Something About Cari - Ep. 2: Bait and Switch

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Some people call this a twisted love story. I think it's true love. To see that this case took a turn, no one expected is really the understatement of my career. Nobody saw this coming. Dateline Friday night at 9-8-Central, only on NBC. Dave Krueper. A man raised in a strict southern Baptist household who'd done a 180 on the subject of monogamy hated the whole idea of it sounded like he was almost, almost, ready to use the ill word. As in love, to describe his feelings for Kerry Farmer. But as the mechanic told the detectives, a suddenly is a blown rod through an engine block. It all came to a sudden stop. Because? Well, on that morning of November 13, just three hours after walking out the door in his happy haze, having hit the power ball as he put it with a woman who seemed to fear commitment as much as he did, his phone chirped. Text message. It was like a needle in a big fat balloon. By 10 o'clock, I receive a text from her that says, do you want to move in with me? Or should we need to move in together or something along those lines? But immediately I text the bag, no. I'm not interested. We've known each other two weeks. It's not going to happen. As soon as I text her bag, I get a text bag that says, fine, I don't ever want to see you again. Go away. I'm dating to somebody else. I hate you. On and on and on and on and on. Weird. Very weird. Very what is going on here. But I was at work. It was very busy. I didn't have time for that nonsense. So in the back of my mind, I'm taking, phew, had dodged a bullet there. But Dave hadn't dodged a thing. And now he was, when he was confused, the man who liked his sex life uncommitted. And apparently, once again, found a woman who expected way more than he was ready to give, wanted to lock him down. And now was acting like a woman scorned. Because he told the cops, ever since he told Kerry she couldn't move in with him. On the eight days it followed, she'd been making his life miserable, refusing to answer his calls, responding to text messages with a non-stop staccato of angry often misspelled messages in return. And now, that name, just like the old movie about the possessed prom queen from the 1970s, is sound of like Dave's personal horror show. So this is the woman from Hell now. All of a sudden. Yeah. Or in a course of a couple of hours. Wow. I'm Keith Morrison. And this is something about Kerry, a podcast from Dateline. Episode two, bait and switch. Dave Crouper hadn't seen Kerry since the morning he left her at his place eight days before. As he choked those cops with their police man eyes. Hey, man, I don't know where she's at, but I've got nothing to do with it. It's, yeah, I'm back pedaling as fast as I can. I don't know where she's at. I don't want to know where she's at at that point. I just want her to go away. And to back up his claim, Dave said he had nothing to hide, showed detectives his cell phone, showed them all the texts and emails Kerry had sent him. Do you think they believed you when you said you didn't know where she was? I'm 100% believe me. And then the strangest thing, one of the detectives phones lit up. It was a text to the cop from Kerry. We had a voice act to read the messages from Kerry. I would really appreciate if you could leave Dave Crouper out of it. What in heaven's name was going on? So what was the cop to do in this bizarro world? Reply, of course. So he typed out these words. Here's Corporal Ryan Avis. We can't stop looking into it. We need to locate you in the missing person. Entry won't be taken out until someone talks to you in person to where we know you are okay. Did she respond to that? She said it was pointless. She didn't want to be found. Exactly. And then another text, more ominous this time. I want one person to go away for destroying everything for me. Twilight Zone material. But who did she want to go away? The only thing Dave could figure was that woman who'd awkwardly showed up the night Kerry first went to Dave's place. For some reason, Kerry seemed to be blaming her for interfering somehow. And who was it? So I'd go out to the security door and there's Liz. The woman was Liz Gahlier. Remember her? She's the check-writing furniture buying woman who told police where to find Dave. He said, Liz, swore up and down to police. She never wrote such a check. In fact, she said somebody stole her checkbook. And so the thief must have written it. Kind of made sense to police. Kerry, perhaps in the throes of a mental health crisis, steals Liz's checkbook and then forges a check for five grand just to mess with the woman who once shared a bed with Dave Krueger. But that wasn't the only way Kerry messed with her, said Liz. When she went out to her garage to a car, she found, scrolled on the wall. The words, horror from Dave. Well, that sealed it. It had to have been Kerry, all of it. The takethes are used to strange things. But this though, this was among the strangest of all. Detectives, Doty and Avis. Very out of the ordinary. Yeah, like maybe she'd had a breakdown or something, a psychotic episode. That would be the only answer. Ten days after Kerry's disappearance, Liz filed a police report in Omaha. And that meant Kerry Farber was now a suspected stalker. Not the stalking or harassment, whatever it was. Didn't stop. It got worse. Dave told police that graffiti was