True Crime Campfire - Episode 27: Twisted: A Story of Stalking and Murder

Episode Date: January 10, 2020

Love is one of the greatest things there is. But sometimes love can get warped into something else—something angry and possessive and tunnel-visioned. That something is obsession. And when true obsession takes root in the mind of a certain type of personality, everything else fades into the background and loses all importance. Anybody and anything in the way of the object of that obsession is gonna get whomped. Things can get real dark, real fast. Join us for a story about an obsession that left a big smoking crater in the lives of everyone involved. Sources:Oxygen's "Snapped," Episode "Liz Golyar"NBC's "Dateline," Episode "Scorned"https://www.omaha.com/news/crime/judge-finds-shanna-golyar-guilty-of-first-degree-murder-in/article_50c7fec2-4089-11e7-9a4e-8f0f741d814f.htmlhttps://www.omaha.com/news/crime/woman-convicted-of-killing-impersonating-romantic-rival-asks-nebraska-supreme/article_104e6d58-6918-5fda-930c-d79d938ae511.htmlhttps://www.kearneyhub.com/news/state/supreme-court-rejects-appeal-in-bizarre-case-of-woman-who/article_ce39913e-e4fe-11e8-b0ec-5f51cd7e3668.htmlFollow us, campers!Patreon: https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Love is one of the greatest things there is. But sometimes love can get warped into something else. Something angry and possessive and tunnel vision. that something is obsession and when true obsession takes root in the mind of a certain type of personality everything else fades into the background and loses all importance anyone and anything in the way of the object of that obsession is going to get swamped things can get real dark real fast join us for a story about an obsession that left a big smoking crater in the lives of everyone involved this is twisted a story of stalking and murder So campers, we are in Council Bluffs, Iowa, December 5, 2015.

At 6.30 in the evening, a 9-1-1 call came into the Pottawatomie County dispatch from a frantic-sounding woman. She said, I've been shot in the leg, I need help. Can we just appreciate for a second? Potawatomi. I was just about to like stop everything because I saw that word and I was like, I can't pronounce that. Potawatomi. Everybody say it with me now. I did it. Potawatwada, wada, whatta, wada, wada, wada, what to me. Okay. Anyway, sorry. That serious thing here, a woman's been shot in the lake. Her name was Liz Gollier. She was in the parking lot of a park, a little ways outside council bluffs, huddled on the ground next to her car. Absolutely terrifying. Liz said she was walking on a walking path in the park when

her attacker approached and shot her. Yikes. So she said she didn't think the attacker was still around. Liz had taken off running after she took the bullet in her leg. She sounded, of course, terrified, and she was whimpering in pain. She said she thought there was only one attacker and she thought it was a woman. She'd shot it Liz twice, but only hit her once. And she said, just please hurry, my pant leg is filling with blood. So just, I mean, imagine the terror that you would go through. You're in the middle of a park. It's kind of, you know, getting dark at 6.30 and somebody just comes out of the shadows, shoots you once, shoots at you again, and now you're just kind of huddled hiding by your car, trying to get somebody to come and

help you while your pants fill with blood. That's just terrifying. Horrible. Yeah, it's a really scary scene. So, of course, police and EMTs rushed to the scene, and by the time they got to her, Liz was kind of going in and out of consciousness from blood loss. So they rushed her to the nearest hospital, and police got to work searching the park. They brought in a police helicopter to scan with floodlights, looking for the woman who shot Liz, but whoever it was seemed to be long gone, which isn't surprising given that it takes time for those folks to show up.

So Liz's family were terrified, of course, when they heard she'd been shot. Liz was a mother of two, and her kids would just be lost without her, and her boyfriend Dave, of course, would be devastated to lose her too. And Dave was a guy by the name of Dave Krupa. and he was a nice guy, smart, funny. He worked as a mechanic at an auto shop. And when Liz and Dave met, they were both coming out of bad relationships. Dave had been in his for over a decade, and he had two kids with his ex-girlfriend, Amy.

