The Stalker on Silent Mode: Killer Sends Threatening Texts For Years

Before we begin, there's something worth noticing. Most of us move through our lives trusting a handful of very basic signs. We trust our senses, what we can see and touch. We trust what answers us back. We trust routines that repeat. And those things are in place, we assume everything else will sort itself out. In this story, nearly everyone relies on those assumptions, because they are reasonable and it's practical to do so, and it allows life to continue. What this story is asking is how do you know what's true? Does it come from inside of you as a knowing or do you simply accept what's been offered? I'm Harvey Gien, and this is Killer Stories. In the summer of 2012, Dave Krupa arrives in Omaha, Nebraska. He hasn't come very far, just over the border from Iowa, about 20 minutes away, but in a lot of ways, he's starting over. At the age of 34, he's single for the first time in 12 years. He spent most of his adulthood with his now ex-partner, Amy, the mother of his two children, and while they're committed to co-parenting, things between Dave and Amy are icy right now. For Dave, the loneliness sets in fast. He has a new job as the manager of an auto repair shop that keeps him busy, but the dating scene has completely changed since the last time he was single. Nowadays, everybody's using online dating sites, so Dave figures, what the heck? He'll give it a try. He hits it off with the very first woman he meets, Liz Golier. Like Dave, she has two kids, she's fun, energetic, and go looking. Liz shows him all that Omaha has to offer, including this annual Halloween bash known as The Freakers Ball, where they dress up in togas to try to win a costume contest. They lose, but hey, everyone is a winner at The Freakers Ball. Suddenly, Dave's enjoying his new life, and he's not just seeing Liz. He meets lots of women online. Most of them, he chats with over coffee, but a few of them turn into something more, and he's definitely not lonely anymore. But you know what? He's up front with them all. He tells him he doesn't want to get married, or have a serious relationship. He wants to be with someone who enjoys her freedom, and let's Dave enjoy his, too. That fall, Dave meets another woman by chance. When Carrie Farber drives her SUV up to his repair shop, Dave feels an instant connection. She's cool. She's gorgeous. She's also a client, and Dave remains professional. He doesn't say anything that might cross a line. Later, he happens upon her online dating profile, and he writes to her, "Hey, I know you. She writes back that she recognizes him, too, and they leave it at that." Until October, when Carrie shows up at his workplace again, this time, they make plans to go on a date. Not for a quick coffee, they're going out for a meal. They're going to Applebees. It's basically a perfect first date. They get along well. Carrie is obviously smart. She's a computer programmer, and she's fun to talk to. In top of everything else, she tells Dave she wants to keep things casual. She's not looking for anything serious, either. Carrie is Dave's dream girl. There's only one awkward moment in what otherwise is a great night. As soon as Dave brings Carrie to his apartment, his phone and his door buzzer start going off. It's Liz Gullier, the first woman he dated, aka his freakers ball date. Their relationship has been on again, off again, and right now, it's off. And Liz has stopped by to pick up her stuff, and Dave tells her it's not a good time. He's on a date, but she insists. Though Dave apologizes to Carrie, he explains the situation, and she appears to be understanding, although she does decide to leave. As Dave walks Carrie out, Liz enters the building. Nobody sees anything. It's uncomfortable. But the whole encounter is over in seconds. After Liz takes her stuff, Dave calls Carrie to apologize. She promises it really isn't a big deal, and even invites Dave over to her place. That seems Carrie really isn't that bothered by the whole incident with Liz. She doesn't even mention it. Not even when she stays over at Dave's place for a few days in a row. There are only a couple of weeks into dating at this point, but Carrie works less than a mile away, and her team is on a huge project right now. That means a lot of long hours and a long commute from her house. Although Dave invites her to stay over, I mean they really get along that well. On the morning of November 13, 2012, Dave is out the door for work at 6.30am. Carrie is already awake working on her laptop. They say a quick goodbye, and Dave assumes he'll see Carrie that night. But a few hours later, Dave gets a text message from Carrie. She asks if they should move in together. That's weird. Dave thinks he's been transparent about what he wants out of this relationship, and he thought Carrie was on the same page. He doesn't want her feelings, so he's straightforward. He tells her, "No." Like we barely know each other. In response, she writes back some version of, "Fine, f you." She says she's seen somebody else, and never wants to talk to Dave again. Now it's a busy day at work, but Dave finds a time to run back home during his lunch break. Carrie's gone and hasn't left any trace of herself behind. He might not have wanted a living girlfriend, but Dave is bummed. He thought things were going great with Carrie. It's also confusing, but he talks to his co-workers about it, and some of them say, "Well, that sort