True Crime: Iowa Takes Center Stage As Netflix's Top Movie

For those who are not familiar with Netflix, the streaming platform updates its "Top 10" most popular movies/documentaries on a day-to-day basis. Currently, the top-streamed movie/documentary is a tragic and twisted story about the murder of a Macedonia, Iowa woman, named Cari Farver.

Lover, Stalker, Killer is a true crime documentary about a love triangle involving Dave Kroupa, from Omaha, Nebraska, who began casually dating two women. Those two women were Cari Farver and Shanna "Liz" Golyar.

*SPOILER WARNING* *SPOILER WARNING* I won't tell you how it ends but some spoilers will be mentioned.

One More Time For Safe Measure... *SPOILER WARNING* *SPOILER WARNING*

The true crime documentary runs for 90 minutes and for the first 60 minutes, you're led to believe that one of these women is ruining Dave's life. He's being stalked and harassed via text message/emails, multiple times a day. He has his apartment windows broken, his car smashed, and his house broken into.

Get our free mobile app

This person takes things so far that even Dave's ex-wife and kids begin to experience these scary messages as well as being stalked. This ruins all of their lives for years and they are constantly living in fear for their safety.

Where It All Begins

Back in 2012, Dave began dating "Liz" after going through a divorce. He explains that he was clear about not wanting anything serious and he was just trying to have fun. Soon after meeting Liz, Dave meets Cari Farver, who he also casually dates and maintains his stance on not wanting anything serious.

On a random off-chance, Liz and Cari run into each other at Dave's house and this love triangle turns into a horrible story of stalking, arson, and murder. Cari Farver essentially falls off the face of the earth soon after this happen-stance meeting. She's reported missing and no one heard from her for years after her disappearance.

The documentary interviews Dave, Cari's mother, and multiple investigators with the Omaha Police Department, as well as investigators from Council Bluffs, Iowa. Chris Legrow, who works with the Omaha PD had never seen anything like this story in his entire career. During the documentary he says

I thought I'd seen it all. I hadn't seen anything like this.

Council Bluffs, Iowa

In 2015, Ryan Avis and Jim Doty, investigators from the Pottawattamie County Sherriff's office in Council Bluffs, began looking into the disappearance of Cari. Cari's home still contains her clothes and all of her belongings. They check bank records, which indicate a couple of transactions the day before she supposedly goes missing.

Avis and Doty begin to receive help from an IT specialist named Tony Kava, who examines the messages from Cari's number and her accounts. Tony eventually connects an IP address to a colleague of his named Todd Butterbaugh. This is when the entire story is flipped upside down.

It takes upwards of 3 years for the investigators to finally get to the bottom of what is going on. Dave receives hundreds of thousands of threatening emails and text messages throughout this investigation. For almost all of the duration of these threatening messages, Dave believed he knew exactly who was on the other end of them the entire time.

This incredibly sad and true story, about the murder of an Iowa woman, and the damage that follows, is currently available on Netflix.