They lived together with their kids in Omaha, Nebraska, but they'd never gotten married. Now, Dave and Amy had broken up in July of 2011, and it wasn't that they didn't love each other, but for some reason he didn't even fully understand himself. just kept dragging his feet about proposing to her and Amy finally just kind of got tired of waiting around and she said look either put up or shut up and I guess he shut up so the fact that he wouldn't make their relationship official seemed like a pretty clear statement to her and she's like I got to move on with my life yeah okay this is not the first case we've covered that did this in our bad romance yeah Dr. Bloomshine episode why is this a thing listen

you don't you absolutely do not have to be married but once you have kids with someone you're inexorably linked with them forever absolutely you're already bound right even if it doesn't last it's as good as a marriage certificate you're not guys yeah you're not avoiding commitment my dude you will be at every event yeah with this person whether you like them or not maybe he wants to put his pee pee in somebody else, Katie. Did you ever think of that? There might be some supermodel who's waiting out there for him and you know, you never know. You're right. You're right. So really it's, I didn't, I didn't think of that. You don't want anything official. So when, and by the way, that's a perfectly valid life choice. We're just being snarky. So when Amy moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa to be closer to her family, Dave followed,

even though they were broken up because he didn't want to be separated from his kids. And shortly after Dave got to Council Bluffs, he got a job at a car repair shop. but he didn't know anybody in town except for Amy and her family and that's a lonely life because obviously you know you might still be on amicable terms with your ex and the mother of your children but you don't really want to hang out with her and her family on Saturday night so he decided to try his hand at online dating and the first woman to send him a message was Liz Goliar our shooting victim from the very beginning and they hit it off immediately Liz struck Davis full of life sexy adventurous expressive all things he was attracted to

and she thought he was handsome and fun and good company but as these things often do their relationship kind of started to fizzle out after a few months Liz started talking to a different guy online and she and Dave started seeing less and less of each other and in the midst of this kind of fizzling out

of their relationship Dave was working in the auto shop one afternoon when a woman came in with her car and caught his eye she was 38 years old very pretty beautiful green eyes and her name was Carrie Farver. Carrie had grown up in Iowa, and by all accounts, she was crazy smart, like an actual genius.

She was a computer engineer. She reportedly had an IQ of 155, which is really high. She had a teenage son from a previous relationship. His name was Max, and she was devoted to him. She never missed one of his school events or conferences. She was just a completely devoted single mother. And she had a busy life, and she was a fun person. She would cheer for her son at his football game, and then she'd go pound shots with

their friends at the bar so one of those work hard play hard have fun type of people but max of course was always first in line and because of that her attitude about romantic relationships was kind of casual she felt like she didn't have time for anything serious she wanted companionship and she wanted sex but she wasn't interested in getting heavy and she didn't want to disappoint her kid by bringing a father figure into his life who might just up and leave and that's a whole consideration when you have kids and you're trying to date because your kid might get attached and then they might get their heartbroken

along with you. So you've got to be more careful when you're dating when you're parents. So that was her attitude. So she was cautious with men and she would usually let them know that up front. But when Carrie walked into Dave Krupa's auto shop that day in 2012 they made one of those immediate

like zing type connections just instant attraction, instant chemistry. Been there before campers? I'm sure some of you have. And nothing came of it that day because Dave figured correctly, I think, that it would be a little bit unprofessional to ask a customer out at work, right, who brought her car in for service. So not a good look. But then later, it just so happened that he came across her profile on a dating site, and he remembered her immediately from the shop, and she remembered him too, and so they made a date. Kismet, right?

Yeah. And this is one thing that I like about Dave from, I've seen him on a couple of different true crime shows about the show. this case. He liked confident women. You know, he's clearly not intimidated by that like some guys are. And Carrie had that confidence in spades. And they went out, they had a great time on their day, lots of laughing and joking around. And there was definitely something there between them, and they both knew it, like right from the start. But like Carrie, Dave wasn't interested in anything serious right then. I mean, he had just gotten out of his relationship with Liz Goliar. He was trying to focus on being a dad, succeeding at work, building a new life and

new town and all that kind of stuff. So early on they had the, I'm just looking for something casual and fun talk. And they both agreed that they were on the same page about that. So no strings, just fun, companionship, sex, right? Which is kind of like a perfect setup for both of these folks, like a friends with benefits situation. Dave enjoyed Carrie's company. She was exciting and he loved that she was smart and opinionated.

She stayed over at his house of Fairmount. and he was hugely impressed with her intellect. He considered himself a computer geek, but compared to Carrie, he barely knew anything. And that was hot for him. So, again, I kind of like Dave, right? You got to love a man who appreciates a woman's intelligence. Dave fan.

