A Tangled Web

by Leslie Rule

  “I’m sorry,” said Doty, though he really didn’t sound very sorry. He explained that he needed more specific information in order to build a case against Amy. “It’s really tough right now, because Amy’s not really talking,” he stressed.

  If the dumb cop could not build a case from everything Liz had sent them, she would just have to make it easier for him. Doty wanted Amy to talk? She’d talk all right! “Amy” would talk her way right into a cold, gray prison cell and Liz would do a celebratory jig as the doors clanged shut behind her. She rolled up her sleeves, prepared to write a confession that would leave no doubt Amy was the killer.

  She decided that Doty would be more impressed by “Amy’s” confessions if he discovered them himself. Later that day, she dropped by his office to offer access to her Google account, explaining it was too much trouble to forward Amy’s emails. Liz gave Doty her password, and he began to monitor her emails.

  Within hours, more confessions from “Amy” appeared. Some of it sounded like pure fantasy, but a few details were chillingly accurate. The killer described Cari’s tattoos, including a yin-yang image on her thigh. While Cari’s missing person flyer indicated she had four tattoos, the yin yang symbol was not mentioned. In fact, investigators were unaware of it until they read about it in the “Amy” impostor email, penned by Liz. Cari’s family verified that she did indeed have a yin-yang tattoo, but it was in a private area, and no photos of the tattoo had been posted on the web, and no posts referenced it. Anthony Kava thoroughly searched the Internet to rule out the possibility that the letter writer could have learned about the tattoo in an innocent way. He concluded that only someone who’d come in close contact with Cari would know about it. The emails also described the inside of Cari’s home—the small, all-white bathroom, the leather couch and loveseat, and the wooden bedroom furniture. Doty knew the description was accurate because he’d seen the photos Phyllips had taken.

  “I noticed several consistencies in the emails after reviewing them all,” Detective Doty recalls. “Cari was stabbed in the chest or the stomach area, the incident happened in her vehicle, the body was burned, it was disposed of in the garbage, the vehicle was cleaned after the fact, the vehicle was returned to Dave’s apartment, the perpetrator posed as Cari after the fact, she contacted Cari’s mother after the fact, she went to Cari’s residence and took some of her possessions.”

  As more details came to light, the investigators realized that the murder had probably occurred in Omaha. That meant it was under the jurisdiction of Douglas County, Nebraska, and couldn’t be prosecuted without cooperation from their friends across the river. On February 10, 2016, Deputy Kava and Detectives Avis and Doty gathered at the Omaha Police Department’s Homicide Unit to brief Detective Dave Schneider.

  A member of OPD’s cold-case squad, Schneider is investigating three to four dozen murders at any given time and doesn’t mind admitting they sometimes “move me to emotion.” He feels special empathy for parents of victims, maybe because he’s a father himself. He and his wife Kendra, an administrator for a public-school district, have three children and make their home in Omaha, where Dave Schneider was born and raised. His father worked in management in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning industry (HVAC), and his mother did clerical work for a grain company. They lived in a middle-class neighborhood in West Omaha where a good night’s sleep was never interrupted by gunfire.

  “There was definitely a different world out there that I didn’t know about,” he stresses. “When I was working in North Omaha in the middle of the night, it would be quite common to hear gunshots go off.” He went to work for Omaha PD in 2005, patrolling a high-crime area and often saw the aftermath of violence, something he hadn’t planned on while earning his B.A. in Geography at the University of Nebraska. He played baseball there until he injured his shoulder and was admittedly uncertain about his goals. After graduation, he worked part-time at his old school, Omaha’s West Side High. He coached, worked security, and ran errands for the dean. The school resource officer encouraged him to take Omaha Police Department’s application exam. He followed his advice, aced the test, and after three years working patrol was promoted to detective. In the beginning he approached the job with the competitive spirit that had motivated him when playing sports. “I want to be the best. I want to solve the case. That’s how I went into it.” But his attitude evolved as he learned about the victims, and he realized, “This is somebody’s loved one.” He felt for the victims’ families. Cracking cases was no longer about ego. “You do everything you can to solve it for them.”