sprayed on his car and on his place of work, his garage. But like all my employees knew all about it and kept a vigilant watch for Kerry around the shop and around the parking lot and the bar next door. They all had a description over and knew who she was and the tobacco shop next to them and my apartment managers were I lived and the main is jazz. Everybody had their eyes open. Because these texts and emails were getting much more issues and threatening. All the time. And at the apartment complex, I lost two or three windows and frankly they're tired of paying for them. Really? So smash windows more than once. Oh yes. Yeah. What was it like to come home and find that? How is it? I mean, would she even know or something? Or just I would get a text or an email that said, Ha, Ha, I did this with a picture of what happened. But back home across the Missouri River from Omaha in Bala Wala, Bikawa, Yaya, Kerry was still just missing and her family was very worried. Kerry's mother heard about the threatening texts, the harassment. The police report filed against her daughter didn't sound like her Kerry. Unless Kerry had some sort of psychotic break. That's his protective instinct had her doubting everybody. I got a little callous towards the authorities thinking that I didn't think they were doing quite as what they should have been doing. Did you get the feeling you just want to get in there and storm the barricades and make something happen? Yeah. But again, I didn't know how much I could do and I didn't know where to start. After that time, it had been almost two weeks since I had seen Kerry. Thanksgiving was a day away. When Nancy sent her a message on Facebook, she invited Kerry to be at the usual big family dinner. She wrote this, I have got a roast in the crock pot and we will eat about six. We're going to dad's for Thanksgiving and eating about noon or one. We love you, Kerry. The Kerry didn't respond to that one. Didn't show up for Thanksgiving dinner either. And then just a couple of weeks later, Nancy's ex-husband Kerry's father died of cancer. Kerry didn't attend the funeral. Instead, she apologized on Facebook. I am so sorry I missed the funeral. And also made another bizarre post on Facebook. Dave Krupa proposed to me. I said yes. What in heaven's name was going on? Nancy once again called the Potta Waterma County Iowa Sheriff's Office. And after that, detectives called Dave. Here is that phone call. Dave, have you heard anymore about what's going on with Kerry or anything? Well, she's been steady texting and eating a lot of what not the whole time. Okay. She's letting everybody know that you guys are in Gigi's know. Are you guys getting married? No, no. I thought I'm pretty much to okay, but I used to be getting text messages instead of former. Oh, yeah. Okay. So I tried to talk to her a little bit and ate an email or ate time that text must have to do later. It gets pretty good. So, okay. I won't talk to her for a couple of days and I'll start older. In fact, Dave said the hail of texts and emails seemed to be getting thicker. I went in 50, 60 a day. A day? Yeah, all day long. At one point, running in my phone completely useless, it would just be digging in so much I couldn't answer phone or send a text. But you want to change your phone number, wouldn't it? Did that a couple of times? You did. And they still kept coming. They did. Dave did see moments of clarity though. Occasionally, Kerry's texts seemed almost normal. I know I ruined it. I tell myself, don't be crazy, this guy was nice to you. But something takes over. But mostly, the emails and text messages were angry rants about perceived romantic rivals, one in particular, Liz Gawyer. She is a whore. You shouldn't be with someone like that. I hope we can see each other soon. Really? Dave thought? See each other? Like everything was just normal again? Even Dave's confusion, normally deepened when he started noticing something else. Very creepy. Kerry's into the watching is every move. It was very common for me to get messages, emails from whatever they say, oh, I see you through your window, you're doing this and I do, I am doing this. Okay, great. And I'd haul a house outside and go looking for somebody, because somebody knows what I'm doing. Even more disturbing, Kerry messaged Dave that she had taken his extra apartment key, that had been letting herself in when he wasn't there. Liz got unsettling emails too. I'm out in your garage, so what should I do to your car? I see my handy-work is still in the wall. Included with that email, a photo of Liz's car to prove Kerry was there. And then things felt really bizarre, because in a text message today, Kerry claimed that she had up the ante now by actually kidnapping Liz. You will do exactly as I say and then I will let her go. Do it or say goodbye to her. And there was another photo too, a woman bound with ropes. You couldn't really see her face, but was that Liz? Dave didn't believe it. I told her, yes, that's truck of crap. I don't believe you, go away, leave me alone. But no, instead she texted she was moving to an apartment building near Dave's place. Yes, a couple buildings away. Why does that bother you? I'm only doing month to month until I find something else. Dave told the cops, of course, they went looking for Kerry. And the building number was correct, but the apartment number did not exist. So what was she up to? Kerry was still nowhere to