Yeah, I'm a fan of Dave, most definitely. It's one of the things I love about my husband is that he likes that I'm, like, loud and funny and smart. You know what I mean? It doesn't, like, make him intimidated. I've dated guys who flat out said to me that it intimidated them, And it's like, are you serious right now? Yeah.

Are you a cartoon character? They do that to like make you dumb yourself down. Yeah. It's like, psych dude. Never. I, one of the impot, I don't know what the plural of impetus is. I just realized I'm supposed to be smart. Empitite.

Impetises. It doesn't sound right. I don't even know. Anyway, one of the motivators, let's say, for me to break up with one of my exes was actually when a friend of mine said, you know, I hope you don't take this the wrong. way you know something like serious is coming when somebody says that right yeah she said i hope you don't take this the wrong way but you just seem like you turn your volume down when he's around and i was like no oh yikes that's not good and then i asked a couple other friends do you feel like i tone myself down around him and they all said yes and i realized okay it's time to shut it down

because that's yeah absolutely you don't want to do that don't turn your volume down for anybody So, be you. Anyway, I'm off. Find somebody that's going to be happy with you. I'm off on a tangent now. But just one more little bit of advice from Auntie Whitney, which is that there's a quote by Roomy that I think is really important. And it's just simply be with those who help your being.

Yeah. There you go. If somebody doesn't help your being, yeat them into the sun and move on. Katie, are you proud of me for using... This is a true crime slash relationship advice podcast. Yes. Did I use yeat? correctly?

Yee? Yes? Yeah. You yeat them out of your life. Correct. Okay, cool. I'm really feeling very hip and youthful right now that I said yeat correctly. Okay.

So anywho, back to the story. So Dave even started toying with the idea of breaking his no commitments rule because he liked Carrie so much. But he went back and forth about it. And I mean, Carrie had been pretty clear that she wasn't looking for anything serious right then. So he really, really liked her and vice versa. But Dave decided to stick to the plan to keep things casual for now and maybe just kind of see where things went over time. He was in no rush.

I mean, when you've been in a 12-year relationship, this was before Liz, this was with his baby mama Amy that he was with for 12 years, had two kids with her and you still didn't feel the need to put a ring on anybody's fingers. And clearly you are not the type of guy who's in a hurry to get married, right? Which is fine. So in November of 2012, Carrie got assigned a big project at work. And this was a relatively new job for her, and it was a really big opportunity, but it was super stressful to lots of pressure at this job. And she was going to have a lot of late nights on this big project, and she lived about an hour's drive away from work. So Dave lived a lot closer, and he offered to let her stay with him for the week so that she wouldn't have to make that exhausting drive after her long day at the office. And later on, Dave told Dateline that they were enjoying kind of playing house that week.

Like they were joking around that they were a married couple and, you know, hi, honey, I'm home and see you tonight, honey. And kiss on the cheek at the door and jokes about, you know, meeting at the door with a martini and saran rat probably, you know, that kind of stuff. And one day after work that week, Carrie was at Dave's apartment. He was still at work at the auto shop when his ex-girlfriend Liz showed up to pick up some of her stuff that he still had at his place. Awkward. Just leave it. Yeah. Just leave it.

When you exit a relationship, anything that you leave at their house that is not a living being is not that important. Unless it's like your insulin or something. And even then, just for God's sake, just move on with your life. Once you're done, you should be done. So Liz and Dave had remained friends after their breakup. Because, you know, like I said before, it just kind of fizzled out. It wasn't like they had a big blow up and they were hating each other or anything.

And Carrie hadn't seemed bothered by this when Dave told her about it. In fact, they had actually bumped into Liz the night of their first date when Dave had brought Carrie home after dinner and drinks and she'd shown up to drop something off. And that was awkward, obviously, but Carrie had handled it really deftly. She'd kind of just laughed and she went home and she said as she was leaving, you know, you can come over if you want after you deal with this mess. Right? Like your ex showing up randomly. But on this day, when Liz showed up to pick up some of her stuff and Dave was at work, there was apparently a run-in. and according to Liz

