By Associated Press - Wednesday, December 28, 2016

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - Bail has been set at $5 million for an Iowa resident accused of killing a romantic rival last seen alive more than four years ago in Omaha.

Shanna Golyar of Persia, Iowa, was charged with first-degree murder. Bail was set during a hearing Tuesday inside the Douglas County Jail. Prosecutors said Golyar, 41, killed Cari Farver of Macedonia, Iowa, who was 37 when she was reported missing in 2012.

Golyar’s attorney denied the allegations, noting there isn’t evidence that Farver is even dead.

“There’s no confessions, no admissions, there’s no body, there’s no murder weapon, there’s no sufficient showing of blood that there was a death that even took place,” attorney James Martin Davis said. “You can’t presume somebody died just because she’s missing. All you have is a theory that because this lady is missing, that somehow my client was involved in her disappearance.”

But investigators believe Farver was killed at an apartment within 24 hours after she was last seen on Nov. 13, 2012.

Prosecutor David Wear said Golyar and Farver had dated the same man, and that Golyar posed online as Farver with an email account “to conceal the fact that she was no longer alive.”

Wear said the victim’s blood was found in the man’s apartment. The prosecutors also noted that Golyar’s fingerprints were found in Farver’s vehicle, which was found at the same apartment by authorities in Omaha about two months after Farver’s disappearance.

Davis said his client barely knows Farver and has lost touch with the man she was dating at the time.

“She only saw this lady one time just for a few seconds,” Davis said. “There wasn’t any argument.”

Golyar’s next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 18.

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