Nebraska Department of Correctional Services / PCSO Shanna Liz Golyar
Cari Lea Farver of Iowa went missing on November 13, 2012, from Omaha, Nebraska. The 37-year-old was last seen leaving her boyfriend’s house. A few days later, her mother reported her missing to the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Neither her boyfriend nor her employer had reported her missing because they’d received texts from Farver’s number.
Her family knew that Farver, a mother, wouldn’t just disappear without a word, and because investigators couldn’t confirm that Farver was actually the one sending the texts, the missing person’s case remained open, Iowa Cold Cases reported. For years, Farver’s family and boyfriend received messages from accounts purported to be her while another woman, Shanna “Liz” Golyar, reported to law enforcement that Farver was harassing her.
In a shocking twist of events, Golyar was arrested on December 22, 2016, and charged with Farver’s murder. Investigators accused Golyar, who had been the on-and-off girlfriend of Farver’s boyfriend, of killing Farver and posing as her online to cover up her crime, Omaha World-Herald reported.
Where is Shanna “Liz” Golyar now?
Golyar Was Found Guilty of First-Degree Murder & Sentenced to Life in Prison
Public records show that Golyar is serving her life sentence at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women, which is a 275-bed facility for maximum, medium and minimum custody female inmates. In addition to her life sentence, she also has an 18-to-20-year sentence for second-degree arson which she will serve consecutively.
After her guilty verdict, Golyar’s attorney James Martin Davis said he was impressed with the prosecution’s case despite the lack of a body. “In my three or four decades of practicing law it’s one of the most powerful presentations of circumstantial evidence that I’ve ever seen,” Davis said, according to KCCI.
In the years since her verdict, the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office Digital Forensic Administrator Anthony Kava has been requesting that Facebook take down all the fake profiles created by Golyar to stalk Farver’s friends and family and hide her tracks, KMTV reported. “For me it’s a reminder to the victim’s family something that’s still out there it’s something that other people can go look at,” Kava said. “It’s a remnant of the crime that took place and a reminder and I would just love to see it gone from the internet.”
Golyar Appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court for a New Trial in 2018
Golyar’s attorneys filed an appeal with the Nebraska Supreme Court to order a new trial for the 45-year-old woman. Lori Hoetger, an assistant Douglas County public defender, said, “The state presented a decent amount of evidence. However, the problem is the vast majority of that evidence had nothing to do with murder or arson,” The Daily Nonpareil reported.
In November 2018, the Nebraska Supreme Court rejected Golyar’s appeal unanimously and said that despite the lack of a victim’s body, the “overwhelming circumstantial evidence” was enough to convict her. The court’s opinion wrote Judge Stephanie Stacy, was that “A rational fact finder … could conclude the state proved Golyar killed Farver purposely and with deliberate and premeditated malice. There is no merit to Golyar’s claim that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction for first degree murder,” the Omaha World-Herald reported.
Heavy reached out to Golyar’s attorneys for more information about whether they will continue to fight the verdict but did not hear back in time for publication.
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