Douglas County District Judge Timothy Burns will decide whether Golyar is acquitted or guilty. Full story at Omaha World-Herald
By Brandon Scott, WOWT.com, Posted Thursday, May 11, 2017
Omaha Police Announce Arrest
On Thursday, December 22, 2016, Omaha police announced they’d arrested 41-year-old Shanna Golyar at her home in Persia, Iowa, and charged her with first-degree murder in the death of Cari Farver, a woman who may have been a romantic rival.
The 37-year-old Farver spent the night at her boyfriend’s apartment Nov. 12, 2012, and went to work the next morning. She was never seen again.
Her mother, Nancy Raney, reported her daughter missing to the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office in Council Bluffs, Iowa, November 16, 2012.
Officials found Farver’s vehicle in Omaha on January 10, 2013, though Farver’s body was never found. The case went cold, but in February 2016, Pottawattamie County detectives asked the Omaha police cold case unit to assist in the investigation, which led to Golyar’s arrest.
In a press release dated December 22, 2016, police said a grant awarded to the Omaha Police Department’s Cold Case Unit allowed for DNA testing regarding Farver’s homicide.
On Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2017, Douglas County Judge Craig McDermott ruled that Golyar will stand trial for first-degree murder in Farver’s death. Golyar is being held on $5 million bail.
Read about the extent to which Golyar allegedly went to pose as Farver
Cari Farver, 37, of Macedonia, Iowa, went missing Tuesday, November 13, 2012. A few days later on Friday, November 16, her mother, Nancy Raney of Carson, Iowa, reported her missing to the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Cari Farver
Cari was last seen alive in Omaha, Neb., early in the morning on November 13, 2012, after leaving her boyfriend’s Omaha apartment to go to work.
Officials described her as a 5-foot-7 white female with brown hair, hazel eyes, weighing about 145 pounds, and having four tattoos: a large sun in between her shoulder blades, a tattoo on her left hip, a tattoo on the top of her foot and a flower on her lower back.
She was employed by West Corp., a publicly traded telecommunications services provider based in Omaha.
Her 2002 Ford Explorer was located in Omaha — in her boyfriend’s apartment complex, but next to a different building — on January 10, 2013.
The case went cold, and although Iowa Cold Cases (ICC) received correspondence from readers that Cari was alive and well and posting on Facebook, ICC could find no definitive evidence on the social media site to prove Farver wrote and published the posts, and so chose to keep Farver listed on ICC as a missing person.
Farver also remained listed as a missing person on the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Missing Person Information Clearinghouse website.
In a press release dated Thursday, December 22, 2016, police said a grant awarded to the Omaha Police Department’s Cold Case Unit allowed for DNA testing regarding Farver’s homicide, and on that same day Omaha police announced they’d arrested 41-year-old Shanna Golyar at her home in Persia, Iowa, and charged her with first-degree murder in Cari Farver’s death. Persia is located about 35 miles northeast of Omaha.
In an (Omaha) World-Herald article dated December 24, 2016, police said they believed the slaying took place November 13 or 14, in west Omaha. Golyar and Farver both had been dating the same man.
Golyar was transferred to the Douglas County Jail in Nebraska on Friday, December 23, 2016, after declining to fight extradition.
Golyar made her first court appearance in the Douglas County Jail on Tuesday, December 27, 2016.
In addition to the first-degree murder charges, Golyar also has been charged with posing as Cari Farver on the Internet to cover up Farver’s slaying.
In an unusual move during Tuesday’s court appearance, Douglas County Judge Lawrence Barrett set Golyar’s bail at $5 million; first-degree murder defendants in both Nebraska and Iowa are normally ordered held without bail.
In a KETV Channel 7 news report Tuesday, December 27, Golyar’s attorney, James Martin Davis, said his client is confused as to why she’s even a suspect. Davis said Golyar and Farver dated the same man but had met each other only once — not enough to tie Golyar to the case, he said.
Davis said in the Channel 7 interview:
“There’s no confessions, no admissions, there’s no body, there’s no murder weapon, there’s no sufficient showing of blood that there was a death that even took place.”
Prosecutors argue they have a strong case based on the following information:
Beadle told KETV the investigation continues into whether there are any other suspects and that prosecutors are meeting with a witness [the week of Dec. 26, 2016].
After Golyar’s four-hour preliminary hearing Jan. 18, 2017, a judge ruled that Golyar will stand trial for Farver’s death.
On Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017, Golyar waived her right to a jury trial and opted for a bench trial, scheduled for May 10, 2017. Douglas County District Judge Timothy Burns will decide whether Golyar is guilty in the disappearance and presumed death of Cari Farver.
The trial began as scheduled on Wednesday, May 10, 2017.
On Wednesday, May 24, 2017, Douglas County District Judge Timothy Burns found Golyar guilty of first-degree murder and second-degree arson after 10 days of trial.
On Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, Golyar was sentenced to life for first-degree murder and also given an additional 18 to 20 years for arson. She will serve the sentences consecutively, KCCI.com reported.
“Cari Farver did not voluntarily disappear and drop off the face of the earth,” Burns said just before delivering his verdict, according to an Omaha World-Herald article published May 25, 2017. “Very sadly, she was murdered,” said Burns.
Who paid the phone bill? The cell phone that sent the messages must have been paid for somehow?
Unblemished hope!
Leslie Rule, daughter of the late true-crime writer Ann Rule, has published a book about this case called “A Tangled Web.” Very good book, and a terrifying story!
https://www.kcci.com/article/first-degree-murder-trial-for-shanna-golyar-begins/12014389
Justice has been served!
And she went by “liz dayton,” “liz golyar,” and “Shanna Elizabeth Golyar.”
Also, for some reason the perp (or someone else) announced her own death on this website back in 20091: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:z4FD5L9rzRMJ:memorialwebsites.legacy.com/shanna/MemorialSite.aspx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
The memorial has expired, but from the google cache it at least says:
Surived by daughter Elizabeth Golyar; son Jasen Gagnon. She was a saint to us all. There will be no veiwing or service. She is to be cremated in Michigan…
The “memorial” itself says that she was born June 28, 1975 and died December 9, 2009.
Wow, and here is a weird police report that the perp, Snanna Golyar, made in which she complained in December 2015 that she had been shot in the leg by an unknown female. https://www.ketv.com/article/council-bluffs-police-respond-to-big-lake-park-shooting/7656695
I tried to post this a short while ago but for some reason it didn’t post. A woman was arrested and charged yesterday with Cari’s murder
A woman has been arrested yesterday and charged with her murder. https://www.kcci.com/article/iowa-woman-charged-in-death-of-woman-last-seen-in-2012/8531313
so then she really isnt missing?
She has a Facebook page. Says she needed to get away…
http://www.pottcountysheriff.com/unsolved-cases/missing-persons.php
Shared in MO
Same thing here! ! Says site isn’t secure and won’t open. I can’t even bypass it to open. Cold case admin..any ideas?
Re the “secure site” warning: According to our web hosting service, InMotion Hosting, the reason some of the pages on ICC render a warning about security is because the ICC page contains one or more “links” to other websites that “aren’t” SSL (or https) enabled. In my opinion, this makes no sense because a great number of news websites — including the Des Moines Register — provide perfectly valid “links” to articles. They simply begin with http:// instead of https://. I also provide links to specific police departments and sheriffs’ office websites, all of which are legitimate but not yet SSL enabled.
A good example to highlight this problem can be seen by visiting Julie Benning’s page. If one uses the https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/julie-benning/ link, there is a security warning because the page includes a “video” provided by the Des Moines Register. Yet, remove the “s” from https, and the video appears.
I will soon be upgrading ICC with a new template and hope it will address this issue, because we rely heavily on “news sources” (with http urls) for these case summaries and updates. While I agree SSL is a must-have for sites and/or web pages where one purchases products online, I don’t understand why it creates so many problems for product-free, ad-free pages like ICC displays.
My phone won’t let me open them. Says the site isn’t secure and people may try to steal my info. It’s too bad because I like to read the articles! Dang phone!
Doing same thing to my phone also
Haven’t been able to open a lot of links on Iowa cold cases lately.
Dennis G. Farver, 63, of Newton died on December 7, 2012 at his home. Memorial services will be 1 p.m., Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at the First Lutheran Church in Newton. The family will greet friends from 5-8 p.m., Tuesday, at the Wallace Family Funeral Home in Newton. Memorials to the Dennis Farver Memorial Fund may be left at the funeral home or at the church on the afternoon of the service. Memorials may also be mailed to the funeral home. He is survived by his family including his wife, Diane of Newton; children, Adam R. (Tara) Farver of Fountain Hills, Arizona, Cari L. Farver of Macedonia, Iowa, John J. (Hilary) Farver of Des Moines, Iowa, and Jarod W. Farver of San Diego, California. Dennis G. Farver
.
Published in Topeka Capital-Journal on Dec. 11, 2012
– See more at: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/cjonline/obituary.aspx?pid=161644844
She has a youtube account and it says that 6 months ago she uploaded a video called “husband’s cheating place.” Very weird, like whomever filmed it was engaging in stalking.
What is she wanted for
any idea where she might be
Yes I do
do you know her
She is not missing she is wanted.
Shelly, we still have Cari listed here because she’s still listed as a missing person with the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Missing Person Information Clearinghouse. Once law enforcement officials notify MPIC she’s been located, she’ll no longer be listed here as missing. Thank you for your input and information about her case.