A Tangled Web

by Leslie Rule

  Amy was still in the crosshairs of Liz’s wrath, and police made a plan to protect her. A warrant allowed them to place a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracker on Liz’s vehicle. They covertly secured the magnetized tracker to the underside of her car on December 11. Doty explains, “With the GPS program, we put a geofence around Amy’s apartment complex, so if Shanna’s vehicle entered that complex, we’d get text notifications.”

  The tracker alerted them many times each day. Liz usually looped through Amy’s parking lot and left. The safety plan counted on the CB Police. If Liz should pause for “an extended period of time” near Amy’s apartment, officers would rush to the scene. Meanwhile, Amy was going about her business, still rattled by the accusations made against her but oblivious to the fact her life was in danger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  A FEW DAYS AFTER THE SHOOTING, Shanna told Cherokee that police suspected she had not been shot by Amy. “They think I was behind it,” said Shanna. Cherokee stared at her quizzically. Shanna was the victim. How could she be behind the shooting when she was the victim? “They think you shot yourself?”

  “They think you did it—that you were my accomplice!”

  The idea was so nutty that Cherokee laughed. It didn’t occur to her to worry she’d be arrested for shooting her friend. She was confident she wouldn’t get in trouble for something she didn’t do. She was right about that. No detectives contacted her.

  Though most of the cops suspected Liz had shot herself, none of them had accused her. Pott County Sheriff investigators were keeping their suspicions close to the vest. They were excited when Deputy Kava found proof that Liz had been impersonating Cari Farver, but their work was far from done. It was compelling evidence but not enough for a murder charge. They needed more. Much more. Ideally, a suspect will confess, but they doubted Liz would do that, not unless they tricked her into it. “In this case, we had to understand that what was driving Liz was her obsession with Dave, so once we knew that, we could flip that on her,” Detective Doty explains.

  The investigators had a huge advantage. They’d studied her for months and knew what made her tick. But Liz had no idea who she was dealing with and believed she could outsmart the detectives. “We knew she’d think that because she’d tricked a few cops in the past,” Detective Avis confides. “Luckily, she ran into someone smarter than she is.”

  On December 14, 2015, Liz was invited to Doty’s office. Recently hired by an Omaha pet food company, she stopped by on her way to work and wore gray scrubs with her hair pulled back into a ponytail. It was Doty’s first meeting with her, so he introduced himself and explained he was working on a missing person case and that they’d found some remains. “We’re waiting on the lab results to make a positive I.D., but the initial indication is these remains are Cari.”

  Liz appeared cooperative but gave the impression she knew little about the situation. Doty gave no indication that he saw Liz as anything other than a potential witness as he said, “I’m going to tell you some stuff that I would hope would stay in this room, okay?” In reality, nothing had been found. The detective was putting on a performance. He had literally set the stage by adding a prop—an x-ray that now sat atop a stack of papers on his desk. It wasn’t connected to the case, but he knew it would trigger her interest. Asked if she’d met Cari, Liz described the encounter at Dave’s place. “I didn’t know he was dating anyone else at the time. So, she came out, and I was going in. And she made a smart comment to me.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “Called me a bitch. And it wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t really care at the time, I just wanted to get my stuff, and then I left and went home.” Liz insisted it was the only time she’d seen Cari and suggested that Amy was the real stalker. “She was with him for twelve years. And she still goes in and out of his life all of the time.”

  “So, you think she could have been the person who did some of that stuff ?”

  “I’m just saying as another person who would be possessive of Dave, it would be her,” said Liz. “So, I mean, I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “I’m thinking if she was bold enough to go and shoot you, okay, she could have easily been bold enough to have done something to Cari.”

  While Liz was probably jumping for joy inside her head, she appeared calm as Doty said he hoped to build a case against Amy but didn’t have enough evidence. If he had evidence that Amy had made threatening statements or inferred she’d done something to Cari, that would be “like gold to me.”