Carrie was not happy that she was just dropping in on Dave like this and Liz told Dave later on this new girl you're seeing is crazy she yelled at me she called me a bitch so yikes yikes yeah so you know maybe playing Ozzie and Harriet

for a week Carrie caught some feelings I mean David certainly started catching him he had even talked about Carrie to his ex slash baby mama Amy and Amy was actually saying well I'm might want to meet this new woman that you're dating soon if she's going to be spending any time

around my kids and they had had that conversation so maybe this let's keep things casual thing was starting to fly out the window for both of them which it so often does i mean friends with benefits is great in theory and some people can pull it off but in practice so often somebody starts catching feelings you know and sometimes both of you do like in this case and one day not long after Carrie's run-in with Liz, she stayed over at Dave's again. They had a good time like always, and in the morning he kissed her goodbye on his way to work, told her she could let herself out whenever she was ready to go, and went on his way. And about 10 a.m., he got a text from Carrie asking him if he wanted to move in together. And like really abruptly, it was just like,

hey, how about we move in together? Oh my God. Yeah, like left field. Oh. So Dave was floored, as anyone would be. And they'd talked about this already. And they both agreed that a serious relationship was not in the cards for either of them right then. So this was unexpected to say the least. And Dave was a little annoyed. I would be too. Yeah. It felt a little bit like a bait and switch. So he texted something back kind of terse. It was like something like, probably not. Ouch. Yeah. Yeah. And the result was immediate fury. Carrie texted back, fine, fuck you, go away. I already found somebody else. I don't want you anyway.

You're a piece of shit and on and on and on. You found somebody else in the two minutes it's been since you sent that text. Okay. All right. Yeah. Wow. Clearly, this was a whole new side of Carrie. And Dave was not a fan.

Yeah, that's a red flag. He reminded her that this wasn't the deal. They were supposed to keep things casual, and he broke off the relationship. This kicked off a firestorm. Carrie sent a barrage of texts. Dave was worthless. He was a player, the type of asshole that led women on and was only interested in pussy. Typical man, nothing but a user.

Blah, blah, blah. Dave ignored her, for the most part, figuring that if he didn't react, she'd stop. But she didn't. She just got worse. She sent one text after another cursing at him, calling him names. She sent emails to. And then it got worse. Again.

Jesus. She sent a picture of Dave's apartment window with a note that said, I'm watching you. Oh, uh-uh. Mm-mm. Whole big bag of nope. Nope. So she also had venom about Liz, Dave's ex. She said, she sent him a text.

said you're spelled y-oh you are english majors over here we're just that's a red flag right there if you ask me you're such a dick i don't see how anyone would want to be with you unless they're a whore like liz dang or that sounds like a threesome i don't do that does that slutty liz do that no wonder she's a whore i'm glad to rub it in her face that you rather have me than her oh boy yeah why would you want to be with someone like that you could have me i am sincere but you had to choose a tramp whore who will suck the life at you a tramp whore is that a special type a different type i you know there's the regular and then there's the tramp variety i see charming language there's yeah

So, and she also said, I still feel she is responsible for destroying us. Destroying us. She called Liz a man-stealing whore who is so ugly that she can't get her own man. Okay. She said that Dave was the kind of man who would rather be with a whore than a real woman. She really likes that word whore. She really does. I'm cringing.

I hate this word. It's so... It was a constant barrage of texts and emails. It started wearing Dave down to the point where he thought about going to the police. But then, on November 21st, 2012, the police showed up at his auto body shop. They were there about a missing person. None other than Carrie Farver. Holy shit.

Right? Stocker Carrie's family had filed a report. Apparently, she'd been behaving erratically with them, too. Her mom had gotten a series of texts from Carrie that said she'd found a new job in Kansas and she was going. She'd quit her job in Council Bluffs and she asked her mom to look after her teenage son, Max. She said she needed a break and a fresh start just for a while. Carrie's mom was troubled. Carrie had never left town without Max before, so her mom felt like Carrie must be going through some serious stuff and she was worried.

agreed. She wanted to help her kid. And poor Max was confused, of course. Oh, God, I can't even imagine. But his mama had mentioned a possible job opportunity in Kansas before she left to spend that week with Dave. They'd even discussed the possibility of Max staying with his grandma to finish out high school so he wouldn't have to change schools so close to graduation. And she'd texted Max from Dave's that week to tell him she'd gotten a second interview with that job in Kansas. She was planning on going, but she assured Max she'd be home in time for a family wedding that weekend. She'd never shown up. Dave was pretty freaked by this whole thing.

