Netflix’s Unknown Number: There’s More to the Story in Lauryn Licari’s Case

Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of True Crime with Kendall Ray. Thank you so much for joining me today and if you're new to the show, then welcome so happy to have you here. Now guys, today, okay, we are talking about something that I know a lot of you are already familiar with because this has gone super viral. We're going to be talking about Lauren LaCarrie and the new very viral documentary on Netflix called Unknown Number. Now we actually had this case on my schedule way before the documentary came out and I didn't know it was going to come out and honestly, I thought maybe I shouldn't even cover it anymore since Netflix already is, but it recently dropped and so many of you have messaged me like, I don't know if I've ever gotten this many requests to cover something ever. Well, maybe I don't know, but this is up there with most requested and I know that there are going to be some people that are like, oh, you're late to the party. We've already watched it and that's fine. This isn't for you. This is for people that want to have a conversation to hear my thoughts and also go over some of the things that Netflix left out because there is quite a bit and there's been so much conversation and dialogue and theories about this case, circling the internet that I thought it would be interesting to dive into it with you guys today. And I also have to say right off the bat, I was really annoyed that I already knew the story before watching the documentary because the way that they laid this thing out was perfect. You would have no idea the big twist if you don't know, don't worry. I won't spoil it until we get there, but this is a spoiler alert. This entire episode you will know the whole gist of the documentary after watching this episode. But I wish I didn't know going into it because it would have been such a shock and seeing people's reactions online had been really interesting. But even though I already knew most of the details and what happened, I was still just blown away by this documentary and I thought to myself, I still need to cover this. I need to talk about it. I need to get my thoughts out there because I have so many. This was one of the most absurd stories I have ever heard. I was so disturbed, so angry, so fired up, and just confused. I still just feel so confused. I don't understand how this could happen, but anyway, I'm already getting ahead of myself. Before we get into the episode, oh, quickly I did want to say thank you for all of your support last week on my pregnancy announcement. I'm very happy to be having baby number two and you guys are just awesome. I'm so lucky. I don't want to understand how I end up with such a supportive, kind audience. I just still sometimes have to pinch myself that you guys even care about me and my family and that's just like, I just feel very, very fortunate in life to have so much support. So very emotional these days, I'm not going to get all weird right now, but yes, thank you very much. So by now, like I said, I'm sure a lot of you guys have already seen the Netflix documentary unknown number, and if you haven't seen it, I'm sure you've heard about it or you've heard what happened to Lauren McCarrie watching this documentary, man, oh my God, I watched it three times. And last night I watched it with my husband and watching his reactions to it was, oh my God, I just, I don't think either of us have ever said what the fuck so many times while watching a documentary. But just in case you haven't seen it, I'm going to give you a brief rundown. Most of this episode is going to be about theories and my thoughts and kind of the discussion that's happening around the documentary. But I did want to explain it for those of you who haven't seen it or feel like you might be too triggered by it. It could be triggering for sure, like I said, it's really disturbing. So I know some of you guys prefer to listen to a podcast or something on a case versus watching a documentary because it can just be too much and too overwhelming. So let's get into it. So it starts in 2020. Lauren Lakari was just 13 years old at the time, living in Beale City, Michigan, where she became the target of a horrific harassment text message campaign. And I just want to take a second to describe where all of this took place because the location or I guess I should say really the size of the location is very important to the case because Beale City is a very small town, right and central Michigan. And when I say small, I mean, freaking small. The population in 2023 was 312 and there's only one stop light in the entire town. And of course, it's a type of place where everyone knows everyone. Now, I cannot imagine what it would be like to live in a really small town. It's gotta be really hard. I know some of you out there have had experience with love to hear your stories, but my husband grew up in a pretty small town, not as small as Beale City, but pretty small. And the stories he had about people and parents even and like weird high school shit definitely reminded me a lot of Lauren's story. Now, Lauren's mom Kendra wasn't originally from the area, but her dad Sean did grow up there and he went to school with a lot of the other adults there, including Jill and Dave McKenney, where the parents of Lauren's first boyfriend Owen and the two of them