Cari Lea Farver, a 37-year-old computer programmer from Macedonia, Iowa, disappeared on November 13, 2012. What began as a missing persons case became a haunting tale of impersonation, harassment, and murder—solved not by traditional detective work, but by the digital footprint her killer left behind.
Farver was last seen at the Omaha, Nebraska home of Dave Kroupa, an auto repair shop manager she had been casually dating for roughly two weeks. On the morning of November 13, Kroupa left for work after kissing Farver goodbye. She remained in the house. Mid-morning, Kroupa received an unusual text message from Farver's number requesting that they move in together—behaviour entirely out of character for someone who barely knew him.
Farver never picked up her teenage son Max from school that day. She missed a family wedding. When she failed to make contact by November 16, her mother Nancy Raney reported her missing.
Then the messages began.
Starting almost immediately after Farver's disappearance, Kroupa received thousands of texts and emails from accounts claiming to be Farver. The messages were relentless and increasingly sinister. "I see you. You're sitting in your chair," one read. Others threatened violence, claimed she'd moved to Kansas, and taunted him with knowledge of his movements. Changing his phone number and email address made no difference. The harassment continued—between 25,000 and 50,000 messages over three years.
Farver's family and her son received similarly disturbing messages from her social media accounts. These cryptic posts seemed to prove Farver was alive, making investigation difficult. Police were slow to act, partly because Farver had a documented history of bipolar disorder. The narrative was convenient: a mentally unstable woman, perhaps staging her own disappearance.
But there were physical clues investigators couldn't ignore. In January 2013, Farver's Ford Explorer was discovered abandoned at Kroupa's apartment complex—in a different building than his unit. Inside was blood on the passenger seat cushion, hidden under a cover. A single fingerprint was lifted from the vehicle and later matched to Shanna Golyar, a woman who had been dating Kroupa on and off, and who had met Farver only once.
Golyar had her own story. In August 2013, her house caught fire under suspicious circumstances, killing four pets. She publicly blamed Farver, claiming the missing woman had set the blaze.