  By the time a cold-case file makes it to Schneider’s desk, it’s been pored over and picked at and pretty much discarded. Some cases are so old that the detectives who first worked them are dead or retired, but because they carefully preserved evidence, Schneider can use new DNA technology to finally get justice.

  When the Iowa team brought the Farver case to him, Detective Schneider was impressed. Despite their lack of experience with homicides, they were handling the case like pros. Schneider was immediately on board, and they worked together to plan their next steps. Schneider agreed that at least one of the confessor’s claims was true: I really did kill Cari, and I did it in her own car. Katie Pattee hadn’t found blood in the car, but she hadn’t been looking for evidence of a stabbing. Now, as she learned about the new suspicions, she suggested they remove the covers on the seats. If a significant amount of blood was shed by a driver or passenger, it would have seeped into the seats.

  About two months had passed since Pattee’s last search of the vehicle. The SUV’s owner again allowed access, but it was broken down outside his parents’ home in Malvern. Doty and Pattee drove there on Thursday, February 18. Doty used wrenches to remove the front seats. They set the seats on a tarp, and when they peeled back the cloth cover on the driver’s seat, Pattee says, “I used Bluestar and sprayed the foam area underneath the cloth seat.” They saw nothing unusual, but then they peeled back the cover on the passenger seat. Doty will never forget the moment they saw the large red stain saturating the foam seat. Pattee sprayed Bluestar on it, and they were rewarded with an undeniable luminescing reaction.

  Though the SUV’s owner had agreed to the search, investigators now secured a search warrant to make it official and had the Explorer towed to their headquarters. Somebody had bled profusely on the passenger seat. It was possible someone other than Cari had bled there, maybe before or after she had the car. Without proof it was her blood, the evidence was useless. They didn’t have her DNA profile for comparison but hoped her mother had saved a relic, perhaps a toothbrush or a hairbrush Cari had used.

  Doty and Pattee went to see Nancy Raney the next day and learned most of Cari’s possessions were in a storage unit in Oakland, Iowa, a few miles from Macedonia. They drove Nancy there and watched as she picked through boxes until she found three hairbrushes with strands of her beautiful daughter’s hair caught up in the bristles, along with a headband with hair still clinging to it. The few strands of hair might be all that was left of the vibrant young woman, the only thing containing her DNA profile. Pattee swabbed the insides of Maxwell and Nancy’s cheeks to get DNA samples for comparison. Max’s father in Colorado also cooperated and submitted his DNA for comparison with Maxwell’s so that through the process of elimination, they could determine that the blood was Cari’s. Pattee submitted the new evidence to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation for testing.

  On Sunday, February 21, Dave Kroupa was napping on Amy’s couch in the middle of the afternoon when a rock sailed through the dining-room window. Amy was in her room and came running when she heard the glass shatter. Dave was sleeping so deeply he didn’t stir until Amy shook him awake. Once they’d called police and swept up the broken glass, they had a good laugh as Dave poked fun at himself. He’d moved in to be the fierce protector but had slept right through the commotion.

  The hidden tracker on Liz’s car placed her at the scene of the crime, and sh
e was arrested. She pled guilty, paid a fine, and was released. Three agonizing weeks had passed since Dave moved in with Amy, and Liz’s rage was building. She’d thrown a rock in broad daylight, too furious to wait for nighttime when she could hide in the shadows. She would have been caught even if she had waited till dark, but she didn’t know that. Investigators were concerned about their suspect’s escalating rage. She had killed before and would kill again if she got the chance. She had to be stopped. Soon.

  * * *

  February 25, 2016, was a landmark day for investigators. They’d been granted search warrants for Liz’s Persia apartment and for the home she’d recently shared with Garret. His involvement with Liz made for a sticky situation. Not only was he a Pottawattamie employee, Anthony Kava was his boss. Because they worked together in the IT department, Garret interacted more frequently with Kava than he did with the detectives.

