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You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zupansky. Good Evening, November twenty twelve. Carrie Lee Farber vanished from Omaha, Nebraska, Carey thirty seven.
Was a devoted mother, reliable employee and loyal friend, and not the type to shirk responsibilities, abandoned her son and run off while her dying father took his last breaths.
It appeared that Carrie had dumped her new boyfriend, quit her job, and relinquished custody of her son to her mother and all by text. While Carrie's boyfriend, Dave Crupa, and her supervisor were bewildered by her abrupt disappearance, they accepted the text at face value. Her mother, Nancy Rainey, was alarmed and reported Carrie missing. Police were skepticicle of her claims that a cyber impostor had commandeered her daughter's
phone and online identity. While Nancy was afraid for Carrie, Dave Crupa was growing afraid of her, for he believed
Carrie was stalking him. Never seen or heard, the stalker was aware of his every move and seemed obsessed with his casual girlfriend, Shanna Liz Goler, often calling her a fat horror in the twelve thousand emails in texts he received in a disturbing three year deluge, How did the stalker know Dave's phone numbers immediately after he changed them, the names of his lady friends, even what he wore as he watched TV. He and Liz reported death threats, vandalism,
and burglaries, but the stalker remained at large. The threats for vicious, vile, and often obscene, and sent mostly via text, and always in Carrie's name. There was some truth in the messages, but all one big lie. The culprit was not Carrie. With mesmerizing detail and narrative skill, Leslie Rule tracks every step of the heart pounding path to justice, from a sociopaths twisted past to the deadly deception and the high tech forensics that condemned this Killer to prison.
The book that were featuring this evening is a tangled Web, a cyberstalker, a deadly obsession, and the twisting path to justice with my special guest, journalist and author Leslie Rule. Welcome to the program, and thank you so much for this interview.
Leslie Rule, Thank you for having me.
Dan, thank you so much. And congratulations. I know you were a nonfiction and fictional writer before this, and this is congratulations your true crime debut.
Thank you.
Let's talk about, as you do in the introduction, how you came to be involved in true crime. How you, being Anne Rule's daughter, first got into the we'll say the business. You talk about being a photographer, being in school. Tell us about your first job as photographer and research assistant, as you do in the book. Tell us a little bit about this.
Well. I was seventeen when I started going with my mom to trials to photograph the killers for her articles. Later they were it was for her books, but in the beginning she was writing articles for magazines. So it was a little bit nerve racking my camera and point it in their face. I got a lot of icy glares, but it was also very interesting.
This occupation that you have. Your mother also came to this honestly as well with her grandparents. As you write, tell us about your grandparents and their little mom and pop jail and what that led to in terms of the interest for your mother in terms of crime and true crime.
Well, it was a My mother's grandparents were a powerful influence on her. They lived in Stanton, Michigan, and they ran the mom Pa Jail there. Her grandfather was the sheriff, a sheriff Chris Hansen, and from the time she was a little girl, she spent her summers there and she would sometimes watch her grandfather work. There were all other people in the family uncle, who were also under sheriff, and she would east drop and soak it all in,
and she found it fascinating. She'd thinking, how do they take how do they take a button and trace it back to a killer? And this sparked her interest from the time she was really really young and her grandmother took for the prince prisoners and one of them taught her how to knit, and my mom thought she seemed like such a nice lady. But she was in jail waiting trial for murder, and my mom didn't quite get it. Viola was the woman's name, and she explained it to
my mother. She said, well, it was just to file the homicide. She had caught her husband in the arms of her best friend in the truck. She had bought her husband with tips seemed waitressing, so she shot him and felt it was justified. And my mom didn't really get it. It didn't make sense to her. So that was her first encounter with a deadly sociopath and it really sparked a lifelong interest for her.
You're right that her dream was of being a police officer was fulfilled and she did at twenty eight years old Seattle Police Department. But you tell us that, go ahead.
Oh, she it was her dream job and she wanted to be a police officer more than email. Officers had to wear skirts and heal and they weren't allowed to carry guns. Can you imagine after a criminal in a
skirt and heel. So she was on the job of about eight months and then the yearly physical came around and without her glasses, she was legally blind, and she took the eye test and she couldn't see the biggie even when she was allowed to creep up really close to the chart because the examiner he felt so sorry for her, she still couldn't see it, so she lost her job. The thinking was that if her glass has gotten hooked up in the struggle, she wouldn't be able
to defend herself. I thought it was all right for her to wear a skirt keeled and not have it done, but I guess they didn't like the idea of her losing her glasses on top of all of that. So that was absolutely devastating for her. She wanted it more than anything, and she said she couldn't drive by the little police department for years. She said, detailurs just because
it broke her heart. And then a few years later she started writing articles to support the family and was welcome back to the police department and hung out in the homeside department and her old friends opened their files to her, and that's how she started her career as a crime writer.
