Director: Sam Hobkinson
A single dating-app message sets off one of the strangest true-crime sagas a documentary has tackled in years, told almost entirely through the people who actually lived it.
What is Lover, Stalker, Killer about?
Dave Kroupa, an Omaha mechanic, signs up for online dating and connects with a woman calling herself Liz. What starts as flirtation escalates into anonymous threats, vandalized cars, and a years-long police investigation that leaves detectives questioning who is really sending the messages, and why the case keeps circling back to people Kroupa thought he knew.
Cast & crew
Director Sam Hobkinson structures the film around first-person interviews with Kroupa himself, alongside detectives, journalists, and the women pulled into the case, letting their own words carry the escalating unease rather than a narrator's voice-over. Real texts, photographs, and police recordings anchor every twist in verified record rather than dramatized re-enactment, which is part of why the case became a talking point well beyond Nebraska.
Context & significance
Released in 2024 and shot in the restrained, character-driven style now common to modern true-crime documentaries, the film spends less time chasing shock value than tracing how ordinary digital tools — text threads, phone pings, social accounts — became the actual evidence trail investigators had to piece together. Its 90-minute runtime keeps the pacing procedural rather than sensational, and the production treats its Midwestern setting with plain, unglamorous detail instead of leaning on stylized crime-thriller tropes.
Where & how to watch
The documentary streams with a K-Time account, and the interface, subtitles, and support are built around Farsi-speaking viewers, so no extra setup is needed for a Persian-first viewing experience. Both Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles are available for this title. This page itself can be read without logging in; only pressing play requires signing in first.