  “We liked Garret. We trusted Garret,” stresses Detective Doty. “But we didn’t know how well Liz had her claws into him, and if he found information, what he would tell her.”

  Kava, too, thought highly of Garret, but it was an unusual circumstance. “It had become clear to me that we needed to put Garret on administrative leave. He was too close to this case, and as an IT technician, had access to Sheriff’s Office systems, including ones with information about the case,” Kava explains, adding they wanted to be sure that digital evidence brought to trial couldn’t be attacked on the grounds that Garret could have planted evidence.

  Garret was put on paid administrative leave. His employers made it clear he’d done nothing wrong but banned him from using county computers “until otherwise directed.” It wasn’t fun for Garret to be “escorted out” of the building, and he was shocked to find himself barred from work. He was done with Liz and would never have betrayed the investigators but understood why they were required to take precautions.

  The team waited until Liz left for work before they invaded her apartment. They weren’t about to give her a chance to delete digital evidence, something that can be done remotely on some gadgets. As for the search of Garret’s house, he invited them in and helped move furniture as they looked for clues Liz might have left behind. It was already an awkward situation Kava emphasizes, and as Garret’s boss, he didn’t want to make it “even more awkward if I went through his sock drawer.” With that in mind, Kava stayed away from Garret’s place and joined the team in Persia as they picked through Liz’s messy apartment.

  While the investigators didn’t find anything of interest at Garret’s place, they hit the mother lode in the Persia apartment. They confiscated every electronic gadget there, including a number of cell phones and two items that had once belonged to Cari Farver—her camera and camcorder. Liz believed she’d deleted Cari’s videos, but Kava was able to retrieve one made by Cari in April 2012. It showed a friend of hers, sawing a fallen tree in her yard.

  One of Liz’s confiscated cell phones revealed it had been used to call Cari’s mother on April 17, 2013, the same day a man had phoned Nancy, identified himself as Dave Kroupa, and told her that her daughter was at the Siena/Francis House. Dave had denied making that call, and now there was proof it had originated from one of Liz’s phones. Nancy was certain she’d heard a man’s voice. Had Liz enlisted a guy to help with the hoax? Maybe. Or she might have used one of the popular voice changer apps. Nancy had probably spoken to Liz Golyar, herself, as the killer used an app to deepen her voice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  GARRET SLOAN DIDN’T LIKE missing work. He was still being paid, but he was restless and had too many empty hours to ponder the mess Liz had dragged him into. He wished he didn’t have to think about her, but it wasn’t easy to put her out of his mind when his privacy had just been turned inside out by investigators searching his home. They were courteous and seemed embarrassed for him as they rummaged through his things. Even so, it was a violation of his personal space, and he realized if he’d never met Liz, he wouldn’t be in such an awkward spot.

  As painful and humiliating as the experience was, Garret would do it all over again because of the role he played in trapping a killer. Of all the men in Council Bluffs who Liz could have chosen to use and abuse, she’d picked one of the few guys whose computer system was tied to law enforcement’s. Garret’s Virtual Private Network (VPN) connected him to Pott County’s computer system. In normal circumstances, “IP addresses change, and providers don’t keep records forever,” Deputy Kava explains. “We had a long-term record, thanks to Garret’s log-ins.”

  Liz had used Garret’s Internet and WIFI when she lived with him, allowing Kava to track her activity and tie it to the impersonations of Cari and Amy. While Kava believes Liz would have been convicted even if she hadn’t used Garret’s Internet, the evidence was much stronger with proof that the activity was connected to her residence.

  Garret’s relationship with Liz had been a disaster, but he has the satisfaction of knowing that the proverbial joke is on her. She’d found one of the nicest guys she could have ever hoped to meet, taken advantage of his kindness, turned his basement into a garbage dump, burglarized his home, lied to him, and cheated on him. She never contributed a dime toward the utility bills. And using Garret’s Internet service had cost her nothing—nothing except her freedom!