of thing has happened to them too, so maybe he didn't know Carrie like he thought he did." It's not that weird. And that may be so, but things are definitely about to get weird. A few days later, Dave gets another message, and then another, and then another. They're all from Carrie's phone, but they don't sound like the Carrie he knows. The happy, intelligent woman who seemed to have her life together is now hurling insults. She accuses him of being a bad person. She blames him and also lives of ruining her life. Carrie seems to think Liz has come between them, as if she's the reason Dave doesn't want to move in together, and now she intends to terrorize them both. Now I don't want to repeat the language used to describe Liz. Let's just say it's capital R rude, and the messages keep coming. First, emails, Facebook, when Dave tries to block Carrie, she writes from another number, or another email address. Pretty soon, the harassment is non-stop. Sometimes, Dave gets over 100 hateful messages a day, and then Liz becomes a target too. Now Carrie finds Liz's number, and now she's also getting bombarded. The day after Thanksgiving, Liz goes into her garage to find that somebody vandalized it, with spray paint. Is it some kind of cool graffiti art you might ask? No. It reads "Hor" from Dave, which what? Is she trying to make it look like Dave wrote the graffiti and then signed it from Dave? Or does she have her propositions mixed up? It's just like my English teacher told me when I was in third grade, it's sloppy work. A lot of the messaging coming from Carrie is confusing, honestly. Sometimes, she hates Dave and calls him a loser, and other times, she professes her love for him and wants to get back together. She even posts on Facebook that they're engaged. Which is an obvious lie, but she is clear about one thing. She wants Liz out of the picture. Of course, all the harassment only brings Dave and Liz closer. Dave feels responsible for getting Liz into this mess, and she sticks by him because she knows what he's going through, which he genuinely appreciates. Sometimes Dave and Liz will be hanging out, and both of them will start getting an onslaught of anger. Angry messages, they're going through this really bizarre experience together and it bombs them, even when their harassment turns into literal stalking. A few days after the garage break in, Dave's watching TV and his apartment when his phone lights up. It's Carrie. She describes what he's wearing and even how he's sitting. Dave realizes she's watching him, spying on him. She texts when she sees him getting out of the shower, even with his blinds closed, which means she's bold enough to stand right outside his window. At this point, Dave's fed up. He'd love nothing more than to confront Carrie face to face and tell her to stop. The thing is, he never catches her and she seems to love playing mind games. Once she tells him she's moved in to an apartment in his complex, so she gives him her new address, but when he stomps over there to find her, he realizes she's giving him a fake apartment number. It doesn't exist. She was just toying with him. Other time, Dave receives a photo of a dark-haired woman lying in the trunk of a car. She's blindfolded and tied up. But it looks like it could be Liz. Dave has to assume it's another prank, but to be safe, he reaches out to Liz and she confirms she's fine. On January 8, 2013, Dave gets close to finding Carrie. He spots her SUV, the one he worked on at his shop. It's parked outside his apartment. Right away, he calls a police. They process the SUV, but it's been white clean. They find a single partial fingerprint on a box of mints, but it doesn't match Carrie or anybody else's on file. Dave and Liz tell investigators all about the harassment. They turn over their phones and grant permission for the police to download everything. The awful messages, the photos, their locations, whatever they need to help put a stop to the madness. Omaha Police opened an investigation into Carrie's stalking. They eventually put out a warrant for her arrest, but they can't find her either. And so it continues for months. Throughout 2013, the messages don't let up. They get worse, scarier. It takes a toll on Dave's mental health. Some days he turns to alcohol to soothe his anxiety and other times he feels numb to the absurdity. Like one time, he has a woman over and a brick crashes through his window. Curdacy of Carrie, he assumes, his guest is rightfully freaked out. And Dave's like, eh, same shit, different day. Things really heat up that summer. Dave and Liz have been off again and on again, but that August, she calls him sobbing. She says her house has burnt down. Thankfully, her children weren't home and they're safe, but her pets were inside. All four of them are dead. Dave rushes over and consoles her when investigators find evidence of arson. It's clear this fire was no accident. Somebody started it, probably Carrie, and Dave feels awful, like this is all his fault. But the fire isn't Dave's fault and it isn't Carrie's either because the person who started the fire was Liz. In fact, Liz has been very busy these past few months. Well, after all, she's been impersonating Carrie online ever since November 2012. It's kind of become like a full-time job, deceiving so many people. You see, there's a reason why nobody's been able to find Carrie this whole time because only one person actually knows what happened to her, and Liz isn't