started dating in middle school and their families were very close, which is very similar to my childhood. I had a boyfriend, a middle school boyfriend who I dated for like three years and our families were really close friends, so we spent a lot of time together and that was definitely the situation for Lauren and Owen and Jill and Kendra became very good friends. And of course, remember this is 2020, so their families were even in each other's quarantine bubble and they spent a whole lot of time together, whether at bonfires, dinners or attending the kids sporting events. And it honestly seemed like Lauren and Owen had a really sweet, very innocent relationship that all four parents really supported, but that would drastically change. Because in October of 2020, their classmate Chloe and her family were hosting their annual Halloween party. Now, there are some conflicting things about this Halloween party. Lauren said that she was not invited, however, I've seen that it was kind of like an open invitation to anyone in the town, open house, got a situation, and that Chloe's mom even reached out to Kendra to let her know that all the kids were invited. But maybe it was something where Chloe had, I don't know, word had gotten back to Lauren that she wasn't invited because for whatever reason, Lauren did not think she was invited. But either way, it did cause a little friction because Owen wanted Lauren to attend it with him, but she was hesitant to go and then to make everything much worse that two of them, Lauren and Owen, started to receive these text messages in a group chat from a random number that neither of them had saved, neither of them knew who it was. And one of the first messages said this, "Hi Lauren, Owen is breaking up with you. He no longer likes you and hasn't liked you for a while." And also I just want to know, I'm not going to be reading every single text message in this episode. There are a lot Netflix didn't even include them all because it would be just ridiculous to include them all its pages and pages and pages of text. So just keep that in mind, there are many more. But another one came in and it was very sexual and referenced the Halloween party saying, not sure what he told you, but he is coming to the Halloween party and we are both DTF. And if you didn't know, I'm sure most of you know, but DTF means down to fuck. But yeah, very concerning for high school students and these were very bizarre and intense messages right out the gate and it stopped just after a few of them were sent. So everyone kind of moved on and things kind of went back to normal. They never figured out who it was, but no more were coming in, so they're like, okay, maybe that was just some weird thing, never knew who sent them, but we're going to go on with our lives. But then a few months later, Lauren and Owen entered their freshman year, still going strong and people in the town even referred to them as the high school's golden couple. And there are super cute couple, it looks like these pictures of them are from homecoming as my guess, because I think they're too young for prom. But 11 months after that first round of text messages, they started back up again out of nowhere. And this time they were relentless. They absolutely would not stop and they got so much darker and so much worse. The first couple of text said, how's the happy couple and preparing for the end of the golden relationship? Everyone read, Owen loves me and I will always be the girl he loves. He will be with me while your lonely ugly ass is alone. Now of course the kids tried to do what anyone would do to stop these messages, lock the number, but every time they did that, a new one would just pop up. I mean, these were just so vicious, so relentless and Lauren would even try to call the numbers, but she of course never got an answer. And sometimes she would even respond back to the messages, begging them to stop or even standing up for herself at times, but that didn't seem to do anything. In fact, it seemed to just make it worse because it's just escalated from there and sometimes she was getting up to 50 text messages a day from this number. And at some point the message is really shifted from trying to put a wedge between Owen and Lauren trying to break them up to just disgusting and awful attacks on Lauren. One of them said, "You are the ugliest person I've ever seen." Another said, "You are worthless and mean nothing. You never have. Get a fucking life out of here." Owen will never look at you again or talk to you. You fucked his life up so bad, his family fucking hates you for it and he will never in his life acknowledge you again. And keep in mind the two of them are only 13 at this point and some of these messages were so sexy. explicitly explicit and incredibly graphic and I will get to some of those. I mean, they're so bad that I wouldn't be surprised if it was Lauren or Owen's first time being exposed to this type of language. It was all incredibly shocking. I know in high school, it seems like way different than when I was in high school. High schoolers know about a lot more and they know a lot. I don't know, worse language and the internet has certainly changed things. But even for today's day and age, I think these are just horrible. They're so, they made me feel incredibly uncomfortable as a 30-year-old woman, 32-year-old lady. But not only is it disturbing for them, there's