Now at the same time she's a successful writer, you're taking photos assisting her in court, and you're her research assistant as well. Talk about and volunteering for a suicide crisis center. Why is that? What was the personal experience that led her to that? And who did she meet working at this crisis center.
Well, one of the most devastating things that ever happened to my mom in her entire life was the loss of her younger brother, her only sibling, to suicide, and she never got over it. She had tried to talk him out of this depression, wasn't able to then. They didn't have medication like they do today. He was a medical student and he was actually very smart, and that he didn't think he was doing well enough and he
took his own life. So this was before I was born, and it was a few years after she had kids that a nonprofit group started the Seattle Christ's Clinic and it was a hotline for troubled people to call. And she thought, well, I couldn't help my brother, maybe I can help someone else. So she went through the program and was trained and they would put people together in teens of two, and so she was teamed up with
who she thought was a very nice young man. His name was Ted Bundy, and together she and Tad worked the hotlines and saved many lives. Back then, if somebody called in and they were in the process of taking their own life, maybe purgency services couldn't get to them as quickly as they could today because they had to trace the call. I mean it could take over an hour, and this was in the nineteen seventies. So they would wait,
they'd be talking to the person. Sometimes the person would pass out prey soon somebody would pick up the phone and say it's okay, or here, we got them and we save them. And so that was that was very satisfying for her because she wasn't able to help her brother, but she kept Bundy receiving the lives of many other people. And she actually found out later that on the ship that he worked by himself, that he would turn off
the phone a nap, so he really wasn't okay. I think the compassion he showed was all en app right.
Now. Interestingly, your mother was offered a book deal, and she got to that point where they said, listen, you can get a book deal. There's some murders in this area. If this person is apprehended, then you get this book deal. And sure enough, this person that she thought her friend was the subject of this man hunt. And later she wrote through groundbreaking true crime classic Stranger Beside Me, And as you write, she didn't let this go to her head.
She just had a modest lifestyle, and you inherited a fascination for dark mysteries. But you wanted to carve out your own niche. You wanted to carve out your own niche, so you didn't do the true crime route. Tell us what you start writing.
About, well, I write about the pair of normal. I have four nonfiction books, a ghosts on top of introducing me to the serial killer when I was fourteen, my mother also raised me in a haunted house, so it was kind of a spooky childhood. But I was fascinated by other worldly things. I actually, when I was a child, I was afraid, but as an adult I just found it really interesting and actually very reassuring to find signs of life after death.
Absolutely. Now, you say that killers have not changed, but their methods have, and they now have an arsenal level electronic devices that they can use to dupe people. But you say they can outsmart them by learning their tricks. You also write that one of the most important things for your mother in her writing was she would save people's lives potentially by showing them how disordinary people could be, very much like Ted Bundy, a real actual threat without
them knowing. So she was most pleased. You say that she could actually save lives as a process of her writing.
Didn't She yes, And she got quite a few letters from people writing to say, your books saved my life. They's got trouble coming and they recognize it because they read about things like that in her books. And that made her so happy. It was doing something very positive because early on, when she first started writing about crime, there was a lot of criticism. This was before it was a popular genre. There really weren't in female was writing about crime, and a lot of people criticized her
for writing about such a dark topic. So when she got to a place where she realized that this was really helping people and saving lives, she felt a whole lot better about it because people shamed her about it. How can you write about such horrible things?
Incredible? Times have changed. Now let's talk about your true crime debut, A Tangled Web. You picked a incredible story, fascinating story, but you say the predator in this case used a different kind of web. Why call this book a tangled web? What is it a metaphor for?
It's a metaphor for the worldwide web and also for the sociopath who was so dangerous. Actually tangled kind of a web around people with her manipulation, so it worked both ways. Don't seemed like the perfect title for what she did.
Let's talk about that and introduce the characters. You talk about Dave Krupa, you say liked women, didn't like commitment, and just ended a twelve year relationship with a woman named Amy Flora and they had two kids together, an amicable split. And this is summer of twenty twelve. Tell us what this Dave thirty four year old Dave Croupa, healthy and attractive. He manages a high attire store. It's a mechanic. Tell us a little bit about Dave Croupa and his life.