about to give up her secrets anytime soon. First, she has a lot more pretending to do. Missing children, murder victims, unsolved homicides, breaking news, these are the cases that demand answers. I'm Nancy Grace. On Crime Stories, we go inside the courtroom, speak with investigators and top experts. We hear from victims and their families, and we bring you the latest on the cases that grip the nation and cases you may have never heard of. Please join us at Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. This episode is brought to you by Collegard. Do you know what's really scary? It's seen for colon cancer when you turn 45. The Collegard test is non-invasive, requires no special prep or time off work, and ships right to your door so you can do it at home. In just three simple steps, Collegard takes the scare out of colon cancer screening. If you're 45 or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about the Collegard test. Collegard is available by prescription only, learn more or request a prescription today at collegard.com/screen. When Liz Gahlier burns down her house and pretends to be the victim, nine months have passed since everybody last saw Carrie Farber. The whole time police in Omaha have been investigating her as a stalker. But across state lines in Iowa, a totally separate investigation is underway, with a completely different focus. The sheriff's office doesn't see Carrie as a stalker. To them, she's a missing person with a loving family, wondering where is she. Okay, okay, let's rewind a bit. Back to November 13, 2012. The day Carrie goes missing, and Dave Krupa gets that very first breakup text from her phone. Somebody else gets a text from Carrie's phone, too. Her mom, Nancy. She lives near Carrie, and whether it's emotional support or watching Carrie's teenage son, Nancy is always there for her daughter. And Nancy's next text is just as WTF as Dave's. It says that Carrie's decided to quit her job, even though it's a new job that she loves, and she's moving to Kansas. In the meantime, she's leaving her 14 year old son in Nancy's care. Her grandson is always welcome at her house, but still, Nancy's shocked. Carrie may be a badass, independent, single mom, but she's not the type to disappear without notice. She's never left her son behind like this. None of this feels right. Then again, Nancy can't be 100% sure something bad has happened. Carrie's son says she had considered a job in Kansas. So Nancy tries to give Carrie some space to figure things out. A few days later, Carrie misses her brother's wedding, and she fails to pick up her son on the way, and she refuses to talk to Nancy on the phone only through text. There are way too many reflags for Nancy to ignore now. She files a missing person report and tells detectives that she's been getting texts from Carrie's phone. But whoever is communicating with her is not the real Carrie. Now I will say it takes a while before investigators in Iowa buckle down and take the case seriously. From their point of view, Carrie's an adult who can make her own decisions, even if she's being inconsiderate, and she appears to be texting people, so they think she's okay. They also learn that Carrie has bipolar disorder and that she left her medication behind at home. So they consider that she could be having a mental health crisis. They do question Dave. The last person Carrie was known to be with, but he already has hundreds of threatening messages to show them, evidently from Carrie, that reinforces detectives theory that she has chosen to disappear. But still, Nancy thinks why wouldn't Carrie come back for any of her stuff? Her clothes, her winter coat, not to mention her son. Carrie's been living with bipolar for years and she's never abandoned him. She never would. That fall Carrie misses Thanksgiving, her birthday, her son's birthday, and her father's funeral. Carrie uncertainty Nancy might have had has flown out the door. She feels in her gut that something bad has happened to her daughter. And she's right. But the only person who will ever know for sure what happened to her is Liz. From the moment Carrie, in quotation marks, sent that breakup text to Dave, Liz has been impersonating her, trying to cut out her competition. Even though Dave was clear that he didn't want to commit to either one of them, oh Liz, she tries to take over other parts of Carrie's life, too, when she uses Carrie's phone to text her employers that she's quitting. Liz, as Carrie, writes that she's already found her own replacement at work, Liz Gallier. She doesn't seem to know or care, but that's not how jobs work. You can't really stop showing up and send somebody else in your place, especially when that person has zero qualifications, like Liz. Carrie's a computer programmer, Liz, is not. I mean, what was Liz planning to do if they actually did hire her? And this isn't the first time Liz has tried to single white female a woman she perceives as her enemy, as in she tries to take over their life. Once when an ex-started dating somebody new, Liz cut and styled her hair to look exactly like the new girlfriend, and then Liz studied to become a pharmacist like the new girlfriend. Being anybody looking at Liz's past would see these troubling patterns. But for a long time, nobody has a reason to look into her past. To an outsider, Liz looks like the victim. She uses that to her advantage with Dave. Anytime they drift apart, which usually happens when he breaks things