by Leslie Rule
Both Cari and Nancy loved Macedonia and The Grist Mill Theater, a creative venue that thrives because of community effort. The residents who aren’t acting in, directing, or designing costumes and sets for the plays can be counted on to fill the audience seats. Some out-of-towners show up to watch the plays, and though they’re welcomed, it’s apparent that they don’t live there. With a population under 250, with many second and third generation residents, Macedonians notice outsiders. Yet a stranger with malice on the mind slipped into town unseen on a cold night in November 2012. Most likely it was too late at night or too early in the morning for potential witnesses to be awake and watching.
Just as it would be years before detectives became aware of the Facebook interactions with Sam Carter and Amber Mildo, it would also be years before they realized that the damage the stranger did that night held special significance. The troublemaker went to Cari’s house, the very house that had once belonged to Bret and Mabel Bisbee, and targeted her Ford Explorer. The black SUV had been in pristine condition, but after the defacing “had silver spray paint scribbles, all over the hood, down the side of the front fender, and a long key scratch down the side,” her son recollects.
Maxwell Farver isn’t sure which night the vandal struck, but it was Sunday, November 11, when he and his mother worked together for six hours, wiping the paint off of the car. They used WD-40 and managed to get all but a bit of the paint off. Nancy stopped by their house that day and saw them working. She noted her daughter wore her signature do-rag tied around her head as she scrubbed. “She was happy. She was upset that the car had been painted,” but was otherwise cheerful.
Cari posted about the vandalism on Facebook. A couple of days later, around the time that Dave Kroupa was deleted from her friend list and Sam Carter was accepted, Cari appeared to make a brief comment beneath her own earlier post about the destruction: It turned out to be just kids.
There were no other details—nothing said about which kids had damaged her car, how they were caught, or if they’d been ordered to make restitution. Neither Nancy nor Max knew how this Facebook revelation had come about. Cari had said nothing to them about learning kids were responsible. But the vandalism of the Explorer was not something Cari’s family dwelled upon. It had been a mean “prank” and very annoying, but they would not connect it to her disappearance for some time to come.
With virtually no evidence Cari was in danger, her case was not a priority for Pottawattamie County law enforcement. They processed her report, and she officially became a missing person, with her information entered into the database for the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Now, if a cop anywhere in the U.S. should encounter her and run her driver’s license info, she would instantly pop up in the search results as a missing person.
Cari Lea Farver was one of 661,593 people reported missing in the United States in 2012. By the end of the year, all but 2,079 would be accounted for. It was an average year, as far as missing person cases go. As usual, many of the absent adults had not met with danger, but had taken off for their own reasons. Once located, many were surprised to learn anyone had been worried.
Law officers are aware of the statistics and can’t be faulted for playing the odds when it comes to the level of priority they place upon the cases of missing, able-bodied adults. They will search immediately for missing children. And if an adult disappears under suspicious circumstances, they act quickly. Though police had yet to grasp it, those close to Cari realized her absence was suspicious. Even so, her relatives were confused. They had no actual proof she wasn’t the one texting them.
In the middle of that bleak winter, only one thing was certain. People were afraid. While Cari’s family was afraid for her, David Kroupa was growing afraid of her. As it turned out, the nutty texts he’d received at work on Tuesday, November 13, did not signal the end of the drama. Within a few days after the hostile breakup text, he began to receive more nonsensical, angry texts, all from Cari’s number. The messages were riddled with blatant grammar and spelling errors and focused on Liz, calling her a “fat, ugly whore.”
The first time one of the vulgar texts popped up, Dave blinked, unsure if he was reading it right. Cari had appeared unaffected when Liz interrupted their first date. Had it been an act? Was she in reality obsessed with him and psychotically jealous of Liz? Had she been only pretending when she expressed a desire to remain free? If so, how had she managed to appear so confident and strong while harboring such a dark and unpredictable side to her character?
