Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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It has to be said, Liz Golyer was a fortunate woman. Leaving aside, of course, the raw fact of having been charged with murdering Carrie Farber. Oh, and of trying to burn her own house down. No, her good fortune came in the person of a brilliant, charismatic, and highly regarded defense attorney named James Martin Davis.
one of the preeminent attorneys in all the Midwest, according to the people who judge these things. Gone from us now, sadly. He died in 2021, heart attack, right there in the courthouse. But when Liz Golyer went on trial, vilified as she was by trial time, Martin was all in. And maybe the most dangerous place around was between him and a TV camera when he stood up for Liz.
as he did here before the judge in court. I know they've got all this bizarre behavior, and they've got all this circumstantial evidence, but it doesn't show my client on that day in this jurisdiction took a knife and stabbed Carrie Farber to death. Savvy as he was, he'd recommended, and Liz agreed, that she be tried by judge alone, no jury.
figured a jury might get caught up in the emotions stirred by Liz's long, devious campaign. But a judge? A judge would adhere to the facts and the law. And the facts before the court? Well, there wasn't even a body, was there? And for that matter, said James Martin Davis, no case. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Something About Carrie, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 6, Something About Liz.
James Martin Davis seemed to revel in the defense of unpopular people. He'd made his considerable reputation that way. Everybody, no matter how nasty people might think they are, deserves a robust defense. And in the case of Liz Gawler... You might not like her, said Davis to the judge, but liking, or the lack of it, was quite irrelevant. Facts were what mattered.
And this case, he said, was little more than speculation. You may have smart cards and you may have phones, but you don't have a body and you don't have a cause of death from a medical examiner. What we have is their belief, their speculation, their notion that this is what happens. That can't convict. One by one, he questioned the main players. You've already met them, of course.
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Chapter 2: What details surround Liz Golyer's trial for the murder of Carrie Farber?
Carrie's mom, Nancy Farber. Carrie's brief boyfriend, Dave Krupa. Dave's ex, the mother of his children, Amy Flora. The hoodwinked, the victimized. All so callously fooled. Attorney Davis looked them all in the eye and put them on the spot about the alleged murder of Carrie Farber. Here's Davis questioning Dave Krupa about Liz.
And she never told you she was going to assault Carrie Farber, did she? No. You don't have any first-hand knowledge about what happened to Carrie Farber back in November or December or any time thereafter, do you? Nope. And so it went, one after the other. Here's Davis sowing doubt as he questions Amy Flora.
You don't have any first-hand knowledge that Carrie was killed or assaulted at all, right?
Chapter 3: Who was James Martin Davis and how did he impact Liz's defense?
No, I don't.
And if she was, it took place on any of those dates, right? Right. But... What about that deleted photo found on an SD card once used in Liz's cell phone? The one the prosecutor said showed a decomposing human foot bearing a tattoo of a Chinese symbol, just like the tattoo Carrie Farver had on her foot. How in the world would Liz's defense explain that? Well, in the same sort of way.
Even if you assume it's her foot, that doesn't tell us the cause of death. It doesn't tell us the manner of death. It doesn't tell any of us that Liz Goeller caused this death. It doesn't prove whether she was murdered at all. In the end, if you're wondering, Liz Goeller, when asked by the judge if she wished to testify to take the witness stand in her own defense, said, no, she would not.
An answer much preferred by James Martin Davis. And then the two-week trial was over, and the judge stepped down from the bench and retired to his chambers to deliberate. A day later, he returned.
Thanks, everyone. Pleased to have seen it.
Every seat in the courtroom was filled. The room fairly bristled with anxiety. Carrie's son, Max, waited for the words. It was nerve-wracking. And then, solemnly, in the deliberate manner of moments like this, the judge read his verdict.
The court finds, after careful consideration of the evidence, the contention that the state has not met its burden because the body of Carrie Farver has not been recovered. has been refuted and overcome by the overwhelming amount of evidence presented by the state during this trial. Carrie Farver did not voluntarily disappear and drop off the face of the earth. Very sadly, she was murdered.
The court finds beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally killed Carrie Farver with deliberate and premeditated malice on or about November 13, 2012, here in Douglas County, Nebraska. The court further finds beyond a reasonable doubt that during the defendant's twisted plot of lies, deceit,
and impersonations through digital messaging, the defendant caused damage to her residence by intentionally starting a fire. Therefore, the court finds and adjudges the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree under count one and arson in the second degree under count two.
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Chapter 4: What strategies did the defense use to challenge the prosecution's evidence?
We contacted Liz Golyer, or tried to, at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women, where she's now 50 years old and has so far served eight and one-half years of her life sentence. We asked if she'd care to comment. She did not get back to us. But after her trial in 2017, Liz did respond to our producers. They saved her letters, of course, and we dug them out of the file.