The police felt like he was very cooperative, eager to help. He was rattled by the harassment, and it freaked him out to think that Carrie was just in the wind somewhere, and that even her own family wasn't sure where she was or what she was up to. He showed the cops his phone with Carrie's texts, and he said, look, I've been thinking about coming to you guys about this. So when you find her, please tell her to leave me alone. Police weren't sure what was going on. They had a case of child abandonment, for one thing.

She left Max with only a text to her mom to ask her to look after him. And obviously, they had a missing person's report on Carrie. Now, they found out that they also had a potential stalking and harassment situation to look into, too. Like, where do you even start? You know what's scary about this, too, is that. But from Dave's perspective, like, you've got to be thinking, like, she's just, like, hold up somewhere focusing all her energy on me. That's the scary thing about this, which stalkers have been known to do.

And when you get to that level, that's when shit's going to start escalating. And when you know that obsession is just settled in to the point where there's nothing else getting in the way, like, not my kid, you know, not my family, not my old life. My focus now is you. Yikes. Right. It's terrifying. And, like, just not knowing where her general vicinity is, like, she could just show up.

Oh, absolutely. It's really scary. Especially since she's already started sending him pictures of his own apartment windows and stuff. Yeah. She's not in Kansas. So they talked to Carrie's mom who told them that Carrie had struggled with bipolar disorder for years, and sometimes she'd go off her meds. This is a true crime campfire reminder to take your meds.

Mids. Yep. So this wasn't the first time she dropped off the map. Carrie's family and friends had all gone weeks or months without hearing from her when she'd have depressive episodes. Her habit was to withdraw when she got like that. Her mom called it hibernating. Stress would often bring on these episodes and Carrie had been under huge stress at work. That big project that she'd been working on, the one with all the late nights that had her staying over at Dave's for a week in November, it had stressed her out a lot. She was still new to her job, and she wanted to impress, and this project was a huge responsibility. So Carrie's mom figured that there was a good chance she was off her meds and that this was either a manic or depressive episode. And that

seemed even more likely the day after that interview with police. Carrie's mom got a text from carry with a picture of a check attached. The check was made out to carry for $5,000. On the four line, it said bedroom set. The text said, mom, I sold my furniture. Please let this person into my house to get it. The check was signed by Shanna Gawyer. Liz Gawleyer's given name. She went by Liz, which I'm assuming was her middle name. This is Dave's ex, Liz. So this is the one that Carrie had the run-in with and called a bitch, right, when she showed up to pick up her stuff? Yeah.

Yeah. Right. And the one who got shot in the leg at the beginning of the episode. Right. Right. So what the fuck? This was an odd development. So the investigators went to go talk to Liz, and Liz was baffled by the whole thing.

She told them, uh, I didn't buy any furniture from that woman. I'm scared of her. Wow. Yeah. In fact, I'm afraid she's going to hurt me or my kids. Yikes. And Liz had been getting harassing texts from Carrie, too. She showed them one that said,

If you don't shut your mouth, I will slit your throat. Don't fuck with me, bitch. You're the one he doesn't want to be with. He always said I was better. Okay. Here are a few more examples of the charming misspelled texts. Carrie sent Liz. And by the way, she sent all of this in the span of a few minutes.

He always said you wear, misspelled were, crazy, and that you destroyed his couch. He never cared for you. All you were was a piece of ass, signed, Dave loves me, exclamation point. Oh, boy. Next text. If I were you, I'd leave him. You are just a fucking whore to him, and that is what he called you. He loves me.

He told me that last time I was with him, that you wear, again. wrong one, that you wear gross and nasty. He just, he said he just used you for money and sex till something better came along, which was me. Dave loves me. Wow. Right. You never see Dave again and he comes back to me. If not, then me killing you and permanently removing you and I will get him back. I can win him over. Just go away. I am back in the picture and everyone else is better for him than your whoring ass. Jeez, Louise. And icing on the cake, Carrie sent Liz pictures of her children.

Taken from outside Liz's house. One said, I'm watching you. I can see you. You'd better watch your back. That's scary. It's fucking terrifying. Oh, God, I need to make sure my windows are close. So, of course, if you're,

Your aim is to woo someone. This is not the ideal approach. People tend, oddly enough, not to fall madly in love with the person who's stalking and threatening them and their exes. They don't. No. Are you sure? I'm pretty sure. Because you just double-checked that, though, because if otherwise I might need to make a couple apologies after this recording to saying, dang, I wish I'd known this, you know, years ago.

