Sword and Scale Nightmares - Lovers

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

In November 2012, freshly divorced auto shop manager Dave Kroupa thought he was navigating the casual dating scene in Omaha, Nebraska until one short relationship ended and the stalking began. For the next three years, the messages grew more violent, more personal, and more terrifying, all coming from a woman who refused to let him go. But as detectives dug into the case, they uncovered a truth that forced Dave to confront a chilling possibility: the nightmare stalking him had been much closer than he ever imagined.Get commercial free access to over a decade of Sword and Scale's true crime podcasts at http://swordandscale.com

Modern dating comes with an ugly reality, in case you haven't figured it out. You can give a stranger access to your life faster than you can figure out who they really are. It starts with sharing a first name, then a last name. And soon enough, you're handing out birth dates and your kids' names and all sorts of password reminders. They're hanging out at your house, they know your address, Who the hell is this person anyway? Most of the time, it's harmless. Online connections do occasionally turn into real love.

But sometimes all it takes is one polite text. Like, hey, I don't think this is going to work out. And then suddenly, a person on the other end doesn't hear goodbye. To them, it's a challenge. 35-year-old David Krupa was freshly. divorced and having a great time keeping things casual on the dating scene. In fact, he'd found more than one woman he was interested in, except one of them didn't really believe in the whole casual thing.

In the beginning, Dave thought he was just juggling a messy situation. He had no idea. He was stepping into a literal nightmare. Welcome to Sword and... and scale nightmares. True crime for bedtime. When nightmare begins now. After his divorce, David Krupa was living the kind of life most people would call average. He had two kids, and he was trying to make a co-parenting thing work with his ex-Amy Flora.

That meant calendars, custody swaps, school stuff, and constant coordination that keeps an ex-permanently in your life whether you like it or not. not. Dave still had responsibilities and he still had people depending on him. So he didn't have the luxury of just falling apart. Dave managed an auto repair shop in Omaha, Nebraska. The job kept him busy and grounded. The days were repetitive, but they were predictable. And predictable matters when the rest of your life has just been rearranged. When Dave started dating again, he didn't think he was doing anything reckless. Plenty of single parents find love a second or third time. Didn't he deserve happiness as well? His first stop was a place so many of us find our partners these days, online dating sites. Right away, someone caught his eye. Her name was

Shanna Goliur, or Liz, as she was known by her friends. Dave thought Liz was gorgeous. She had long, dark hair, bright, sparkly eyes, and she seemed laid back in low maintenance. That's exactly what Dave was looking for. He wanted to keep things casual, date around, and if something didn't work, he'd end it, quickly and cleanly. But that assumption was a mistake. By late October 2012, things were going well between Liz and Dave. They were going on regular dates and texting back and forth, but Dave is still keeping his options open.

He and Liz aren't in any kind of serious, monogamous relationship. So when a stunning woman walks into the auto repair shop, Dave finds himself really thankful he's still on the market. Carrie Farver is her name. She's a 37-year-old computer programmer, and she's explaining what's wrong with her Ford Explorer. Dave can't help but smile. His eyes are fixed on this beautiful,

woman's pearly white grin. She's got an aura of excitement, a brightness about her. He can't look away from that smile and her adorable dimples. Already, Dave is smitten. She's matching his energy. She seems to be genuinely interested in him.

By the time she leaves, he's got her contact information and they're planning dates. It's not long before a couple of dinner dates turn into casual hangouts at Dave's apartment, which is conveniently located just a few blocks away from where Carrie works. On one occasion, as Dave is showing Carrie out at the end of the night, he looks up and locks eyes with a woman outside of his apartment. He quickly averts his gaze and sighs.

This is the worst possible timing. He knows he's not doing anything wrong, but for Liz to stop by to pick up her things on the same night Dave is on a date with another woman is not ideal. Carrie looks at Liz. Liz looks at Carrie. The air changes. No one says anything, but Dave feels painfully uncomfortable. This encounter only lasts 10 seconds or so, but Dave knows one thing is for certain.

This could get complicated. For the next couple of weeks, Dave continues to see Carrie. They aren't in love and they aren't building a future, but they are spending a hell of lot of time together. Because he lives so close to her job, Carrie hangs out at Dave's apartment constantly. Her own home is an hour away, so staying at Dave's during the week just makes sense. And Dave is also happy with the arrangement. On the night of November 12, 2012, Carrie stays over.

