LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the first-degree murder conviction and life sentence of an Iowa woman found guilty of killing another woman she considered a romantic rival.
The high court on Friday rejected Shanna Golyar’s arguments that evidence presented at her trial was too thin to sustain a guilty verdict and that her trial lawyer was so deficient that she didn’t get a fair trial.
Golyar, of Persia, Iowa, was convicted and sentenced last year for murder and arson in the death of 37-year-old Cari Farver, who was last seen in Omaha in November 2012. Her body has never been found.
Prosecutors say Golyar posed as Farver online and by phone for years after her disappearance and also posed as other people confessing to having killed Farver. An officer testified that Farver had been dating Golyar’s ex-boyfriend for some weeks when she disappeared.