  The Internet service she’d enjoyed under Garret’s roof would soon help to snare her in her own snarled web of deceit.

  * * *

  Detective Dave Schneider was eager to talk to Liz Golyar. Interrogation was his favorite part of the job, probably because of his talent for coaxing confessions from reluctant subjects. Liz was still at work, halfway through her shift, unaware investigators had pawed through her possessions and unearthed her secrets.

  Liz was arrested at work—not for murder, but for a traffic citation she’d neglected to pay. It was only a misdemeanor but an arrestable offense if a cop wanted to be hard-nosed about it. She was escorted to a small room at the Omaha Police Department where she met Detective Schneider for the first time. Her hair was twisted up into a bun, and she wore neon pink pants and a patterned smock over a long-sleeved dark shirt. She sat in a chair facing Schneider, her pose defensive, arms folded over her middle and legs tightly crossed.

  Liz had believed she was in control in her recent meetings with police. But now she’d been placed under arrest and brought, against her will, to an interrogation room, and she wasn’t pleased. Schneider Mirandized her, and she agreed to chat with him, probably assuming she could talk her way out of whatever trouble she faced. Schneider spoke to her in his usual calm manner, explaining he wanted to talk about a missing person. Did she know who he meant?

  “Uh, Cari?” Liz’s voice was strained. “I’m not sure of her last name.”

  “Farver. Does that sound familiar?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Did you know her at all?”

  “I ran into her for like two seconds at Dave’s apartment. She was coming out. I was going in. I don’t know exact dates. It was right around the time when they first started seeing each other.”

  “And Dave is?”

  Liz explained he was her “boyfriend at the time,” and when Schneider asked if he’d cheated on her with Cari, she said, “Well, I don’t know what the whole situation was. I just know that that night when I was trying to get my keys from him, he was with her. So, she left so that I could go in and get my stuff. And I packed up all of my stuff that was at his apartment, and I left. That was the only time I ever saw her.”

  Schneider asked if Liz had ever called Cari, and while she at first vehemently denied it, when he continued to question her, she said she might have if Cari had called her first, but it was hard to remember details from so long ago.

  “So, do you know anything about where she’s at, where she’s gone to?”

  “When this whole thing started, I had thought it was weird because they had dated for like two weeks, is what Dave said, two or three weeks,” she answered evasively. “
And I don’t understand how a person who dated him for two or three weeks would stalk me. Like break out my windows and spray-painted whore across my garage.”

  Schneider asked about Cari’s car. Had Liz ever seen it, driven it, or ridden in it? The answer was no. He gently asked, “What do you think happened to Cari Farver?”

  She raised her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug, and after a long pause began to speak rapidly, her voice high pitched. “I don’t know. I don’t know if what Amy is saying is true. I don’t know. I’m more scared that something is going to happen to me, and my kids aren’t going to have anybody.”

  “Like what?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Because the emails that she sent, they’re pretty graphic.”

  Investigators had kept Liz in the dark for months, and she had no idea they were stockpiling evidence against her. Now, Schneider was ready to divulge it all, and he kept his voice level, as he prefaced each revelation with explanations and details that Liz was probably too shocked to fully comprehend. But she knew she was in trouble and swiped tears from her eyes, sniffling, as Schneider said, “Okay, at the beginning, I kind of told you a little bit about how I’m working with the Pott County Sheriff’s Office. This has been going on a while now. Obviously, we handle a lot more homicide investigations than they do.”

  Liz said, “I don’t know about the police department. I just went to them and told them I wanted something to be done.”

  “Let me just explain a couple of things to you, so you understand where I’m coming from,” he said. “I’ll simplify it down. As part of homicide investigations, we do some things that are pretty routine. Process crime scenes, process evidence, collect the evidence and examine it. Evidence nowadays includes digital forensics, stuff like that. Digital forensics could include cell phone records.” Schneider explained that cell phone towers can use triangulation to pinpoint a phone’s location. “These cell phone companies keep these records, and we can obtain them through a search warrant. And that’s routine, what we do on all homicide cases now.”