Dave leaves for work early the next morning as usual. He assumes when they're both finished with their day, they'll meet up again or not. He's okay with either option. But at around 10 a.m., Dave's phone is already buzzing with a text from Carrie. It says, do you want to live together? Dave reads it twice. They have been seeing each other for about two weeks. This is a departure from the easy, relaxed pace their relationship was moving.

at. This isn't what Dave was looking for. After all, he's got kids, and so does she. Dave types back. That's not going to happen. Twenty seconds later, another text comes in, and it's like a switch has flipped. Dave gets hit with a barrage of angry messages that sound like both a breakup and a warning. This is the moment Dave learns something he'll be unpacking for years. Carrie Farver does not take no for an answer. She takes it personally. At first, Dave thinks her texts are a bit dramatic, but he brushes it off. He's getting paragraphs of angry nonsense, like a message that says,

I will do what I can to make you suffer. We belong together, Dave. He figures Carrie will get bored soon and that she'll stop and leave him to live his life. He's only known her for two weeks after all. He's just glad he dodged this bullet early. Days go by, then weeks, and the messages don't slow down. In fact, they seem to be getting angrier. He hears his cell phone vibrate with new texts while he's at work, at night while he's

trying to sleep, and eventually even while he's spending time with his kids. She tries to block the number, but just as quickly another one appears. Soon, she's also reaching out through email and social media. And the messages are getting scarier. I hate you so much that I want to drive a knife into your heart, says one text. Another says, I will destroy your life and take your happiness. Eventually, they start to read like Carrie is watching Dave's every move, waiting for the right moment. to strike.

My favorite thing to do is stand outside and stare at you, said one text. Carrie must know, Dave thinks, about his relationship with Liz. They've gotten more serious and he's really happy, all except for their new stalker. Liz has started to get them, too, messages like, I hate you. I love Dave. Sometimes these messages come in when they're just sitting in Dave's apartment. relaxing together. It's scary, sure, but they're in it together, and some nights it's easy to brush the whole thing off, calling her crazy Carrie. That is, until one night when Dave reads a text

that says, I see you, you're sitting in your chair with your feet propped up wearing a blue shirt. Dave's chest fills with dread as he glances down at his body, lying flat with his legs on the footrest of his recliner. He feels the blood drained from his face. He is wearing a blue shirt. How could she know this? Dave

has his kids to worry about, and Liz has two children of her own. This could turn into a real life danger. They keep telling themselves, it's just messages. Until the day,

it isn't. It's It's still late fall, 2012, and Dave Krupa's new relationship with Liz Goliar is going well. The harassment both have received from Carrie Farver, the other woman Dave had been interested in for just a few weeks, is bringing Dave and Liz closer than ever. Sure, Carrie is cute, but she's obviously crazy. Like bat-shit crazy. Like Sornscale listener crazy. Oh, come on, relax, Karen.

Anyway, Liz is a striking woman with long, dark hair. She's laid back, relaxed, and willing to take things slowly. Spending time with her is easy. At first, both Dave and Liz think the crazy messages will eventually stop, but they never do. They only become more ominous. By late November, Carrie can't be ignored any longer. Dave gets a call from Liz, her house. has been vandalized.

Someone has spray-painted the words whore from Dave inside the garage. And when Dave hears about this, all he can feel is guilty. Like, this is ultimately his fault. After all, he's the one who brought Carrie Farver

into Liz's life. Things continue like this for another year. Scary texts and emails. Vandalism. Everything has Dave waiting for the other shoe to drop. But now, it seems Liz is the target of Carrie's anger.

By August of the next year, the romance between Dave and Liz starts to fizzle out, and Dave decides to end things. The harassment from Carrie hasn't let up, but they'll be going their separate ways regardless. Maybe this will make Carrie stop. Not long after ending things with Liz, Dave is at work when he gets a panaceous. a maniced phone call. Liz tells him that her house is on fire and her pets are inside. This is no small electrical fire.

Her house is completely ablaze. Liz and the kids weren't home at the time, but sadly, her two dogs, a cat and a snake, don't make it out alive. In the end, Liz and her kids are left with next to nothing. Investigators quickly figure out that the fire was set intentionally. Liz knows who did it. She tells them it was Carrie Farver. Pretty soon Crazy Carrie admits to it in an email saying,

I am not lying. I set that nasty whore's house on fire. I hope the whore and her kids die in it. And you thought dating as a guy was easy. Police are no help because no one can track down, Carrie. Dave, who is absolutely terrified, changes his number. New ones follow him. Liz changes hers.

New ones follow her. They switched email accounts. They block numbers, anything to get just a moment of silence from this crazy bitch. But the harassment messages flood right back in. This continues for the next year and a half. By spring of 2015, new detectives in Iowa, where Kerry lives, have begun digging into the case. This isn't something they see every day.

