Lover, Stalker, Killer has shocked viewers with its horrifying “love triangle” and twisted, tragic outcome. It is even acknowledged within the documentary that the true story was so bizarre those involved had never encountered anything like it before. Prosecutors knew that it would be difficult to make the case stick due to the evidence available and the incredulity of the events.
The story of Lover, Stalker, Killer follows Dave Kroupa, separated from his partner and mother of his children, who starts a new life in a new town and goes to an online dating site to find some company. He meets Shanna “Liz” Golyar, and explains he is not looking for a long-term relationship, just casual hookups, which she is also comfortable with.
Later, he encounters Cari Farver at the garage where he works and is attracted to her, leading to them dating for around two weeks. Awkwardly, while Cari was at his apartment, Liz unexpectedly arrived claiming she needed to retrieve something. The two women would briefly meet.
In November 2012, Cari would leave Dave’s apartment and was never seen again. A text from Cari to Dave would express her desire to move in, which Dave was surprised by and rejected, leading to a string of abusive texts from Cari, saying she was finishing the relationship with him. Similarly, texts to Cari’s mother and fifteen-year-old son indicated that she was moving away from the area for a new job, and that she would make arrangements to pick her son up in the future.
However, the texts from Farver would continue, becoming even more sinister and threatening, with Farver stalking the man, noting where he was and who he was with, and becoming increasingly unhinged. The police were eventually notified, but Cari could not be located and the messages were coming from multiple different sources. When Dave was alerted that a fire had broken out at Liz Golyar’s home, killing her pets, the blame was placed on Cari. The harassment and stalking would continue, with Dave’s ex-partner now also being stalked and receiving threatening messages, but by 2015 police were starting to feel that Liz Golyar was a person of interest in the case.
With Kroupa, his family, and Cari’s mother and son at breaking point, evidence was finally found on an old sim card that would incriminate Liz Golyar as the perpetrator of the stalking, the fire, and other activities designed to place the blame on Cari Farver. It would also lead to the revelation that Golyar had murdered Cari, and had been using the stalking and malicious threats as a way of diverting attention from her.
Golyar was eventually arrested after a four-year terror campaign, and sentenced to life imprisonment although no body or murder weapon was ever recovered.
Is the Netflix documentary accurate?
The documentary was directed by Sam Hobkinson and in an interview on Tudum he explains:
“We enter this story from the perspective of Dave, who is caught in a complete web of falsehood. I wanted the storytelling to somehow reflect that confusion, and ultimately, his total disbelief when he realizes what’s happened.”
This implies that the director may have constructed the film in such a way as to maximize the turn in the narrative that occurs, making the film more of an experience for the viewer. However, how closely does the tone of the film stick to the real-life events? Well, despite many people becoming aware of the story through the documentary, it had been well documented before in various other media, including a book that covers the story.
A Tangled Web by Leslie Rule is a 2020 account of the events, the book having been written with “mesmerizing detail and compelling narrative skill.” The book pretty much hits the same beats as the documentary, and with other media also covering the story, it does seem that the facts and the events portrayed accurately follow the true story of the terrible events.
