Nebraska

In November 2012, Cari Farver vanished from Omaha, Nebraska, after a brief relationship with Dave Kroupa. What followed was an unprecedented case of digital impersonation: thousands of harassing messages sent from Farver's phone over three years—not by her, but by her killer.

Cari Lea Farver, a 37-year-old computer programmer from Macedonia, Iowa, disappeared on November 13, 2012. What began as a missing persons case became a haunting tale of impersonation, harassment, and murder—solved not by traditional detective work, but by the digital footprint her killer left behind.

Esther Ludlow created Once Upon A Crime as a carefully researched true crime podcast that prioritizes psychology and social context over sensationalism. Available across major platforms since its launch, the show examines cases ranging from Ted Bundy to the Chowchilla kidnapping, each episode standing alone within thematic series.

In 1985, Helen Wilson, a 68-year-old grandmother, was raped and murdered in Beatrice, Nebraska. Four years later, six individuals were convicted for the crime — five after confessing to police. In 2022, HBO's six-part documentary Mind Over Murder exposed how those confessions were obtained through psychological coercion, and how DNA evidence eventually freed all six men in 2009.