off with her, Liz blames some new dramatic event on Carrie, a threatening message, a break in, a house that burns down. And because Dave feels responsible, it always works. He lets Liz back into his life. Oh, and get this. When Liz burns her house down, she doesn't actually lose much of her stuff. Not anything she cared about anyway, which apparently includes her four pets. Whose lives she's willing to sacrifice. But her kids and most of her belongings are no longer reciting at her house. Dave doesn't know it, but Liz has already moved into a new place. Are you ready? She moved in with her long-term boyfriend. A boyfriend, she's had this entire time. Once before she started seeing Dave, and Dave has no clue. And her boyfriend, let's call him Landon. Definitely doesn't know that Liz is cheating on him. This entire time that she's been jealous and possessive over Dave, she isn't even single. She's not even single. By all accounts, Landon treats Liz well, and she, more or less, acts like he's her personal nanny and live in DoorDash. While she's out sleeping with Dave, he also supports her financially. Also she can sit in Landon's basement, typing out thousands of messages that she will pretend are from Carrie. If you're wondering, she uses a program that allows her to schedule those messages to be sent later on. That's how she can be sitting with Dave with her phone across the room while they're both receiving text from Carrie. In retrospect, Dave will realize that he witnessed a few odd clues. Like the time he was walking home, drunk from a nearby bar. He thought he saw Liz arm me crawling through his parking lot. When he called out to her, she ignored him. She later owned up to it and laughed it off, like she was drunk too. And guess Dave thought, it's just Liz being jealous, because she doesn't hide her jealousy from Dave. He knows she always wants more of his attention, and he sets aside one day of the week for her. But he tells her, over and over, he doesn't want to be monogamous, and she won't listen. Instead, she gets dangerously jealous all over again. This time, towards Amy, the mother of Dave's two children. Dave and Amy's relationship was strained for a while after their breakup, but they have two kids to raise together. They do holiday together. The reality is, they are in each other's lives. As the months and the years pass, they become friends again. Amy knows all about Dave's problems with his stalker, who they think is Carrie, because Amy starts getting the text messages too. And this cycle goes on and on and on. The threats from Carrie, the stalking, the intense jealousy from Liz, by February 2015, Dave has had enough. He's been going through it for over two years. He buys a gun for protection, and then he decides to make a change. He packs up and moves back to Iowa. And he gets a new job. Now he's closer to his kids, which also means he's closer to Amy. Oopsy, Liz probably didn't mean for that to happen. And with Liz, drastic times call for drastic measures. One day, Dave realizes his gun is missing. Let's check in with Carrie's mom, Nancy. As months turn into years, and she still hadn't heard from her daughter, she didn't give up hope, but she didn't think help was going to come from law enforcement. But then, in the spring of 2015, two new investigators take on Carrie's case. Jim Dodie and Ryan Avis had heard about it around the sheriff's office, and it peaked their interest. It's in danger of becoming a cold case, but they hope to solve it. First, they split up. One of them investigates the case, assuming Carrie is alive. Like she's really the one sending all those texts and emails. The other investigates the case, as if Carrie Farber is dead. And one of those scenarios makes a lot more sense than the other. In two and a half years, nobody has seen Carrie. Nobody's heard her voice. She has a return to visit her son or pack up her house, and other than two debit card charges right after she went missing, which her bank flagged as suspicious, Carrie's bank account hasn't been touched at all. Dodie and Avis can see it now, clear as day. This case has all the hallmarks of a homicide. Naturally, they look at day first, but a new person of interest emerges right away. Liz Goliar. I mean, she tried to take Carrie's job, so they already suspect Liz when something surprising happens. From December 4th, 2015, she waltzes into their office. Now she has no idea, they even know who she is, and they do not let on. Dodie keeps a straight face as she tells him she's there to register a complaint against Amy. She tells them all about the stalking and the messages she says all along she and Dave thought Carrie sent them, but now Liz claims she has a new theory. Amy has been their stalker all along. It just makes more senseless, tells Dodie, Carrie was only with Dave for like two or three weeks. Amy was with him for 12 years. It's as though Liz has realized her story isn't holding up anymore, or maybe she senses that the investigation is heating up as she wants to set up Amy to take the fall. Jim Dodie just takes this all down, pretending he believes her, and a plan starts to form in his head. But first, Liz does something nobody sees coming. The very next day, Liz calls 911, she's been shot. She's in a park that's basically down the street from the sheriff's office at night by herself, and she says some woman came up to her, shot her in the leg and ran away, and she believes the shooter was Amy. Paramedics