  Four days later, Liz forwarded an email to Doty, claiming Amy had sent it to her. The subject line was: “I shot you.”

  I shot you, Liz, to make sure Dave stayed away from you . . . I got rid of the gun. Looks like the police haven’t arrested me. No one has proof it was me . . .

  Liz had stepped right into Doty’s trap. Just as he’d hoped, she’d impersonated Amy and confessed. But she’d confessed to the wrong crime! Investigators wanted her to reveal facts about Cari’s murder, but instead, “Amy” had confessed to shooting Liz. She was eager to see Amy arrested, but Doty explained that the park shooting wasn’t even his case. It took awhile for her to comprehend that the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office was an entirely different agency than the Council Bluffs Police. The CB Police were investigating the shooting. Doty needed information about the murder. “I need specific details of Cari Farver’s murder to build a case,” he told her.

  Liz knew exactly what had happened to Cari. She knew her manner of death, and she knew what had happened to her remains. And now, Liz believed those remains had been found. She’d watched enough crime shows to realize that if cops had found a body, they knew a lot about Cari’s demise. Liz realized she had to make “Amy’s” confession fit the actual scenario. Unless “Amy’s” emails contained authentic details, the police wouldn’t believe it. On December 20, Liz forwarded another email to Doty, and this time “Amy” gave details about the murder. It was a long, rambling letter but portions of it were clear and to the point: When I met Crazy Cari, she would not stop talking about Dave and him being her husband. She tried to attack me, but I attacked her with a knife. I stabbed her three to four times in the stomach area. I then took her out and burned her. I stuffed her body in a garbage can with crap. She was carried out to the dumpster, probably when Dave took my garbage out for me.

  So be glad I did not do you that way, Liz. I will never admit to Dave or police, no one. Maybe I’m drunk now and just telling lies to you. Dave will always take care of me and protect me, so I will never go to jail. When I followed you that night, I shot you. I left Mason home because he was sleeping. Made sure I called Dave and texted him for my alibi, so you can never prove it was me.

  Possibly as farfetched as the notion Amy could shoot someone was the idea she’d leave her baby home alone. Amy was a devoted mom and very picky when it came to choosing babysitters. She certainly would not have left Mason alone for even a moment.

  Half an hour after the stabbing confession, “Amy” confessed to arson, too. The email’s subject line was “Fucking crazy bitch” and began, Now that I got your attention, don’t ever come back around my kids, Dave or me. Just like your house getting burned was me. That’s another thing that Dave won’t believe either . . .

  In crude terms, “Amy” wrote that she and Dave still had sex and that no one would believe Liz if she reported her crimes. The idea that Amy would confess to Liz was preposterous. The two weren’t friends. And if Amy were a killer, it would be downright stupid for her to put her evil deeds in writing. What were the odds that “Amy” would confess immediately after the detective asked Liz to help him find evidence? None of it made much sense, but either these things didn’t occur to Liz, or she assumed the cops were too dumb to question it.

  Amy would no more confess to Liz that she killed Cari than Gloria Munson would confess to shaking Cody. Both Amy and Gloria were Shanna’s adversaries. The prosecutor had encouraged Shanna to tell the story about Gl
oria’s so-called confession, and had also encouraged her to read aloud letters that were very likely forged. If Shanna had gotten away with lies about confessions and forged letters as they pertained to Cody’s death, it’s understandable that she would believe she could get away with it again.

  On December 21, Liz told Doty she wouldn’t be able to help him for a while. She was too busy moving. Finally, Garret had convinced her to leave! After the shooting, he’d explained to her that he simply could not be involved in whatever dangerous drama she’d been swept up into. “I was so desperate to get her out that I rented a U-Haul truck for her stuff and gave her the money for the deposit and rent for an apartment. I told her, ‘If it doesn’t work out, don’t come to me. Don’t ever come back.’”