David was not the only one with questions. When Liz called to inform him that his “crazy ex” was harassing her, she wanted to know how in the world the nut had gotten her phone number. How had she gotten her email address? And how did she know where she lived? He was shocked when Liz told him that not only had she been getting threatening emails and texts, but that the troublemaker had apparently broken into her garage and painted the words “Whore from Dave” on the wall.
He hadn’t really expected to see Liz again, but now he was compelled to meet with her to discuss the alarming situation. He sheepishly apologized when she told him how upsetting it was to be dragged into his mess. He couldn’t fault her for being miffed, and he was grateful she didn’t drop the blame entirely upon him. The world was filled with nuts, she acknowledged, and it was their bad luck to encounter one—though if he’d just been satisfied with what he had then they wouldn’t be in such a horrible situation.
He listened quietly as Liz described the vandalism she had come home to. In addition to the graffiti on the garage wall, some old checks had been taken from the garage. She reported the vandalism and theft to the Omaha Police Department.
If Dave had any doubt about the identity of the perpetrator of the crimes, those vanished when they both received an email, allegedly from Cari, gloating over her handiwork in Liz’s garage. Liz’s missing checks were tied to a now-defunct account, but she said it bothered her someone could write bad checks in her name, even if they were invalid. One of the checks in question surfaced, or rather an image of it did. It was nearing midnight on Saturday, November 17, when a photo of a signed check for $5,000 was sent to Nancy’s phone, along with another text message. The check was made out to Cari, signed in Liz’s legal name, Shanna Golyar, and the notation indicated it was for the purchase of Cari’s bedroom set. The accompanying text, allegedly from Cari, explained she’d sold her bedroom set and instructed Nancy to allow the buyer in to pick up her purchase. Apparently, the picture of the check was “proof” the furniture was paid for.
Cari’s bedroom furniture was not an actual set, though it looked as if it could be because she’d selected pieces that complemented each other. Great-Grandma Mabel’s antique dresser was so cherished that it was hard to believe Cari would willingly let it go. Nancy sent a return text: I need to hear your voice first, so I know it’s really you. She wasn’t about to let a stranger into Cari’s home to take her possessions. Not only did she doubt that Cari had sold her furniture, she was almost certain she wasn’t the one texting her. Nevertheless, Nancy was shocked when the texter got so mad at her refusal that they lashed out, accusing her of being a bad mother and too controlling.
“It got really nasty. At that point, I got a little angry.” She felt a flash of annoyance at Cari as she pictured her daughter tapping out the hostile words, but her irritation was immediately washed away by guilt. “This can’t be Cari!” Nancy reminded herself. The daughter she knew would never treat her like this. “I couldn’t find her, and I couldn’t talk to her, and I had all of these feelings bouncing around. I was not in a good place.”
The messages, laced with rage, sounded nothing like Cari. But it was not the hostile attitude that spooked Nancy the most. Nor was it the claim she had sold the furniture she was so fond of. Nancy was most alarmed by the grammar. “Cari was meticulous with her grammar and spelling. Texts and emails had to be perfect, or she’d correct them.” The sloppy texts were practically proof that someone had comma
ndeered her daughter’s phone.
Though it was very late, Nancy didn’t hesitate to call the Pottawattamie Sheriff’s Office again. Deputy Karl Rhyster was working the graveyard shift and arrived quickly. He appeared unmoved when she showed him the odd texts. He didn’t seem concerned when Nancy stressed that her daughter’s grammar was impeccable and that she’d never send such sloppy texts.
While he was courteous, it was obvious he doubted missing commas and misspelled words warranted immediate action. Considering the limited information available to him, his response was appropriate. Deputy Rhyster took down the information and asked Nancy to forward the image of the check so investigators could look into it.
At some point in her exchanges with police, Nancy mentioned that Cari suffered from anxiety and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a mental illness marked by extreme mood swings, formerly known as manic depression. While some suffering from the disorder display outrageous behavior, that had never been the case with Cari. Nancy wasn’t so sure the doctor had gotten it right.