And in those letters, Liz denied killing Carrie Farver and said that she felt bad for Carrie's family. She wrote, "'I can say in my heart that I would not have hurt her. I know all too well their pain, since I myself have gone through a loss of a child.'" Wait, Liz lost a child? Well, this was news to us. And given what we now knew about Liz Gollier, it seemed like something we should look into.
Because... Right away, I felt a hunch that something wasn't quite right.
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Hey guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit-Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with country music superstar Luke Combs for a special Sunday Sit-Down live in Nashville. It was a great night with our viewers in the room as Luke and I talked through his extraordinary rise from college bars to sold-out stadiums.
You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts.
This is Olympic figure skating medalist Adam Rippon. Are you wondering who you should root for at the 2026 Winter Olympics? You're going to have great days. You're going to have rock bottom days. That's part of being a mom, being an Olympian. Check out my new favorite Olympian wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Perhaps you should think of what comes now as a kind of prequel. A sort of origin story. Like the stories attached to blockbuster movies, Star Wars or Harry Potter. Silence of the Lambs, for example. A tale to help make sense of the whole strange business that unfolds so dramatically later. We titled our podcast, Something About Carrie. But really, of course, it was always something about Liz.
Especially this part. The prequel. Liz Golyer had already begun serving her prison sentence of life without parole in Nebraska when a novelist and author began casting around for ideas for a new book. The author's name? Leslie Rule.
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Chapter 5: How did the trial unfold and what were the significant moments?
And before the sun even rose in the Michigan sky that cold winter morning, Glenn Herr was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. After, Glenn's mom Phyllis talked to the officer about arresting her learning disabled son.
I thought, are you crazy? This kid would no more shake a child to the extent that it would take to end a child's life than anything.
No, this is wrong.
They could have asked him... A thousand questions. And especially if they push things.
And he would have got confused easily. And thinking that he was saying all the right things. This is what they want me to say. This is what they want to hear. And then I'm out of here. And that's not what happened. Two days later, the autopsy came back. Liz Golyer's baby Cody, the pathologist found, died of acute intracranial hemorrhage due to shaking. It was indeed a homicide.
Glenn Herr sat in jail for 10 months, awaiting his day in court. And when his trial began in December 1999, Cody's father, Ray Strahan, listened to the judge's opening remarks to the jury. He came out and said, Mr. Glenn Hurd is on trial for second-degree murder of a five-month-old baby. And every one of the jury members' jaws just hit the floor.
And I was thinking to myself, this guy's going to thrive. But Glenn's defense attorney, in his opening statement, said a thing that sounded explosive. There was evidence, he said... that Liz caused Cody's death. Liz and not Glenn.
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Chapter 6: What was the verdict and how did it affect the families involved?
Because, he charged, Liz dropped Cody the night before he died while Glenn was at work. Here's Glenn's mom, Phyllis. Glenn had gotten a phone call to go home because Liz told him that she dropped the baby. So he left and took off. His boss said, yeah, go, go. But prosecutors go first, of course, to present a case, that is. And one of the first to testify for the prosecution was Liz.
And Liz made quite an entrance. Author Leslie Rule.
Liz was the star witness in the case against her boyfriend. And she showed up in a long skirt that kind of dragged on the ground and a wig. She was in disguise because she was wanted. She actually had a warrant out for her arrest for the unlawful use of her roommate's car.
The judge, however, having been informed of the circumstances... assured Liz she would not be arrested if she testified and told the truth about what happened to little Cody. But did she? Here was her story. Liz told the jury that when Glenn dropped her off at work that day with Cody in the car, Cody was just fine.
And then Liz produced six letters she said she'd received from Glenn while he was in jail. Letters presented as evidence. Or, if you will... a series of jailhouse confessions. Though, knowing what you now know about Liz and Carrie and all the lying, the subterfuge, the murder, will you hear the following as confessions or as something else altogether?
In one letter to Liz, Glenn wrote in part, I need you to come back up here and tell my attorney that the reason you called me home from work was because you had dropped Cody from about four feet. which then caused Cody to stop breathing. So then you shook Cody, not to do any harm, but to get him to start breathing again.
Then, in a second letter, supposedly also from Glenn, different tone altogether, there was this. Hi, honey. Hey, what I said in the letter to you about what to say that you dropped Cody, forget about it. That is wrong of me to ask you to say something like that. I'm just so scared. And when Glenn's mom Phyllis heard what was in those letters...
I said, I don't know who wrote that letter, but my son can't even spell those words, let alone write those words. I said, I don't even think he knows what most of those words are. Given his longstanding learning disabilities, that is. But as author Leslie Rule couldn't help but see.
No expert was called into court. to verify that the handwriting on those letters was Glenn's. In fact, the prosecutor asked Liz to verify that Glenn had written the letters.
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