be found. But near the apartment complex, Dave found something that, wonder of wonders, he knew his new show animal control. He asked for four bottles of Washington State wine for our interview. He has news about whether there's a community movie coming. He tells the story of how he got one of his first big acting gigs by lying about his height. And you have to stay through the credits. He's so funny. We have behind the scenes bloopers and outtakes from our conversation. Hope you'll listen and follow the drink wherever you get your podcasts. As the day wraps up, get this scoop on what's been happening. With Here's the scoop, a new podcast from NBC News with me, your host, Gazzmy Vesougin. We'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News' trusted journalist. It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful, and informative, bringing you closer to the headlines and conversations that are shaping our world. From the front page to the zeitgeist, Here's the scoop from NBC News. Listen daily on Apple Podcasts. Never needed to be persuaded that bad things can happen anywhere than take a journey with us. From compelling mysteries to in-depth investigations, our Dateline episodes are available as podcasts. You can hear the latest stories every Tuesday. For more follow Dateline NBC on Amazon Music or just ask Alexa, play the podcast Dateline NBC on Amazon Music. Great storytelling with a twist from the True Crime Original. It was Christmas 2012, six weeks after Carrie Farver vanished, the parts unknown. Back in Macedonia, Iowa, Carrie's now 15-year-old son, Max, had watched his birthday come and go without a peep from his mom. And now he's spending the holidays with his grandmother, watching the snow gather in ever higher piles, and wishing with all his heart that his mom would just walk back through the door and end the torture. What was it like at Christmas time without her? That was hard. That was hard. Christmas had once been a magical time of year for Max, here in Macedonia, a celebration of his amazing bond with his mother, a little things like their family's gift-opening traditions. At our house, instead of everyone just kind of going at once, we go by age and do rounds at Christmas and just going from me to grandma to see Ron. Well, it was raw. And he kind of had the bottle adapt, didn't you? Kind of. It was heartbreaking too for Carrie's mom, Max's grandma Nancy, that of course she was worried, very worried about Max. He didn't show his emotion too much to me because he knew that I was, I was really worried, but I found out from his girlfriend's mother that he would go over to her house after school and stuff to his girlfriend's house. And her mother told me that he did a lot of crying at their house. That bothered me, of course. So bothered and kicking himself daily for ever hearing the name Carrie Farver, Dave Crouple. He, the last person she saw before all the madness, he was still getting text messages from her, text that were driving Dave crazy. The blizzards hitting Omaha's fall slid into winter, were nothing in comparison. And worse said Dave, the skin crawling feeling that Carrie was stalking him, spying on him. Always like a ghost when he looked she was gone. And then one day, January 2013, about two months after Carrie was last seen, Dave was making the short drive from work to home in West Omaha. I'm coming through the park a lot and I noticed the truck there because it still had all the snow on it. And when I got up close and my car was just on its floor, oh it's the right colored. So I called the sheriff and said I'm pretty sure found her truck. He had, alright, it was Carrie's SUV. The black one she brought in for him to fix when the two locked eyes for the first time. The one Carrie's mom had reported stolen when she made the missing person's report. Somehow everyone who'd been looking for Carrie had missed her Ford Explorer, covered by snow as it was. But a water-made county sheriff's office sergeant, Jim Doaty, they impounded it. We had a crime scene tech process it and it was really clean. They did a thorough investigation. Yeah, they dusted it for prints and they found a fingerprint inside and recovered that. That fingerprint was found on a mint container in the cup holder of the SUV. They ran the prints through the national database. They didn't get a hit though. Then as winter turned to spring in April, now five months after the craziness with Carrie began, there was a sudden bit of hope. It started with another text by Carrie to Dave. She types to me saying she had nowhere to go, she's homeless, she has no money, she's downtown at a shelter. Can somebody please, oh, can you call my mom and tell her I'm here and come get me. And I didn't respond for quite a while, an hour or two I think, because I thought it's just more crap. Finally, I thought, well, if I don't respond, then what kind of person am I? Maybe she's finally ready to come in. And I don't want to be the reason something bad happens. That's his phone rang. Carrie was at this homeless shelter in Omaha and we were to go pick her up. What was happening in here when you were? I was just flutters. I mean, my heart was just racing like crazy. The shelter was about an hour away. Nancy, who hadn't seen her daughter or heard her voice for close to half a year, was too raw up to drive, so she asked her brother to take her. Oh, I was so tense and he was just trying to