this added layer of "we don't know who this is" and it was extra scary because this person knew very specific details about them and sort of changed based on the day, you know, like they would point out certain things that happened that day, that how old would they know happened. So it felt like they had a stalker, really. Like for example, sometimes these messages would call out what Lauren was specifically wearing that day or how her body looked in that specific outfit. Here's one that read "Fucking trash bitch. Don't fucking wear leggings. Ain't no one want to see your anorexic flat ass." The text are even referred to Lauren by her nickname "low" which only people close to her call her. So not only are they reading these horrific messages about themselves getting bullied in her ass every single day, but they are also living in fear of being watched. And after a while, it just became too big, too overwhelming for them to handle on their own, so they finally told their parents what was going on. Now, her mom Kendra really did her best to get Lauren to ignore it all, but it was clearly affecting her mental health and how could it not? I mean, it would affect anyone's mental health, let alone a teenager. And she had been a really gifted athlete up until this point, but after getting these messages that made front of her performance, she became disengaged and just gave up on trying to play well. For example, one of the messages said, "You're the worst. You should quit, get hurt and be done." And everything got so bad that she would have trouble sleeping and she would cry in the mornings that she had to go to school. I cannot even imagine what this would be like. I would cry in the morning before I went to school and I wasn't being harassed by a secret text messenger. I mean, I knew who was harassing me, but to have it be some secret, freaky person who was sending in the most sexually explicit, disturbing. I mean, I can't even, we're going to get into some of these messages. They are so bad. I cannot imagine, as a teenager having to get up at the crack of dawn, put on your clothes and go face this, having no idea who it was, thinking anyone I could interact with today could be this person who has been harassing me for months. I mean, over a year at this point, and Owen also was really, really struggling as well, because of course he was. His parents said that he went from being a very happy, chill kid to being just drained all the time. Jill even said he started to become more prone to these angry outbursts because of the stress he was under. And after a while, these text messages made Owen and Lauren turn on each other. Lauren started to think that maybe there was some truth to the sexual text about Owen. And I'm going to go over some of these. And I just want you to know that they are very disturbing. Okay. I'm going to bleep some of this out because it is so vile, so vicious and so explicit that it feels disgusting to even read these when they were sent to teenagers. But I think in order to really get the message across of how bad this situation was, the sexual harassment that Owen dealt with, and Lauren as well, that you need to know exactly what they said, I mean, other than the fact I'm going to have to bleep them, I'm sure you guys will still be able to figure it out. And it's also really weird. The text started saying we at some point. And I don't know why they decided to do that. Maybe to kind of throw them off. I don't know, but here's one. It says we stay in at a hotel with him Thursday and your sorry ass won't be there. Another one read. Owen, remember you said of course you would help us. You hate her. You said worse mistake. Ugly, anorexic toddler never talked to her again. Our plan will break you. We promise. We know it's what you want. Owen and I down to finger. His dick and finger my and mouth. My fucking tits in his face. Fucking make him make it. Yeah, he wants sex is and making out. He don't want your sorry ass. How do I even know what to say? These text messages are so, so disturbing. The fact that they were going to teenagers makes me want to throw up. If these were coming into my child one day, I mean, she's only three now. But if I ever saw something like this on her, oh my god. Oh my god. I mean, this is just beyond words. Disturbing. So, so upsetting. And I haven't already seen the documentary. I'm sure you're wondering who the fuck would send these to these kids. So of course, Lauren is getting these not only is she so, so disturbed by them. I mean, imagine reading that at her age. But anyway, she's also thinking maybe whoever is sending these messages is telling the truth. Maybe Owen really was doing this stuff with someone behind her back and she would start kind of accusing him of it, which would then lead to more fights between them, of course. And so after a while, it just became too much for Owen. And so he decided to break up with Lauren. And he was sort of hoping that maybe this would just give the texture what they want to clearly they really wanted them to break up. So he thought maybe this would calm everything down. And Lauren was very heartbroken by this, but still had hope that maybe they could get back together if, you know, it all stopped. And they even had disgust that maybe they could get back together. If it all came to an end after that. But unfortunately, the breakup did nothing. In fact, the viciousness of