Well, he's actually a very nice guy. He was heeared, and he and his longtime partner had a couple of kids together, and it just it's you know about half marriages. Half of the marriages out there don't work. And then they got to the point they actually didn't get married, but they got to the point where their relationship lost all esteem and they parted and it was very painful for him and for Amy, but they remained friends. And he was kind of lonely and he thought, you know,
I've been in a committed relationship for years now. I just want to have a little fun. I just want to meet some interesting women and socialize a little bit, and I just I'm not ready to be tied down. So he went to a website called Plenty of Fish and he signed up, and he started looking at the profile of females in the area, and he done a woman right away that she's found attractive and they was blizh and they met for a coffee date. He didn't know what he'd gotten into.
His philosophy was that he just got to have a long term relationship. So he had said to her that listen, I don't want a commitment. I just want to have some fun. What was her response to that request.
She seemed like she felt the same way. She smiled and nodded and agreed, and he thought that that's what the arrangement was. Unfortunately, she got very possessed up very quickly, and she wanted all his time, and he was very uncomfortable with that. And he told her I'm going to continue to date, and he did, but she that did discourage her. She still suckle out. She still kept coming around.
He actually went as far as to soon while in this relationship, not like really conversing whether, but he really did enjoy the sex. He thought she was kinky and they had but he did say to her, listen, I at some point I don't love you, and I'm not going to love you. He said, is as firm as he could that he did not want have an exclusive relationship, and then he would continue dating. But despite that, what did she do and what did she continue to do?
In the beginning, she was kind of about her desire to be with him exclusively, but as time went on, she started to nag him about it, and she actually became obsessed with the idea that he was hooking up with his ex when he went to pick up his kids. He was not doing that. Their relationship was over and they're simply they've become friends. They were kids together, but she would not believe that, and she was obsessed with that.
And if he had a date, she would call say, hey, you want to get together tonight, and he was very upfront and saying, no, I can't. I've got a date tonight, And he'd come home from work and she'd be sitting there waiting for him, and then she would seduce him, thinking that maybe she's going to wear him out and he wouldn't be interested in anyone else. But he said it didn't slow him down. He was guy in his thirties and so pretty healthy. He didn't even realize in
the beginning what she was doing. It took a few times before he realized, well, wait a minute, she's trying to wear me out.
Wow.
So she did everything she could courage him from seeing other women, but it didn't work in regard to his idea, his statement about that he didn't want to be committed.
Despite that, she proposed a four week commitment trial to see where the relationship would go. Again. Unfortunately, he agreed, well this trial, this.
For weekheartedly agreed just to shut her up. They've been dating for about five six months, and she started writing him texts suggesting that they commit to for four weeks, and she thought that maybe at the end of four weeks he'd be ready for a real commitment. And the first time she suggested it to him, he said no, forget it, and she kept bringing it up, and finally, just to shut her up, you yeah, yeah, whatever. But he was so busy then he really wasn't seeing anybody else.
At that point, he had his kids, he had his job, he had time with her, but he didn't want to be committed to her. And at the end of those four weeks, he actually did go on a date with a woman he met on who he was very attracted to, and that was Carrie Farber.
They met at work, and you say that they didn't meet online, but he was reluctant to approach her at work. But two weeks later he saw her profile and plenty of fish. They contacted each other and she came back into the shop and there's some premise and the exchange numbers and they start going out. Yes, Now, what did Liz do when she found out about Carrie Farvar?
She was pretty upset. On the very first day, Dave and Carry met for dinner and they sat down and they were enjoying each other's company and laughing and having drinks, and all of a sudden, his phone started to blow up and it just went on and on. It got like twenty messages in like five minutes, and finally he thought, well, something serious has got to be going on. So he excused himself and went and called Liz back and asked her what was up. And she said, I need to
get some things I left take your apartments. And she insisted that she goes right then and pick up Oh it was like his shirt and the tooth brush and some pots and pans and some things that she really normally didn't care about. And he said, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm on a date. You leave me alone. So he and Cherry finished their dinner and
they went to his apartment. They're going to just kind of hang out and watch TV or play cards, but no, sooner had the enter the apartment when the buzzer on the security door starts going off. And he could ignore the cell phone but not that so he couldn't talk to Live through the intercom because it was broken. So he went out to the door and she was standing there with tears streaming down her face, insisting that she had to come in right then and I'm getting get
her stuff, and he just gave up. You aren't any mean, told Jerry said, I'm sorry, but I have a situation here and this other woman I'm dating is upset and she has a really good sport about it, and Jerry, that's okay. You know, we've both been there. Let me know when you get it worked out. So she left and Liz came in and wanted to get into an argument with Dad. Now he just wanted her to go. He was really frustrated because of his date with Cherry
was ruined and now he had Liz up set. And finally she left and he Cherry and she invited him to her place. So they actually ended up having you know, a nice date that first night together, and they hung out at Terry Sauce. But I don't hello it is Ryan.