It's not a typical stalker scenario. It's hundreds of messages, thousands of emails, multiple aliases, and real-world assaults that have been stacking up over multiple years. So these two detectives go to their boss and ask if they can start looking into the case again.

They start asking questions that change everything. Like, what IP addresses are those messages actually coming from? And most importantly, where is Carrie? Pretty quickly, they figure out that Carrie hasn't actually been seen in years. Not in person, at least. And not since all the way back in 2012. Is she even alive?

By the end of 2015, that question is no longer a whisper in the world. room. They've got two open cases, a missing person in Iowa and a stalker in Nebraska. Is it even possible that Carrie is both of these things? In early December, as these two detectives are diving waist deep into the evidence, something happens that throws everything into chaos once again. Liz Gollier calls 911. She's screaming to the dispatcher that she's just been shot. For over two years, Dave Krupa and Liz Goliar have endured relentless stalking at the hands of Carrie Farver. Originally, the assumption driving everything was simple. Carrie Farver was alive, angry, and tormenting them. Messages had been coming in from her phone and email accounts for

years. But detectives who took over the case in early 2015 saw something odd about it. Carrie hadn't been seen in person by anyone since November 13, 2012. No one had heard her over the phone, only through texts. Carrie's son meant everything to her, and she hadn't even bothered to show up at his high school graduation. Even more strange was that Carrie had missed her own father's funeral. had a history of mental illness, bipolar disorder to be specific. She had periods of time where she went off her meds and her real life fell off the rails.

But even when she was unstable, Carrie never missed important events. Carrie's mother, who'd been taking care of Carrie's son in her absence, had been trying for years to convince law enforcement to treat her daughter's case more seriously. She could see Carrie was being treated like a mentally ill runaway adult, but she knew something much worse had happened. She just couldn't prove it. Now, these detectives were about to confirm what she'd been right about all along. They could see that Carrie hadn't gotten a new job, and she hadn't used any of the money

in her bank account since she went missing. There was no evidence whatsoever that this woman was still alive. So, detectives stopped treating the harassment. like a personality problem and started scrutinizing the data. So at this point, they're working from the assumption that Carrie has been dead this whole time, and someone has been impersonating her. They pour over the original investigatory files, finding thousands of messages from Dave and Liz's phone dumps back in 2013.

With a fine-toothed comb, they extract some new evidence. They're able to spot six phone calls from Lill's phone calls from Lill's. Liz's phone to Carrie's home phone. These calls took place about a week before Carrie went missing. The caller had used Star 67 to hide their caller ID. Liz always said she didn't really know Carrie, so why was she calling her? In the photos, detectives find their first damning piece of evidence. Liz had a picture of Carrie's car.

The metadata shows that the photo was taken weeks before launching. enforcement knew where the car was. Thankfully, when Dave told police about the car, they swabbed it for fingerprints. Most came back as a match for Carrie. But there was one unknown fingerprint. Detectives rerun the swabs and compare them to Liz's fingerprints, and guess what? They're a match. Even worse, emails that Dave believed were coming from Carrie are traced to an eye.

tied to the home of a man Liz was once living with. An IP address, in case you don't know, is like a mailing address for the internet. It allows law enforcement to track down who sent what from where, tying online activity to a physical location. And Liz was tied to that same location. With wide eyes, these detectives make note of each new piece of evidence. and all of it is pointing towards just one person. Liz Goliar.

Liz is the star of the show behind the scenes, and she's about to go on to the main stage. On December 5, 2015, she calls 911, telling dispatchers she's at a park by the sheriff's department, and she's been shot in the leg. First responders arrived to find Liz is telling us, the truth. She's got a bullet wound going straight through the middle of her thigh, and her pant leg is soaked with blood. An officer asks her who did this, and at first Liz says she doesn't

know. The person ambushed her from behind, and it was dark. The paramedics continue working on her while officers search the area. There aren't any witnesses. There are no signs of a struggle, and none of this makes any sense. Suddenly Liz, she said, changes her tune. Now she says she does know who shot her. She says it was Amy Flora, Dave's ex-wife and the mother of his children. In fact, Liz had actually put in a harassment complaint against Amy just 24 hours prior. While the bullet is being removed from Liz's thigh, police drive straight to Amy Flora's house. She's been home with her kids all night. Her car is cold and her neighbors corroborate her story.

There's no way. She's the shooter. If it wasn't Carrie, and it wasn't Amy, did Liz shoot herself in the leg? It seems that way. After all, Dave and Amy had been talking about getting back together for the kids, maybe this is Liz's attempt to solve that problem. Detectives have to play it cool, though. They don't immediately accuse Liz of staging the shooting.