Okay, never mind. Yeah, it's not a great look, weirdly enough. It doesn't make you look stable or like a good romantic partner. It doesn't make you look stable to send your romantic rival of surveillance photo of their children and say, I'm watching you. You'd better watch your back. Oh, God. It's just, oh, so creepy. And in Dave and Liz's case, it's clear that Carrie's objective was to drive a wedge between them. But in reality, the opposite was taking place. Yeah, because here's the thing. Nothing unites like a common enemy, y'all. That is the whole plot of Independence Day. And, you know, all we needed was an alien invasion to bring all the peoples of the earth together.

See? It's the gospel of Independence Day. And unsurprisingly, all this scary stalking and harassment was bringing Liz and Dave closer together. So Carrie is not getting what she wants here at all. They had a common problem and a common foe. and eventually it just drew them right back together. And Liz and Dave would often be sitting together at Dave's house, watching a movie or having dinner or something,

and the nasty text would just start rolling in to both of their phones, like Dave's phone would ping, and then Liz's phone would ping, as though Carrie knew that they were there together. And, of course, this is super creepy, and they would comfort each other and commiserate about what to do. And between the two of them, there were literally thousands of e-mail.

and texts. And Liz forwarded all hers to Dave and they were forwarding all of them to the police at this point. And since there were direct threats in some of the texts and pictures of the kids, the police were taken it pretty seriously by now. They figured maybe Carrie's social media would be a good place to start and trying to track her down. So they found a profile on Facebook and a few different dating profiles and several different cell phone numbers associated with Carrie Farver. But unfortunately none of them revealed where she was and the sense of urgency to find her was about to ramp up because on january 10th 2013 dave saw carrie's black truck parked outside the front door of his apartment and it had definitely not been there when he left that morning so he called

police who impounded it and took it to the CSIs for processing now this is about two months after she went missing right the truck was really clean so they didn't find much of anything not any fingerprints, except one, which was on a mint container in the center console. And when they ran the print through APHIS, which is the fingerprint database, they didn't get any hits. And interestingly, it didn't even match Carrie's prints, which were on file. So they basically got nothing from the truck, unfortunately, and the harassment escalated even more over the next few months. Liz filed police report after police report. Carrie had vandalized her cars.

She'd broken into her garage and spray painted horror from Dave all over the walls. Like huge black spray paint horror from Dave. But there wasn't any direct evidence to prove that Carrie was the culprit. So all the police could really do was just take the reports and file them away, which is still important. I mean, you should still make those reports. But this is unfortunately pretty typical in stalking cases. Unless you have video proof, some kind of physical evidence. or a confession, an admission on tape or something,

or you can catch the person in the act. You're not always going to get a lot in terms of police assistance. And people have actually been told, you know, look, the law is limited. We pretty much can't do anything unless he slash he slash they hurt you, which is really frustrating for victims, obviously. Now, that does not mean that you shouldn't involve the police if you're being stalked. You absolutely should because you need to document everything and have a everything on record. It's just that in many states the laws are so limited that until the

stalker actually does something to try to harm you, the cop's hands are tied. Even if they want to help, they just can't. There's no, you know, legislation in place for it. Now, the laws are better than they used to be, and some states have better laws than others. So, you know, obviously if you're in this situation, you should check and see what the laws are like in your state. It's something that's kind of still developing. So anywho, it was ramping up worse and worse. There's vandalism going on, just a constant barrage of text and emails. And then on August 17th, 2013, Dave got an email at about 1230 a.m. from Carrie. And it said, and this must have made his blood run cold, I'm burning Liz's house down right now. I hope she and her kids are there,

so they all die. All right. Carrie, massive mistake. What kind of Bush League crap is this? Let's not give the victims a warning before you try to kill. kill them. Right? It's murder 101 campers. Duh. That's not really that smart, but when somebody's in the throes of obsession, God only knows what they're going to do. So a few minutes later, Liz called Dave in a panic, and lo behold, her house was on fire. And fortunately, she and her kids weren't at home at the time, but the fire was clearly an arson. There was obvious accelerant used, so obviously Carrie did what she said she was going to do. And Dave, of course, rushed over to be with Liz. The house was pretty well destroyed, but she was able to salvage a few things,

and Dave helped her load them into her car. Liz was so freaked out that she actually wouldn't tell Dave where she was going to stay. She didn't want Carrie to find out, and they were both so wound up and paranoid from all of this stuff that they felt like if Dave knew where Liz and her kids were, Carrie might find out. And Dave actually agreed with her and said, you know, you're right, like just go into hiding. So they hugged outside the smoldering wreckage of Liz's house, and Liz and her kids took off. So now the woman has lost her home to this stalker. So now you've got to be running scared.

