Something About Cari - Every person featured in the new Dateline podcast series on Cari Ferver

Dateline has a new podcast, Something About Cari, with Keith Morrison as the host.

It tells one of the strangest crime stories from the 2010s, specifically about Cari Farver. She went missing and was later found to be murdered. However, after she disappeared, someone pretended to be her online. This went on for years, involving many threats and tricks.

The podcast has six episodes, and starts on December 2, 2025. It shares interviews with people who lived through the case: family, investigators, lawyers, and even the man at the center of the love triangle.

Below is a short guide to the real people in the story. It explains who they are, what they did, and why their voices matter in the podcast.

---

Every person you will hear in Dateline’s Something About Cari

Keith Morrison — host/narrator

Longtime Dateline reporter Keith Morrison tells the story in Something About Cari. His voice is both clever and mysterious. He guides listeners through the case.

The case involves texts, online accounts, and one small memory card. The podcast is one of Morrison’s Dateline originals.

---

Cari Farver — the missing woman/victim

Cari, full name Cari Lea Farver, is the main person in the story. She disappeared in 2012. Her disappearance starts the whole investigation.

Cari was a single mother in western Iowa. Reports say she was smart, good with technology, and loved her son.

When Cari vanished, nobody could figure out what happened. Then, when people found images connected to her body, things took a dark turn. Suddenly, this wasn’t just a missing-person case anymore. It became a murder investigation.

Several podcast episodes show her last days. They follow the clues she left online and in real life.

---

Dave Kroupa — Cari’s boyfriend / key witness

He worked as a mechanic at an auto repair shop in Omaha. In 2012, he split from a long-term partner. After that, he started online dating.

He met Cari and Liz Golyar around the same time. He says his relationship with Cari was casual since they agreed it would not be serious.

After Cari went missing, he got many emails and texts that seemed to be from her. Later, investigators found out they were not really from her.

---

Shanna “Liz” Golyar — the accused and convicted

Shanna, also called Liz Golyar, is the woman convicted of Cari’s death. Reports say she killed Cari, and then she pretended to be Cari online for years. She sent emails, texts, and social media posts to confuse people.

Her trial was unusual, as there was no body at first. The case relied on digital evidence. Jurors saw online messages, forensic matches, and a memory card with photos that showed Cari’s body.

The Dateline podcast tells the story of the investigation that led to Golyar’s conviction.

---

What happened with Cari Farver?

As per Dateline, in 2012, Cari Farver, a single mom, started dating Dave Kroupa. Dave was a mechanic in Omaha, Nebraska. He had also been involved with Shanna “Liz” Golyar, his ex-girlfriend.

On one of their first dates, Cari went to Dave’s apartment. Soon after, Liz came to pick up some of her things. Dave says the two women saw each other briefly in the hallway.

Cari told Dave she didn’t want a serious relationship. They agreed to keep it casual.

Dave earlier told Dateline: Secrets Uncovered:

“As a man, I’m always looking for companionship, so I’m always looking for a girlfriend, but never a committed relationship.”

Cari was last seen on November 13, 2012. A few days later, her mother reported her missing. Her car was later found abandoned at Dave’s apartment complex.

After Cari disappeared, Dave got thousands of texts and emails. They looked like they came from Cari. However, many messages were scary and threatening. The messages said she had a key to Dave’s apartment. They threatened to come in and made other strange claims.

Some messages were sent to Liz Golyar, too. They included insults, threats, and even fake obituaries.

According to Dateline, Detectives Ryan Avis and Jim Doty joined the case around 2015. They began to think Cari might be dead, and looked closely at digital evidence. This included phone records, emails, and IP addresses. They also called a technical expert, Tony Kava. He helped trace the messages to their source.

Doty explained to Dateline: Secrets Uncovered:

“There’s things that would lead us to both conclusions. You know, she’s still active, sending text messages and sending pictures so maybe she’s alive but she’s also missed so many significant events and hadn’t been physically seen by anybody.”

Investigators found out that Shanna was pretending to be Cari. The scary messages, emails, and texts were mostly from her, not Cari. When police searched Golyar’s home, they found some of Cari’s things, which included a camcorder.

The camcorder had video from just before Cari disappeared. In it, Cari talked about her car being vandalized. In Cari’s abandoned car, police found blood under the seat. They also found Golyar’s fingerprint on a mint container in the car.

They discovered a memory card on Golyar’s tablet. It had a chilling photo: a foot with the same tattoo as Cari’s.

Golyar was arrested in December 2016 for Cari’s murder, Dateline reports. In 2017, she was found guilty of first-degree murder and second-degree arson. She was sentenced to life in prison, plus extra time for the arson.

What looked like a strange stalking case was really a planned murder. Prosecutors say Liz Golyar killed Cari Farver. Then she pretended to be Cari online. She sent texts and emails to make it seem like Cari was still alive and unstable.

Digital forensics helped the police. They traced IP addresses, checked where messages came from, and found a photo on a memory card. This helped them figure out what really happened, even though Cari’s body was never found.

Her mother, Nancy Raney, told Dateline: Secrets Uncovered:

“It was just a total relief to me, and I just started crying.”