Instead, they tell her they need more evidence against Amy Flora. They say they're building a case and they ask Liz to keep an eye out for any messages from Amy. Sure enough, just a few days later, Liz says she's gotten an email. She shows the detectives the message. In it, Amy not only confesses to shooting Liz in the leg, she admits to having murdered Carrie Farver. Six weeks later, Liz calls Iowa detectives again, and she's irate. She expects Amy to be arrested immediately.

Amy confesses to a murder and now she gets to go on and live her life with Dave, she says. But detectives explained to her that they don't have enough evidence to convict Amy. They're hoping Liz will conveniently receive another email, one with details only Carrie's murderer would know. It works. Liz shows up at the police station with even more messages, she says, are from Amy. They're longer this time and they have details that have never been made public. The emails claim Carrie was attacked inside her own car, that she was stabbed to death, wrapped in a tarp, her body burned,

and what was left dumped in the garbage. This is exactly what investigators are looking for. They team up with detectives in Omaha, Nebraska, where Carrie's car was found, and they do a second search. This time, they're ripping up carpets and fabric, tearing this vehicle apart. When they pull the upholstery off the front passenger seat, a dark red stain stares back at them. They test it, and it comes back positive for human blood. Further testing reveals that the blood is Cary's. The confessional emails are traced back to Liz Goliere's device.

Liz is the one with all of the details of Cary's death, because Liz is the one who murdered Cary. Detectives confirm that the thousands of messages, emails, and social media posts everyone thought Carrie had created actually came from Liz Goliur. She's been impersonating her and destroying Carrie's reputation this entire time. As they go deeper into this rabbit hole, Iowa detectives discovered just how diabolical this mother of two really is. Shortly after she murdered Carrie in November of 2012, Liz had reached out to Carrie's employer to let them know Carrie's wouldn't be coming in anymore.

But she'd be sending a replacement, Shanna Goliur, which is one of Liz's aliases. This woman was trying to erase Carrie, steal her life, and make everyone hate her. And she almost succeeded. After analyzing the second download of Liz's phone,

it's clear Liz has been spending hours upon hours scheduling texts, emails, and social media posts. You know, because she couldn't be seen actually typing the messages out herself. They needed to arrive at the perfect time, like when she was sitting next to Dave on the couch. Each revelation turns the stomach of these detectives, but they're soon stopped dead in their tracks. They're looking at a photo on Liz's phone. It's dark. kind of hard to see.

It looks like a foot, but with skin that's decomposing. The foot has a tattoo on it. They compare it to photos of Carrie, and they see the same exact tattoo on her foot. Liz literally has a photo of Carrie's corpse on her phone. You've heard of being caught red-handed? Well, Liz was caught dead phone. if that's a thing.

Can we make that a thing? I just made that up. She's dead phoned. I think it sounds cool. Anyway, yeah, it's stupid. Let's get back to the story. This insane woman vandalized her own property,

burned down her own house, killed four of her own pets, shot herself in the leg, and made a career out of impersonating Carrie Farver. All because she was obsessed with Dave Krupa. Man, what's this guy got that I don't got? Don't answer that. Anyway, each escalation

preserved the illusion that Carrie was alive and dangerous, and the ruse worked. Dave had come to hate Carrie. He and Liz both called her names and complained about her almost for sport. He felt she was a parasite on his life that he just couldn't shake. He thought he'd dodged a bullet, by cutting things off with her. All along, he was within the grasp of the mastermind behind all of this chaos, and he had no idea. In reality, Carrie was likely killed on November 13, 2012, just after Dave left for work. She was never physically seen after that date. Her digital life continued only through Liz. In December of 2016, Shanna Liz Gold is arrested and charged with a litany of crimes, including the first-degree murder of

Kerry Farver. At trials, jurors hear about the impersonation, the fingerprint match inside Carrie's vehicle, the blocked phone calls, the IP evidence, and all of the staged incidents. In 2017, they find her guilty. Liz is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Cary Farver's body has never been recovered. Back in 2012, Dave thought he was battling with a rejected woman who refused to accept goodbye. But Carrie never sent those texts.

She didn't vandalize the house. She didn't set the fire, and she sure as hell didn't shoot Liz. The nightmare was never coming from outside Dave's life. It was always in the room with him. If you enjoyed the show, please consider joining plus at sword and scale.com slash plus. But if you can't, consider leaving us a positive review on your preferred listening platform. Sweet dreams and good night.