  He had virtually supported Liz and her kids for almost two and a half years and was now investing his time and money to help her get a new place, but she continued to behave like a victim. “She went running to Dirk to tell him I was kicking her out.” Liz found an apartment in Persia, Iowa, a tiny town in Harrison County about thirty miles northeast of Council Bluffs. Surrounded by farmland, Persia has a population under 400, so it’s understandable that the businesses in town didn’t appear to be thriving. At least one storefront was boarded up, but most of the homes in the area were lovingly cared for. Liz’s apartment was on the second floor of a somewhat creepy 1912 brick building, originally the town’s mortuary. Erected after the 1905 fire that destroyed many of Persia’s buildings, it was built to last and was a landmark on Main Street, a long, straight road on a gradual uphill slope.

  In early January of 2016, Garret helped Liz move mattresses to her new place, loading them into a pickup truck she’d rented and lugging them up the steps, into the new apartment. They managed to fit most of her other possessions into the U-Haul, and Garret breathed a sigh of relief when he dropped off the last load. She couldn’t take her pets to the apartment, and that was fine with him. They were used to his place, and he’d grown fond of them.

  Cherokee, apparently unaware that Garret, too, assisted Liz in the move, remembers that they packed Shanna’s stuff into a small caravan of two SUVs, and “I moved her to her new place in Persia and stayed the night.” Shanna was still hurting from her gunshot injury, so Cherokee did most of the heavy lifting. Afterward, “We drank, and watched TV,” Cherokee recalls, adding that she felt bad for her friend and tried to help her as much as possible.

  Liz briefly talked with Detective Doty a couple of times over the next weeks and forwarded him more incriminating emails from Amy. Liz was frustrated that it was taking so long for the idiots to get off their butts and arrest Amy. She’d practically delivered “Amy’s” confessions to Doty on a silver platter. What more did the guy want?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  LIZ WAS A MASTER MANIPULATOR, but she had met her match. The investigators were now pulling her strings, and she was their obedient puppet, dancing toward her doom, oblivious to the fact she was performing exactly as the “dumb cops” had planned. Dave Kroupa, too, was about to be manipulated and would unwittingly share her stage as detectives choregraphed his next move.

  Investigators needed Liz to share more details about the murder. The best way to accomplish that was to push their suspect to the brink of despair. What did Liz want more than anything? Dave. Who did Liz hate the most? Amy. What possible scenario would stir Liz up into the frenzy of all frenzies? Dave and Amy, together again!

  When Doty deceived Liz, he’d made a show of taking her into his confidence and told her, “I hope this information does not leave this room,” but he knew that asking Liz not to tell Dave that Amy was a murder suspect was like asking a fish not to swim. As anxious as she was to tell Dave, she was likely showing restraint because she wanted him to learn about it after Amy was arrested, so Amy would be caught off guard. But it was taking way too long for the cops to get around to that, and Liz could wait no longer to tell him the marvelous secret. The mother of his children was a killer! Finally, he would see that he must cut ties with the greedy woman who took all his money and forced him to spend holidays with her!

  In late January, the detectives received the call they’d been waiting for. Dave sounded shell-shocked as he asked about the secrets Liz had been so eager to share. Detective Avis grimly advised, “I’d be damned moved in with Amy, if I were you.” Avis gave the impression he was doing Dave a favor, sharing confidential information because he, too, had a family. Man to man, father to father, Avis’s tone implied that Liz was dangerous as he stressed, “Since Liz did come and tell you this, I would avoid her like the plague right now.”

  Dave was confused. Liz was manipulative, she was possessive, and she could be extremely annoying, but Avis’s suggestion she was dangerous made him dizzy. Liz had been telling him Amy was dangerous, that she’d followed her to Big Lake Park and shot her and might have done something to Cari. The idea that Amy could harm anyone was even more farfetched than the suggestion Liz was violent. He’d known the mother of his children far longer than he’d known Liz. There was absolutely no way Amy had done the things Liz claimed.