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I think they were alone. I think there was probably someone working outside quitball them.
You talk about that. Liz was also adamant that now on November tenth, she asked if they could get together sometime, but also that she was had some pots and pans at the house, so he offered instead of her coming over, for him to deliver those. When he delivered those pots and pans, what happened.
He barely made it in the door, and she excused him, and he said, hey, you know, one last time, you know, almost like goodbuye and you know, have a little fun. And he and Cherry were not in a committed relationship. She felt the way he did that she wasn't ready to be tied down. So it wasn't as if he was cheating on Carrie. And he thought that that would be it. He thought that that would be the end. Unfortunately, she wasn't ready. Liz was not ready to let go.
It was interesting too that shortly after there was a man named Sam Carver. We're talking about Facebook now. He asked to be Carrie Farver's friend on Facebook. And they were from a small place. Macedonia is very small she didn't know him. She contact and said do I know you? And he said, well, I know you. But what was interesting is, and this will be important later he spelled Macedonia, the place he lived in incorrectly.
Yes. Yes, And that was a little suspicious to her, and she didn't accept or reject his friend request. I think she was ruling them around.
Now, this relationship with Dave and Carrie is going at a pretty good pace. They're really enjoying each other and they're staying with each other. There was a situation where she wanted to stay at the apartment. She had a big job and she'd be closer to her work, and her son Maxwell stayed with her with her mother Nancy. This had only been two weeks since her first date with Dave. Now we're talking about Tuesday, November thirteenth, twenty twelve. She got up early and Dave had to be worked
for six thirty. She was a computer coder at this West corporation, so she got up early and did some coding for work. What happens later when Carrie is supposed to show up at work.
What happens, Well, she doesn't show up, and they were right in the middle of a big project, and her supervisor was surprised because Carrie was very dependable, and so she called and there was no answer, and she kept calling all day and there was no work from her at all.
InCred Well, what about Carrie's mom, Nancy, she was taking care of her son. What happened? She hasn't heard for a couple of days.
Yeah, Nancy was very concerned because she talked to Carrie almost every day. They were very, very close, and all of a sudden, she's getting these texts that are coming from Carrie's number, and they don't really sound like Carrie. For one thing, Carrie was meticulous us with grammar and punctuation, and she would never send a text until it was perfect. And so suddenly here come these texts with these these misspelled words and really come not Cherry style at all.
And she's saying that she's going to quit her job and move away. And her mother was really shocked to hear that. She wasn't quite sure what was going on.
She called police, did police she showed them the text? What did police have to say about her concerns?
Well, they were they were polite, but they didn't think it was really caused or alarm, and really most of the time when adults are reported missing, they were okay. So it was sort of a logical conclusion for them because they didn't really know Nancy and they didn't know that, you know, she wasn't want to raise an alarm without cause. And they politely took the information, but they didn't at
that point to any deep investigation did. They checked out a few things, and they soon learned that some vandalism had been reported in Omaha and that Carrie was being
blamed for that. So they thought that maybe Carrie looked out told her mother, you know, we see this all the time, people stopped kicking their meds, you know, and they lose it, and she probably does how to break down, and her set didn't sound right to her mother, but she wanted to believe it was that because the other things she was thinking were so much worse.
Right at the same time, unbeknownst to Nancy and Dave is receiving texts apparently from Carrie. What kind of messages is he getting and what is he noticing in terms of spelling and grammar as well?
Well. Dave left Cherrie at his apartment that first morning, and she's not a comfort her and he went to work and mid morning he got a text from her saying let's move in together. And that struck him as odd because he made such a point with her that he wanted to be free and he thought she felt the same, and so he said, no, we were not going to do that, and he received back a very rude text basically breaking up with him. Done him because
it really didn't sound like Carrie. But heret the message came from her phone, and at that point he didn't he didn't question it. He just thought, well, maybe I didn't know whose lady as well as I thought, because they'd been dating a couple of weeks and people are on their best behavior in the beginning, and so he was kind of rattled by it, but he accepted it and he thought they'd broken up.
Nancy had a different situation when she listened to these texts or read these texts, in that she just wanted to talk to her daughter. In that regard, what did she say to her daughter via those texts to try to elicit a response that she wanted.