respond and yeah, Liz is actually bleeding from a gunshot wound. Amy knows what the heck is going on, but they take her to the hospital to treat her. Meanwhile, police swarm Amy's house. They have to take every precaution, but they rule Amy out almost immediately. Her car is cold. She hasn't driven anywhere, and she's been home all evening with her son. She clearly wasn't at the park when the shooting occurred, but Dodie and Avis think they They know who did pull the trigger. shot herself, making sure to avoid any major arteries or organs. Clearly they have a dangerous criminal on their hands and they need to find evidence fast so they can arrest Liz. So they bring in their IT specialist Tony Kava. See when Liz came in to speak to the sheriff, she once again volunteered her phone as evidence. She allowed them to download everything thinking they would only see what she wanted them to see. The messages that look like they were from Amy. Liz had taken precautions. She used VPNs and other ways to hide her IP address which would have revealed her as the author. She didn't realize that Tony Kava could resurrect all data. That he could look through everything she had deleted off her phone, including a bunch of emails she sent as Carrie and the app she used to send them. Investigators can now prove Liz has impersonated Carrie and Amy online. But they'll need a lot more evidence to prove their other theory that Liz murdered Carrie on November 13th 2012. Dodian Avis deduced that Liz thinks she's smarter than them. After all, she's fooled a lot of people for a long time. So they turn the tables on her. Once Liz is released from the hospital, they bring her back in for an interview. They say they believe her theory about Amy sending all those messages and they suggest Amy might have even killed Carrie. Liz of course pretends like this is a great theory that makes perfect sense. So they ask her can she help them get proof that Amy was behind all of this and wouldn't you know it? Within days, Liz forwards emails from Amy, confessing to everything, to shooting Liz and to killing Carrie. What a coincidence. What luck or not. Since Liz is the one who writes these emails, the confessions are detailed. They claim that Carrie was stabbed in her own SUV, then burned and discarded in the garbage, which the investigators now believe is the true story of how Liz killed Carrie Farber. They return to Carrie's SUV and rip out the front seats. Beneath the fabric, the foam rubber is stained with blood, Carrie's blood. And that one partial fingerprint they found back in 2012, they run it again. It's a match for Liz. Liz Gallier is arrested and charged with first-degree murder the following year in 2016. But as prosecutors gear up for the trial, they admit they're kind and nervous. Right now the evidence is circumstantial. They don't even have a body. The defense is most likely going to claim that Carrie could still be alive. But investigators believe Liz is a dangerous person who should be in prison. They don't want her to be acquitted. They just need more evidence. And it comes from good old Dave Krupa. When Dave learned the truth about Liz, he could imagine his whole world was upended. And he felt responsible in a way for it all, even though he never could have guess what would happen. He cooperates with investigators, but he can't really give them what they need. Until one day he realizes there are some old electronics in a storage locker that they can have. He'd forgotten about his old broken tablet. It won't even turn on. But Tony, the IT specialist, finds something inside the tablet. An old memory card. As he goes through it on his computer, he realizes Liz must have used it on her cell phone. It holds thousands of deleted photos, including one of Carrie's foot. You might not think a close-up of a foot would bring down a killer, but investigators send it to a forensic pathologist who confirms that the foot is in a state of decay. Liz took a photo of a dead person, and how do they know it's Carrie? While she had a distinctive tattoo on her foot, it's visible in the picture. An indelible mark of who she was, what was important to her, and something that even death could not erase. The Chinese symbol for mother, Liz had apparently kept a little souvenir from the murder, a photo, a trophy, and when she realized it could get her into trouble, she tried to get rid of it. But some things refused to be cast away. They find their way back. Right? When they're needed the most. The photograph pretty much clinches the case. A judge finds Liz guilty and sentences her to life without parole. She's still serving time in Nebraska. Over the years since, Dave has given several interviews. He says he still feels responsible, but we've all trusted the wrong person before. That's not a crime. That's being human. As for Nancy, she finally got validation. She knew from day one that something happened to her daughter. And I can't think of many true crime stories where a mother's intuition turns out to be wrong. She knew that being a mom was the most important thing in the world to carry, and that carry would never willingly leave her son. And in fact, she never did. Some things are everlasting. Thanks for tuning in to Killer Stories, a Spotify podcast. New episodes release on Mondays. If you liked today's story and want to learn more, we'd drop some of our favorite sources in the episode description. Until next time, I'm Harvey Kien. Stay safe up there.