But fortunately, after the fire, for some reason, things died down a little bit. Carrie was still emailing Dave every day, but it went from dozens of times a day to maybe three or four times a day for periods of time, which is still a lot, but I mean, compared to like getting 36 emails in a day, getting three, that's died down quite a bit. And then it dropped off to a point where he wouldn't hear from her at all for a little while. And I imagine this was both really wonderful and kind of scary for Dave and Liz. And you see this in stalking cases sometimes where the stalker will just go dormant for days, weeks, months, sometimes even years, because stalkers can have

incredible staying power. And I've heard of stalking cases where the stalker has literally gone on for decades. It's so scary. It's like, you know, you'd want to hope that maybe your nightmare was over, but you'd be afraid to hope to. So they tried to get on with their lives and with their relationship, which was back on now, but the shadow of Carrie and her threats was always in the background. So you could never fully relax. You know, it's just like in the Cindy James episode where, you know, for six and a half years, she's being constantly harassed and threatened and it would stop sometimes and she'd think can I relax can I unclench and then it would start up again and I almost wonder if it's part of the the torture if that's part of the game

like are they doing it on purpose sometimes like let me let you get comfortable and then I'll ramp it up again right so meanwhile Carrie's family was still wondering how she was where she was living in Kansas how her new job was going why she hadn't been in touch in over 10 months her son Max was just confused and hurt. You know, this was the first time in his life, really, that his mom wasn't a part of his day-to-day routine. She'd missed birthdays. She'd missed football games.

She missed Max's high school graduation. She missed her father's funeral at one point. And they just couldn't figure out, you know, what was it that broke her so badly that she would want to stay out of contact like this? Again, it's obsession. It's like it just steam rolls. over everything. And eventually, investigators showed Carrie's family some of the texts and emails that

Carrie had sent Dave and Liz. And on the one level, this sort of helped explain things, like, okay, she's obsessing over the sky. She's gone off her meds. She's having a manic episode or something, and she's, like, fixated on this relationship. But on the other hand, it was confusing because the text, they didn't sound like Carrie. to Carrie's mom. Right.

Carrie's mom even said to the investigators, this isn't really how Carrie talks, and all these grammar and spelling errors, Carrie doesn't make mistakes like that. She's really smart. She uses proper grammar. So that was weird. And Carrie's mom also couldn't really imagine

her daughter calling someone a, quote, fat whore like this person was calling Liz Goliar. She couldn't imagine her saying she hoped someone's kids burned to death or setting somebody's house on fire. It just didn't fit. but then nothing about this situation fit and bipolar disorder can make people behave in erratic, unexpected ways

and like we said earlier this was certainly not the first time Carrie had dropped off the map so nobody in Carrie's family knew what to think you know the only real difference here was that Max wasn't with her but Max was a teenager now so you know it was they went back and forth quite a bit and then at one point Carrie's teenage son Max sent carry a message through Facebook and he said, I have

three questions for you and the first was what's my middle name the second was what was our boxer dog's name and the third was who was my best friend growing up so obviously what Max is doing here is checking to see

is this person who's running this Facebook profile really my mom because... What a smart kid? Yeah, oh definitely he is. He takes after Carrie, obviously, in her genius IQ. And Carrie never responded. And Max didn't know.

Did she just not see it? Or did she not respond because whoever was running that profile couldn't answer those questions? He didn't know. But Carrie's mom started to worry that maybe Carrie had been abducted and that somebody else might be using her social

media and her phone to keep the family thinking she was okay. Now that is a terrifying thought. and we're going to leave it there for part one campers but because we release both parts of an episode on the same day feel free to move right on to part two if you want to or you can save it for later whatever floats your boat but for now lock your doors light your lights and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire you can follow us on twitter at tc campfire instagram at true crime campfire and be sure to like our facebook page if you want to support the show and get access to extra please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash true crime campfire.