As of this writing, there are no definitive physical tests to diagnosis bipolar disorder. Cari’s diagnosis was based upon symptoms she’d described to her doctor, not on the results of blood tests or brain scans. Cari had seen more than one doctor, and none of the others had labeled her bipolar.
As for Cari’s anxiety, Nancy remembers times when Cari suffered terribly. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), over forty million Americans over the age of eighteen are affected by anxiety. Cari’s bouts were severe but not unusual, considering that about one in five people struggle with the disorder. But when police learned about Cari’s bipolar diagnosis, they latched onto it, certain they understood what had transpired. They were very familiar with the scenario, they told Nancy. Her daughter had flipped out. They saw it all the time, especially when someone with a mental illness stopped taking their meds.
Could they be right? Had Cari lost her marbles? It was hard for Nancy to picture, because Cari had never before behaved in an irrational fashion, but she had left her medication behind. The bottle of pills still sat on a shelf in Cari’s bathroom medicine cabinet. The term “mental illness” technically covers a wide range of issues, including depression and anxiety, but it seemed too extreme of a label to attach to somebody as reasonable as her daughter.
Though she realized that chemical imbalances resulting in mental illness are nothing to be ashamed of, Nancy doubted her daughter had had a breakdown. But if she had, then at least there was hope. It meant she was still alive. She could recover and come home. The idea of a mental breakdown was easier to accept than the grimmer alternatives. The possibilities swirled around, making Nancy dizzy with confusion. Each scenario was devastating, yet some were worse than others. What if someone was holding Cari against her will, forcing her to send the odd texts? If that was the case, was she deliberately making grammar and spelling errors to signal something was wrong? Had Cari been abducted by human traffickers? Nancy shuddered and tried not to imagine it. The moment the worried mother dismissed one frightening idea, another horrendous possibility took its place.
Had Alec, the unstable ex from Cari’s past, kidnapped her? That didn’t seem likely, because he hadn’t been around for years—not since 2008 when Cari suspected he’d broken into her garage. He had settled down after being served with a restraining order. Nancy doubted that Alec had anything to do with what was going on now, but it was not out of the realm of possibilities. If Alec or anyone else were holding her hostage, were they feeding her? Seeing to her basic needs? Were they hurting her?
She also wondered about the guy Cari had been staying with in Omaha. Dave. Could he be behind her disappearance? Nancy didn’t know that he, too, was troubled by hostile text messages sent from Cari’s phone. While aware of each other’s existence, neither Nancy nor Dave knew each other’s last name or phone numbers. Nancy would have been shocked to learn that he believed her kind and gentle daughter had sent threatening texts and vandalized property. And Dave was not about to track down Cari’s mother to tattle on her as if she were a child who had misbehaved. He expected Omaha police to handle the criminal complaints, though Liz’s report of vandalism and theft had yet to result in an arrest.
Two separate law enforcement agencies in two different states were conducting two entirely different types of investigations, and neither agency was aware of the other’s case. Iowa had Cari’s missing person case, while Nebraska was investigating the vandalism and theft of checks. Neither Iowa nor Nebraska investigators had reason to believe they were dealing with serious matters. Police in Iowa suspected Cari had left on her own accord. As for the Nebraska police, they figured Liz’s complaint about the break-in was an isolated incident. It wasn’t yet clear that the two cases were connected and that they involved a devastating crime. The cases were as muddled as two jigsaw puzzles jumbled together with half of the pieces lost. Neither police agency should be blamed for failing to piece the mess together quickly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, three days after Nancy reported Cari missing, the case was assigned to Pottawattamie County Deputy Sheriff Randal Phyllips. By 2012, he’d worked in law enforcement for a dozen years and had handled his share of missing persons reports. “A lot of the missing persons cases we get are going to involve kids that are a little defiant, got grounded for something, got the Xbox taken away, and they just don’t want to be home,” he notes, adding that those cases are usually resolved quickly.