catch your breath and just... Did you rehearse what you'd say what you saw? Where have you been? Yeah, and I, you know, it's about a carry bin to your home. Sheriff's detective met Nancy at the shelter. He had a photo of Carrie with him. The investigator went into the shelter and showed the picture and wanted to know if there had been anybody there. Like her and they said, no, she hasn't been here. What's that like? Well, then, you know, then your hopes are dashed again. And I just think, oh, here it can she be. Is it a feeling that comes with realizing you're on a wild guess, Sheriff? Yes. And I went home and I thought, I can't live with this anymore. This is just too much. Nancy sat down and said a message to Carrie saying, they came to the shelter to find her, but where was she? No response. But not long after, Carrie wrote this post on Facebook. I am a grown woman and if I feel like leaving home, I have the right. I asked my son Max to come with me, but you didn't want to. So when I am ready to come back home, I will. I love you all very much, but I need time still to sort things out. Almost rational. If a little defensive. At least it was more like the old Carrie, her mom knew. But then, well, then there were more posts like this one. Liz is the hoe that took my boyfriend away from me. Nancy's mind was skittering in every direction like a game of marbles. What if Carrie's disappearance was not what it seemed to be? What if she was being held by a kidnapper? What if somebody stole her identity? Nancy, she was desperate for answers, asked investigators about that very possibility. And they said, yeah, we'll check it out, you know, that kind of thing. They said they did, but nothing came of it. And every time something would pop up online or we'd get a text or something, there was this hope that maybe she's still out there. And maybe one day soon she'd walk back in the door and explain everything. But month after month, after month, she didn't. The detectives seemed to have run out of new avenues to investigate in the case through cold. As for Carrie's teenage son, Max, he was tired of waiting. He was about to do something on his own to find the answer. Hey guys, Willie Geist here. We're celebrating 10 years of Sunday today by hosting a very special Sunday sit-down live event. And our guest is one of the biggest stars on the planet. Ryan Reynolds, we're taking our conversation to the stage in front of an audience of you for one night only at City Winery in New York on April 7th and intimate in person. Evening, I promise you won't want to miss tickets are limited. So grab yours now at today.com. He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention. They made a life together. Then one night the Marine died. And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Megowitz and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from Dateline. Listen for free each week or unlock new episodes early and enjoy ad free listening by subscribing to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts. I had a week after week after week. Help us to do anything at all but worry. They were expected somehow to go on day after day as if the more mundane things of life mattered any more at all. The way they used to. Herculean Endeavor for a high school freshman in the spring of 2013. We knew we couldn't do anything about it. So we just kind of let it run its course and hope for the best. Kerry had been gone for half a year from their historic farmhouse in Little Macedonia, Iowa. When one day, Max Farver opened his Facebook account and his stomach flipped. There was a message, a name really, that was all. And it had to be from her. That kind of got to me because the Facebook called me, my message called me short-round. Which my mom would use the name short-round and short-cake for me. Just well until I got to her height, but that's what she used to call me. And that's what it said on the Facebook post? So that kind of got to me at first. So I didn't reply for a couple days in that one. But then Max summoned up all his nerve and tried something. He pulled out Facebook, then messenger, found his mom's page, and sent her a one-word message. All it said was, hi. And then he waited. Waited for hours. No answer. It wasn't until the following day that he opened it up again and there it was. Hey little man, how are you? Max took a deep breath, tried to tamp down panic. She had never used that nickname for him before, little man. So what did that mean? He waited, paralyzed, couldn't think, couldn't do much of anything. And then finally, 12 days later, Max messaged her back. The time had come to know, was this taunting online presence actually his mother? So Max wrote that he had three questions. First question, what was his middle name? Simple enough, nearly anyone could find that out. Second question, what was the name of the first boxer he and his mom had raised? Boxer is in dog. Things only she would know. Yeah, things only she would know. And finally, Max asked his mom to name his best friend when he was a little kid. He hit send. And then, what was your response? Nothing, I never got a response to that one. But what did that mean that she didn't know the answers? That she didn't want to play Max's little game? He was maddening, demoralizing, certainly for Max and his grandmother. But the long and fruitless investigation had worn down carries long time friends too. Like