She said, I've really wanted to hear your voice. I need you to call you know, this isn't talking. I need to hear you, because she was doubting that it was Carrie. It didn't sound her daughter. It was a very spot coming in, we're very rude.
One thing that they announced as well of the detective, our Deputy Sheriff Phillips is involved in another detective Ron Ambrose, the interview with workers that worked with Carrie, and they said no sign that she might have been thinking of leading or there was any problem whatsoever. Then Carrie's supervisor got a text. What was it said in that text? And then what was the recommendation apparently made by Carrie?
The text said that Carrie was quitting without notice. It was supposedly from Carrie. It came from her number and said I'm and replacement over her name is is uh Shanna Golier, Janna loves. They thought that was odd because you don't name your own replacement. Was it was a They have a very grueling hiring process. It involves a lot of interviews. People have to be qualified, and they they they're not hired by a friend or by somebody who you know who's quittings. So they thought it was
really strange, you know. They they hadn't Carrie had worked he for a few months and they hadn't known her all that long. From what they knew of her, she was really responsible and a good worker, but nobody knew her as well. Her family did, as well as her mother did her. Her mother and son were the only ones who are initially really alarmed, and also her her stepfather, the people who knew her the best. But the rest of the world seemed to be bored with the idea that she just flipped out.
To add credence to this these texts, she also or the Carrie apparently also texted Deputy Phillips what did she What did she say in that text to Deputy Phillips.
Well, when the detectives, you know, started nosing around in Omaha, they talked today they actually came up with the name was Golier because Nancy Raey had received a photograph of a check for five thousand dollars from Simmar named his Gowlier, and it came from Cherry's phone and it said, Hey, Mom, I sold my furniture. I want you to let this person in the house to come get my stuff, and Nancy refused. So because they had this name, the detectives
did go to Liza's house. They left a message for her, and Liz called them back and said, yes, there's this little then flipped out and you know, she's stalking Moose and broke into my garage and she stole on my checks and you know, she wrote on the wall. And so the detective thought, well, this confirms what we've been thinking as Carrie has flipped out, And then they went
and talked with Daves. And shortly after that the detective actually been trying to reach Carrie and was calling her phone and he got a text message saying that, you know, I wanted to leave day alone. My mother ever reacted, you know, I'm bye blah blah blah, so that she like, yeah, and sence she was. She said some kind of the text said some kind of threatening things about Liz. So the police thought, wow, Carrie seems like she's you know,
she's really aggressive toward live. We better warn live. So they told Liz, well, maybe you should get a restraining order. And they wondered, you know, this could be a dangerous situation. They didn't Cherry, you know, they didn't know that she was a kind, thoughtful person who had never hurt anybody in her life. All they knew was what they were hearing from Nancy and Terrie's moms. And of course the mother is always going to say there's things about their kids.
So I think the priest don't take what parents say at face value. And they're listening to Today and Liz telling them about these food checks that they're receiving. So they accepted the idea that Dick Cherry was causing trouble.
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that helps support a healthy foundation for your body. Visit ritual dot com slash murder to start your Ritual today. That's ten percent off during your first three months at ritual dot com. Slash murder. Now, Leslie, we have this situation where the police believe that Carrie isn't taking her meds and that she's having a breakdown, and that Liz is in danger, and they believe the ruse that this stalker,
this person is putting forth. What happens next in terms of the escalation of the texts from Liz and the relationship that she's trying to force upon Dave, how does that fair?
Well? Actually, thousands and thousands text and emails are sent, and over the next years in Live and Dave had had parted ways, and because she was so upset about Terry that now they were bonding because they were both seemingly be stopped by a crazy person, and so they started seeing each other again. And Liz told them, oh, she's you know, she's scared, and you know, why come? You know, I'm so scared of this pratty woman is you know, after me? And why couldn't you have just
been satisfied with what you had? You had to go and buy this lunatic into our lives? And and Day felt horrible because she thought, well, look, what I've done. You know, I dated somebody who's causing problems for the people I know, because she also thought the stocker was actually also sending messages to Amy his ax, and some of the messages were really threatening. He got worried about
his kids, I mean his kids. I would come over and watched them very very carefully, even though they were older, they were preteens. That he got very worried because it seemed like that somebody with a screw loose was set on pausing him harm.
At the same time that he would have problems with Liz, and again her jealousy would come to the forefront, so he would they would take a pause in their relationship. He continued to date and meet women online. Those women that he met what was characterized by soon after he met them and had a relationship with them, what would.