But Cari was no runaway teen. She was a grown woman and devoted mother with a promising career. Had she met with foul play? Phyllips hoped it was a simple case of miscommunication and that they could locate her quickly. He left her a phone message and also sent texts. She did not respond.
Teaming up with Corporal Rob Ambrose, Phyllips reviewed Cari’s thin file and then interviewed her supervisor at West Corp. Coworkers had last seen her exactly one week earlier on Monday, the twelfth. Several people had left the building at the same time as Cari that night, and they’d chatted as they walked to their cars. She gave no indication anything was wrong. She’d smiled and said she’d see them in the morning but had not shown up for work the next day.
A couple of days later, the supervisor had received a resignation text, allegedly from Cari, informing her she was moving away and had a new job in Kansas. Cari had lived in Iowa and worked in Nebraska. Had she now moved to yet another state? Investigators hoped that technology would provide the answers. If she was still in possession of her phone, she could possibly be located via cellular tower triangulation. At the time she disappeared, approximately 300,000 cellular towers across the United States were interacting with over 300 million cell phones. All cell phones in use regularly interface with the closest towers, sending signals known as pings. With the cooperation of carriers such as Verizon and Sprint, investigators can track those pings, following them like trails of breadcrumbs.
Though Nancy felt Deputy Rhyster dismissed her concerns, he had made an effort to find her daughter through her cell phone. He’d set the wheels in motion for Verizon to grant permission to the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office to access the pertinent files, and the pings revealed that Cari’s phone was still in Omaha. On Sunday, November 18, police had reviewed the information and zeroed in on an area a few blocks north of the intersection of West Center Road and 114th Street. The surrounding territory included residential neighborhoods and a busy business district. Police searched the area but saw no sign of Cari or her black Ford Explorer.
By the time Deputy Phyllips had taken over the case on Monday, the pinging revealed that though the phone was still in the same general area, it had traveled about half a mile to the west. The investigator noted that thirteen texts had been sent in the last twenty-four hours. The last one was at 11:00 that very morning, and at that time Cari’s phone’s pings pointed to a location north of West Center Road, near “the start of a residential area.” The pinging still did n
ot pinpoint an address but indicated a neighborhood.
Deputy Phyllips knew Cari was most likely using her Explorer for transportation. “We drove around a lot of the residential streets looking for the vehicle. We also drove through all the parking lots of any apartment complexes and businesses that were in that general area.” They didn’t find Cari’s car, but had been somewhat reassured after learning her employer had received a resignation text. While Phyllips expected to wrap up the case quickly, he was thorough, and he continued to study the clues Nancy Raney had shared with them. He scrutinized the image of the $5,000 check that had been sent to her phone. “It appeared to be a starter check,” Deputy Phyllips explains, adding that no name or address was printed on the check itself, though the signature was legible.
The signee was Shanna Golyar. Deputy Phyllips had no idea who she was. At this point, he was still unaware that she’d been dating the same man as the missing woman or that Shanna had reported to Omaha police that checks had been stolen from her garage. When the deputy searched records, he found an address for a Shanna Elizabeth Golyar in Omaha. It was in the vicinity of the cellphone pings, though Cari’s phone had pinged north of West Center Street while Shanna lived south of West Center Street.
Ambrose and Phyllips went to Shanna’s listed address, a split-level rental with a big shade tree in the tiny front yard. As a single mother with a low income, she qualified for the government’s Section 8 program and paid a reduced rent. Built in 1966, the house had a floor plan that was popular that decade and nearly identical to the layout of the other homes in the long row on the quiet street. They knocked, but no one came to the door. The deputy left a message, and Shanna called him the following day. “I explained to her that we were conducting a follow-up on a missing person report and told her we were looking for Cari Farver.” He soon learned that Shanna and Cari were two corners of a love triangle. They both dated David Kroupa, and Phyllips figured he must be the guy Cari had been planning to stay with when she’d last spoken to her mother.