Amy Long. We shared everything. Amy, Matt Carey in high school, they'd been fast friends for more than 20 years. She was the one person that I was never afraid to share my secrets with. And she was the same with me. We'd laugh together, we'd cry together. Unconditional love and support. And so during those months when Carey was missing, Amy tried everything to get Carey to talk to her. I'd send messages to Carey's cell phone. I'd send her Facebook messages. And most of the time I didn't get a response every now and then there would be a response that would say, I'm taking a break right now. Don't worry. I just need my time right now. But was that Carey's decision? Or was it some controlling guy pulling her strings? Amy knew that Carey's sometimes used dating websites to meet men. They had talked about that. She'd warn Carey. Carey sometimes didn't listen, which raised all kinds of very unpleasant possibilities. I was always afraid that she was going to come across the wrong person dating websites have always scared me. But what Amy and other friends didn't know was that the man Carey had actually met on that dating site, Dave Krupa. Had cooperated with police in every conceivable way. And in fact, Dave had become a victim himself. He had been sent dozens of harassing texts and emails every day. He was being watched. He'd been sent photos to prove it. woke up one morning to find a message scratched on his car in huge letters. Dave loves fat horse. There was no doubt who did it. Because Carey took credit in an email. I keyed your **** car. Let people know you like fat horse. Carey followed that up with. I should cut your heart out like you did to me. In the months since Carey disappeared and started this untethered behavior, Dave, the easy-going car mechanic from Omaha, had become a bundle of nerves. What did that do to you personally? Locked me down socially. I wouldn't would certainly not go out of my way to talk to people in general. Because I didn't know who was going to be who newer. You know, for all I know, I go out and drink at the bar and I'm talking to you and you're front and for Carey and getting my information or whatever. And you know, I was exceptionally paranoid. I just have them looking around every corner, you know, drinking more. Yeah, for a while there, I was drinking heavily, which is not me. There's never been a time in my life where I was a real drinker and I spent... Did you wait change? I spent 30 pounds, 30 pounds. I was drinking until I till the bar closed and going to work at such a clock and one. Wow. It was our one habit that Dave continued despite his experience with Carey. He was still casting about for dates on those dating sites. Where? He found a woman named Angela Manor. Within a day or two of meeting online, Dave and Angela became friends on Facebook. And that is when the harassment started. In Facebook messages from, as she could clearly see, Carey Farver, to Angela. Blocking the person who was sending them to me was not working. She would just make new accounts. And from those accounts, threats to Angela's young children. I had to talk to my oldest son about safety. He was no longer allowed to walk to and from the bus stop by himself. I lost a lot of sleep. If Dave came with that kind of baggage, Angela felt she had no choice. And then within that same day of me unfriending Dave on Facebook, the messages stopped. Just like that. The strangest part? Angela endured all this and never once met Dave Krupa in person. But Angela was not one of Carey's primary targets. That person is someone you've met before. Someone who knew all about harassment. Oh, it's been hours talking about it. Showing each other texts and emails for God. Who else would understand, right? Exactly. Nobody else did understand. But understand what was going to happen next? Unlikely. Very unlikely. Coming up in future episodes of Something About Carey. The first time I was briefed on this case, my first impression was, this is the story for a made for TV movie. I'm a one-do-need police fire or medics fire. I can spot in my house and there it smells rolling out of it. It was basically arson 101. People do things like that. In our line of work, we're never surprised by what people can do. It sounds like you're in the middle of a horror movie or something. Yeah. Did you feel that way? A little bit, yeah. I was blown away. Absolutely blown away. I didn't know what to think. He felt like the road got pulled out from underneath him. Right. Say that's probably pretty close to literally true. Something about Carey is a production of Date, Line, and NBC News. Shane Bishop and Jessica DeVera Lapis are the producers. Brian Drew, Marshall House Feld and Greg Smith are audio editors. Brittany Morris is field producer. Molly DeRosa is assistant producer. Adam Gorfain is co-executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer and Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, Sound Mixing by Rich Cutler. I'm Craig Melford. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half-volt kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. It's really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, challenges, their stories, their funny and my candy. So I hope you'll join me each week and who knows. You might just come away with your own glass half-volt. Search Glass Half-volt with Craig Melford from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.