these text messages just got worse. There are more of them. And it especially got worse for Lauren. Some of them attacked her for the breakup saying, maybe you shouldn't have picked cross country over him. You proved he isn't important to you. We were there though. You don't get with him in bed. You don't sneak out with him. You fucking dress awful. Ain't no guy want that. And others saying things like he thinks you're ugly. He hates you. We won. His life would be better if you were dead. At one point, they even sent a photo of the two of them with things written on it like he is ours. You still grateful now, bitch. LMAO and we won. And these text messages were also becoming more and more threatening and encouraging Lauren to harm herself. And I know I issued sort of a trigger warning in the beginning. I am issuing it again. This gets disturbing. Could be very, very triggering to some of you out there. One of them said, warning, you finish yourself before we do. Another one read, finish yourself or we will. So just flat out encouraging her threatening her really to what I interpret as take her own life. I think that's pretty clear that that's what this text are wanted. And yes, Lauren was definitely getting the worst of it. But Owen was also still being harassed even though they broke up. In fact, he started seeing a girl from another town and everything was apparently going really well until her mother started getting texts from a random number. And as soon as he hears about that, he's like, oh my god, this is happening again with another girl. And she's from another town. And you know, this person is still after whoever I'm dating. It feels like I can't date anybody. So he broke things off with her just so that they wouldn't have to deal with the harassment, which is super, super sad because it sounded like he really liked her. And at this point, it was just absolutely her understood. And everyone agreed this has got to stop before something really bad happens. And so their moms Kendra and Jill stepped in because obviously they're going to do whatever they could to protect their kids right during all of this. They would regularly go to the school and talk to the superintendent who tried to help get to the bottom of it. And he even came up with a plan. Lauren would let him know if she received any messages while at school. And then he would check the school surveillance cameras to see if he could find anyone texting, which I appreciate the effort. I gotta say, I mean, I guess it's like what else could they have done. But if it's a teenager sending these messages, it's very unlikely you're going to catch them doing it. I mean, kids can even when I was in school, I was texting in my pocket. I graduated in 2011. And of course, even if you did see students on their phone, it's impossible to see who they were texting. And just because a student is texting, you can't accuse them of doing this. I mean, teenagers, texts, they're all texting all the time. So this of course never led to any viable suspects. And then Kendra and Jill tried to get phones banned just in general, in class completely and wanted the school to enforce a rule that would make students keep all their phones and their lockers. But but the superintendent refused. They even asked if they could hold a meeting with the entire JB Girls basketball team because the two moms had a hunch that it was coming from one of them, but that wasn't allowed either, which I was surprised they wouldn't allow them to just host a meeting. I don't know, I feel like just to, maybe they were worried we'd get to a accusatory or something, but I don't know. I feel like talking about this would have been helpful. Maybe it would have made it worse. I don't know, I don't know. But basically the school was saying we can only do so much that moms were very frustrated by this and they just kept applying pressure and eventually they decided to get law enforcement involved, which I got in my opinion, I think should have been done sooner, but again, they, I don't know how helpful they were until later on, we'll get to it. But yes, they get law enforcement involved and an officer was assigned to the case and he compiled a list of suspects and started talking to each one of them, trying to rule people out and at the top of that list was this girl named Chloe. Now, Chloe was the girl who's Halloween party seemed to originally sparkle of this if you remember. And she was on the basketball team with Lauren and also had a friendship with Owen and some kids have even said that maybe she liked Owen, I don't know, I don't know if it really doesn't matter honestly, but it made people wonder if this harassment was a way to get Owen to herself that she was like jealous of Lauren, so when she was questioned, she fully denied everything and they even scrubbed her phone and absolutely nothing came back to her. But it seemed like whoever was sending these text messages was definitely trying to frame Chloe because Chloe would say bra, a lot, be our UH and that word was specifically used in a lot of the text messages. And also, one of the text messages said that the sender got 12 points in a game and since Lauren's mom Kendra volunteered as the scorekeeper to that game, she was able to look up the scores and found that surprise. Chloe had scored that same amount, 12 points. And then this person started sending pictures of Owen and Chloe. So very