Happen anytime he dated somebody or even message with them online, they would receive streats from his stalker. And it understandably they were upset and they were interested in dating him. When he came with a stalker, it was pretty scary to them. So he found that there was only one person who was loyal, only one person who would stand by his side, and that was Liz, And Liz was not deterred by the stretch from the stalker, and so he was grateful to her for that because she was
sticking around and nobody else would. But he still didn't want he didn't love her, He didn't want to be in a long time relationship with her. She was okay company, you know, and they had something in common now they
were both being stopped. So that was really the basis for their whole relationship, said ninety nine percent of the time, they were talking about the stalker, talking about how they could the stalker, talking about what the stalker was going to do next, And that was their whole life was dealing with this and thinking about it and talking about it.
Meanwhile, in this story, there's a person named Garrett Sloan and he works at the IT department at this part of what Tommy County. But he's also in a relationship with someone for well maybe a fair amount of time, and tell us about this relationship that he believes he's in and what he thinks and his meeting with Liz, well.
He actually he met he met a woman online also and it happened to be Liz Golier, who was so obsessed with Dave and insisting that Dave crucively yet the whole time. She'd been dating Garrett for the last couple of years, and she kept him the sacret from Dave and me. He was oblivious. Garrett was just a very very nice guy, had no idea that his girlfriend was cheating on him, no idea. He didn't know who Dave
Cooper was. He thought everything was fine. He also was not in love with Live, but he liked her a lot and he hoped that their relationship could develop. That he was not in love.
What did Garrett represent to her and present?
She ard him quite a bit. She helped her out with things. I actually think that if he had given her any reason to be jealous, she would have found him more attractive and would have become obsessed with him too. And I think that for her, the challenge of trying to win a guy is what excited her the most. And because Garrett was a very nice guy and he never gave her any reason to worry or be jealous,
she lost interests. She hung around because he helped her out financially, and even the nice guy is easy to be around. They had a physical relationship, but her true obsession was with day you.
Right about a July fourth, they were together, Garrett and Liz, but she spent four hours on the phone texting with apparently a mechanic was just a friend. Garrett is not a stupid man, but he did have his suspicions about this four hour car But when he confronted her, what would she always say and how would she act?
Anytime he was suspicious about something and asked about it, she would slip it on him to make it seem like that he was acting jealous and that he was being unreasonable. And she's very very good at to him that was the case. And these people are, and these social paths, particularly the female sociopaths, know how to manipulate and making flip situations around to make themselves look good and make everybody else at bad. And she made him feel like he was being a jerk for his suspicion,
so he would always back off. And he's a really nice, easy going guy, but he would he would just he'd think, oh, you know, she's obviously she's with me, she's sticking around, so you know it must be my imagination.
That's some point, there becomes a change in the detectives that were invested. Well, we talked about the first people initially looked at this They had gathered information, They had taken Carrie's vehicle, they had taken photographs, they had examined it. They did, as you write, gather a lot of information, not necessarily seeing what was going on. They didn't know, but they did do a good job of collecting, preserving evidence,
taking photographs. At some point there's a new change and a detective Doughtie and a Detective Avis come on the scene and they have a different approach. They look at this case differently, and then they want to speak to Garrett. But what is their different approach and then tell us about their conversation with Garrett and what they tell him.
Well, Givis and DOUTI a book very smart. They were not buying what everybody was saying about Cherry Bay and stalker, and they thought it was suspect, so they decided, let's excuse One of them approached it and investigated it as if Carrie were alive and was stalking, and the other one approached it as if she was dead, And they were quickly able to determine she Li wasn't alive. Nobody had seen her, heard her voice her.
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Paychecks were picked up. No money had been withdrawn from her bank except for a couple of year. Couple of days after she was not seen. Somebody used her debit card a Walmart and a dollar store in Omaha that other than and then the bank. It was not Carrie's unusual pattern, but it just didn't make sense that she would abandon her child, her dying father, her mother, She
was close to her house, her job. It made no sense, and so they quietly determined that Cherry was along her life and that was actually couple guys they want where I believe who called Garrett into top to him about the situation with his girl friend being stunned by a woman Nade Carrie and Garrett didn't even learn about this alleged stocking until the morning that he was called in for the interviews, and the first time Liz ever mentioned it to him that morning. She didn't say who it was,
she just said somebody was bothering her. And he went in and he sat down and the detectives asked him what his relationship was Liz was, and he said, you know, we're well, you know, we were a couple. We've been in a relationship for a couple of years, and that they were exclusive, and they said something that sort of shunned.