  He’d always figured Liz’s issues were due to insecurity, and he’d been patient as long as he had because he felt a little sorry for her. She was a tiny thing, and could seem so vulnerable. She’d appeared genuinely frightened when “Cari” terrorized her. Whenever Liz looked up at him with her brown eyes brimming with fear, he’d instinctively put his arm around her and tried to reassure her.

  Dave didn’t realize it, but he’d been suffering from “confirmation bias.” Every human experiences this phenomenon of the mind, and most of us are unable to comprehend what’s happening until long after we’ve been set straight and have had both time and distance away from whatever influenced us to accept falsehoods as truth. Also called “confirmatory bias,” this trick of the mind is exploited by cult leaders who use it against followers to keep them in line. But most of the time, we dive in on our own. It occurs after we’ve formed an opinion about a particular subject, and it prompts us to embrace information that supports our initial belief and disregard facts that don’t. It narrows the perspective of people, no matter how intelligent, so that they dismiss anything negating their viewpoint. The longer it goes on, the harder it is for us to see the truth.

  Dave’s confirmation bias had begun to take root in November 2012 when he received the first hostile texts from Cari’s phone number. For over three years, he’d been inundated daily with fake emails and texts, each one confirming his belief that Cari was stalking him. Liz had worked very hard to make sure Dave never doubted that the woman he’d once been infatuated with had turned into a monster. The longer Liz kept up the charade, the easier it was for those she’d fooled to believe the lies. The first round of detectives working the case were also influenced by their confirmation bias, but no one had been led deeper into the abyss than Dave Kroupa.

  He was at work shortly after his phone conversation with Detective Avis when Detective Doty showed up. “He had a marshal with him,” Dave recalls. The two men sat him down for a serious talk. “Doty told me he was certain that Liz was the one making all the threats.” While the men couldn’t tell Dave everything they knew, they made it clear they believed Liz was extremely dangerous, that she was behind Cari’s disappearance, and that they feared Amy and his kids were in danger.

  He was numb as he picked up his phone, called Amy and repeated what the police had told him. “I told you so!” Amy exclaimed. Yes, she had told him so. Again and again. He’d always known Amy wasn’t fond of Liz but figured she’d been a little jealous. The fact Amy didn’t like Liz “didn’t raise any red flags for me.” But any “red flags” waving at him would have had to have been on fire for him to take notice because he’d wholeheartedly believed Liz was a victim, and Cari was the stalker.

  Dave couldn’t focus on work after learning about Liz. “I went and sat down by my tool box and did nothing for two hours.” The past he’d believed was real had been nothing more than
an illusion. How had he allowed himself to be fooled? When he learned that Liz had used a LetterMeLater app, he realized that had played a large part in the deception. He’d initially been convinced Cari was the stalker, because not only were the texts coming from her number, he’d been with Liz when they both received them. He’d had no idea it was possible for a person to send themselves a text to arrive at a specific time.

  When he realized the truth, Dave describes it as “like walking through a dark forest, unable to see anything, and then the sun comes out.” Suddenly everything was clear. Painfully clear.

  Dave immediately moved in with Amy, just as the investigators had hoped. It was part of their strategy to drive their suspect to the edge of despair. If the plan worked, Liz would come unglued. She’d be so desperate to get rid of Amy that she’d reveal incriminating clues. Dave had no idea he’d been manipulated by detectives. The police were watching over Amy and didn’t need his help. They’d been honest when they said Liz was dangerous but had twisted the truth when they said he needed to move in with Amy to protect her. While it might seem like a dirty trick to deceive an innocent person, their motives were pure. Amy was not at risk at the moment, but ultimately, she would be if Liz remained on the loose. When Dave moved in with Amy, it was to protect her, even if it wasn’t in the way he believed.

  The detectives realized their strategy had worked when an enraged Liz called Doty on February 1, 2016. Half sobbing, she cried, “Looks like the only person that benefitted was her! So, she gets to shoot somebody, and then she gets to kill another person! And then she gets to move in with Dave, and she gets to be free, and you guys aren’t arresting her!”