They told him that Liz was having an affair with a man named Dave Trooper and that there was his name Curry, who was really jealous whose stocking both and Dave because of them, And then they tould they got this information a lot of the information of their from Liz's fun because she and Dave had actually left the police download their phone in the hopes that it would help them catch the stucker. When the police did that, they can use Garrett in one of the pictures. And
then it's how they knew to teak to him. And they told him they said she had your picture labeled that ass and they showed him the picture that there's no label on it, and he wasn't street. That didn't sound like because he'd do that. And after the interview he asked her about everything they told him, and she said, oh, they had it all wrong. How dare he accused her of dating Dave days with all prim and they saw each other when the kids played together, and you know,
she said, the very just we told you. You know, I just told you this morning I was being stopped and of course you would label a picture of him sat and how dare he suggest such a thing. So once again she flipped it around on him. So he felt foolish. She thought he felt like he'd done something wrong. Same time he said there was a seed planted, a seed of doubt and it grew.
This noose is tightening around Liz gol year. And when I mentioned about the forensic evidence, the digital forensic evidence of the phones, there is a special deputy Kava that does an amazing job of organizing all of these things, all of the emails and texts. But also they find things like metadata showing that the photo taken there was a photostake takens that she had sent in text that
looked like somebody was a fake kidnapping. They look at that data data and realize that that had come from a phone identical to the one Liz goll Your had. But all of this evidence, as you write, is all circumstantial. As they tighten the noose, they need more and more and more to put this thing together. There's not enough evidence. There's not a body, there's not a murder weapon, and
is a very confusing case. So what they do is they they keep putting the pressure on, and Dodi says that he loves the interrogation process itself, so he plays her acts like Colombo gets information out of her. By this point, strangely, she has pointed and said that Carrie is no longer sending her messages and she believes that Carrie is not the stalker, but Amy is now the stalker.
With Detective Doughtie and with Detective Avis News and eventually they get search warrants for her for Garrett's and for her apartment. At that apartment that you say, it's a motherload of information. What do they find at that apartment that's incriminating a.
Number of things, including a video camera that have been stolen from Cherry's house, and within that there was actually a video of Carrie, so they knew that it was definitely camera, so right there that Liz had actually gone
into her home and taken something. They found other telephones they could connect like cell phones, they connect to some of the texts and the emails that were sent, and it was actually a huge message they had to piece together because there were so many texts and so many emails, and she had open email accounts, very many different names, so they had to untangle all of that. It was a grueling process.
There also was a one print left in Harry's vehicle. It was on a mint box and that was a match. So they put all this circumstantial evidence together. She's eventually arrested. Tell us about that arrested.
Well, the ultimate arrest. She is arrested in question earlier on. In the end, they finally had enough evidence. It was a huge pile of evidence, and they went to her. She had moved to Persia, Iowa, and was living in an apartment over on. It's kind of a creepy well building that used to be in a funeral home. And they went there and knocked up the door and she woke her up. She came out on her fault and they put the cuffs on her and she was done.
She gets a defense lawyer, you write, that's James Martin Davis. Nebraska has the death penalties a capital case. But however, with a female and with all the mitigating circumstances or pardon me, aggravating circumstances, how does this trial proceed and what happens at this trial?
Ultimately, well, it was kind of interesting because the prosecutors were very, very good and some of the defense attorney so they all had really good arguments, But ultimately, the evidence that the prosecutors had it was it was so powerful that there was no getting around it. There was quite a bit of evidence, but the most powerful piece
was something that the detectives didn't have. At the time they arrested her, they were getting close to trial time and her attorney had wisely set the trial for there was like three months after the time she was arrested, three or four months, and the prosecutors normally have over a year a month of two years that her attorney did not want to give detectives time to find a body, and nobody cases are more difficult to prosecute, so they were rushing trying to get everything ready, and one of
the detectives stopped by and Dave Cooper's work and said, is there is there anything else any other electronic device that you might have forgotten about? And you know, I think there's a tablet in storage, So he went and looked in surener there was one there, and they found that the disk in that tablet had been recycled and it had one time been in Lizzie phone, and she had deleted photos that she thought were gone forever, and
some of them were extremely incriminating. There were actually photographs of a tattoo and it looked like it was on a foot, but it was kind of hard to tell. They had a forensic pathologist study it and it turned out it was a photograph of Cherry's tattoo on a foot in a state of dictay. So they had photographed her after death as souvenirs probably and then decided to get rid of it. She probably thought it was incriminating to keep it around, and when she deleted it, she
thought it was gone forever, but it wasn't. It's about the most powerful.
Evidence, the circumstantial evidence, not that anyone will absolutely conclusively know. But they put together Lizz's comments as a stalker, and they said that some of it was pure fantasy. You read some of pure fantasy, but a lot of it was incriminating accurate evidence from that circumstantial as much as best guests. And putting it all together, what did Avis and Dodie and then the prosecutor basically say had happened to carry farvar memory?
Well, the stoker had sent letters, sent emails now claiming that she was Amy or who was a very very sweet woman who had never heard anybody, and again that stay effects. And while in Amy's name, the stalkers said that they had attacked Cherrie in her car and stabbed her. So the detectives had already searched the car in the car been fold since then, so they trapped down the
new owners and got permissioned to study it. And they pulled out the front seat and peeled back the cover and found that the passenger seat had at one time been drenched with blood. They could still see the blood in the seat, so that fit in the email, the threatening email that had come in. It was supposedly confess from Amy that somebody was trying to frame Amy and make it look like that she had stabbed Carrie in the car. So there were little things like that that
said truth. Somebody had led in that seat, and the detectives decided that this is where unfortunately Paul Kerry had probably died and this is where she was attacked. But they knew Amy hadn't done it. But now they trace all the emails directly to this, they knew whe they were coming from.
Yeah, one last thing as well, an interesting thing was again not proof, but there was some indication there was photo sent in those stocking texts about a burnt tarp. So what did they surmise in terms of the disposal, again and everybody was never found, what did they surmise happened?
Well, nobody really knows for sure, and it's you know, it's not something that anyone likes to contemplate that they think that it was very likely that she burned Carrie after death, and we don't know, you know, if she burned part of her or all of her, but her body's never been found.
You talk about the trial and Carrie's family being present, and Nancy also being present as well, and also the odd behavior of Liz's gallier. So tell us what how she responded to this entire trial and then tell us what the outcome was.
Well, some of the testimony was absolutely heartbreaking and there were people crying, I mean, the wonderful woman Carrie lost your life, but Liz was unmoved by that. She barely had a flicker of expression on her face. The only time she lit up is when Dave took the stand, and then she gazed at him adoringly. But other than that, she's unfaced. So that was kind of you know, you watch help some of the aposiop once they're arrested, and her reaction is often really flat. They can be really
good at imitating emotion. The other times they're just flat.
Yeah, this was a victory for the prosecution and for the detectives and for the families. She didn't get the death penalty, but what was her sentence. She was also convicted for the arson as well.
Yes, she is imprisoned from and she's still trying to prove her innocence, and she did write me a letter about that, and she's already she's not getting out, and I'm appeal but she believes she's getting she believes she can do it.
Yeah, it was sad too that during this that Carrie's father had died of cancer. There's very sad story for many people in this. Nancy got some answers, but again, not not a happy ending by any means. Anthony Kava did an admirable job here, And so what about Maxwell, What about Terry's sons.
He's doing really well. He's doing really well. He's going to college and he's going into moving on computers, also getting coding like his mother dad, and he's getting married and he's a strong young man. And so they're doing the you know, it's just a short break for the family. Something you'll never get over that they're doing as well as can be expected. And they're the nicest people, just really really kind, down the earth people, the whole family,
and it's just very sad that this tragedy had the history. Yeah, and truly have so much to give. She was young, she was very young, and she was a good, good person and her friends and mess her turkey in her family absolutely.
Now with as a result of this book too. I mentioned Special Deputy Anthony cava at the end of this book. He has a website for tips on staying safe in the CyberWorld, and also you provide that link, but also your link which is just a little bit easier to remember. I guess www dot author Leslierule dot com. And again I think it's in keeping with saving lives, getting people
to understand this and to be cautioned by this. So you provide this link for people to again tips on staying safe in the CyberWorld.
Would you find reading on his website is because I don't have it in front of me, and that would be good if people would like to go to the website and see his tips. Do you have that in front of you.
I don't have it in front of me, but I will, I said, But like I say, yours is much easier, and you can go to either www dot author Leslierule dot com and then you can contribute to Anthony Caviata's website or take a look at it. I want to thank you so much Leslie for coming on and talking about this true crime debut and It is an incredible true crime debut, A Tangled Web, a cyber snalker, a deadly obsession, and a twisting path to justice. I want to thank you so much for this interview.
Well, thanks for having me. It was really nice suppose with you.
And again we just mentioned your website for people who want to find out more information about this. Of course, this is an audiobook, paperback and ebook everywhere available. Again, I want to thank you very much for coming on and talking about your incredible A Tangled Web. It's been fantastic. Thank you, thank you, good night,