clear that the sender wants Chloe to be framed for this, right? And there was even a snapchat account made under the name Chloe that started messaging Lauren, but it went even further than that. At some point Chloe and her family took a trip to Florida. And while they were there, literally according to her parents, like an hour over the border into Florida, texts started to come in with that area code. And after Chloe had been questioned, it seemed like the sender was just starting to really panic and doubling down on trying to pin it on her and Owen and Lauren got these text messages saying that the cops would try to protect the sender. Now what's interesting about this is Chloe's dad was in law enforcement. So it seems like the sender was kind of trying to plant that idea that she was being protected by law enforcement that there was like a conspiracy going on. And after her phone was searched, another text came in trying to really pin it on her and it said, "Bitches, I talked to police yesterday and they fucking kept my phone, fucking searched it, copied it, found nothing bad." But to law enforcement and to everyone else in the situation at this point, it really seemed like a pathetic attempt to try and get Chloe in trouble. It was pretty clear it was not her. And so police started to consider who would want to frame Chloe, which led detectives to their next suspect, Owen's own cousin, Adriana. Now apparently a few years before all this, Chloe had gotten into some trouble for bullying her. She explained in her interviews that she always kind of felt like the outsider and they thought maybe she had enough and she was trying to get back at Chloe after all this time and one of the text messages included a photo that was taken at Owen's parents Christmas party which only a few people attended. And Adriana, of course, being his cousin, happened to be one of them. And so because of this, she was questioned and her phone was searched. However they didn't find anything on it, which ultimately did rule her out, but oh my god, I felt so bad for her in this documentary. It's awful that she had to go through any of this in the first place and be accused and even have adults accusing you. And I mean, Chloe went through that as well. Adriana said that she is so traumatized by all of this that she still gets scared if she sees a cop car driving by, which I can see why. I'm sure all of the kids who were questioned or accused at any point in time will have long lasting impacts from all of this. Now the textor had to be someone who knew that the police had just spoke to Adriana because after she was questioned, a text came in from the center to Adriana. Hey Adriana, Owen needs your help. We need to get Lo gone away from him. Tell his parents Loa bitch, fucked up his life, you hate her too. And this just terrified her even more. And so obviously, whoever this is, they weren't scared enough by the investigation to stop the harassment. It seemed to just make them go even harder. And after a while, every single kid they spoke to was ruled out. So police were back at square one. I mean, think about it, this is a small town. There aren't that many kids to question to consider. They have really run out of options here, it seems. And by now, these text messages had been going on for almost two years at this point. I cannot even imagine how fucking done you would be with this entire situation. And Jill was definitely there. She was at her wit's end. As a reminder, Jill is Owen's mom. And she went in and applied even more pressure to the police and told them that she would talk the local papers if they didn't get to the bottom of it. There's even a clip in the documentary where she goes in and talks to an officer and there's body cam footage of it. And she just looks so distressed, so disheveled, exhausted. She even says, I'm not sleeping. This is incredibly stressful. Can we not just track down this person? How have we not found them yet, right? Like, this has got to be a kid in the school. How hard is it to figure out who's doing this? But finally, with so much pressure on law enforcement, which I'm surprised it took them this long, honestly. They went ahead and turned to the cyber crimes unit of the FBI for assistance. And they soon discovered that all of the messages were connected to an app called Pingr, which I had never heard of. I guess it's like a messaging service that generates other phone numbers. So it's like a, honestly, a great way to harass people. I don't know what else you would use this forum. Sure, there's other uses that actually are, um, not for evil purposes, but it seems like, I don't know. This seems like a dangerous app to me in my opinion. But the FBI serves Pingr a search warrant, which always a good reminder that you can't hide forever if you do something evil behind one of these apps. They can, you know, go after these companies as well and get information and they did end up giving the IP addresses attached to these text messages, which it's so frustrating that it took them so long to do this. I mean, this is two years in at this point. And God, nothing horrible happened in this time span. And it seems like the FBI was able to resolve it real quick. And this is the big shock of it all, you guys, because every single one of these text messages actually came back to two phones. And both of these phones were registered to drumroll, please, Kendra LaCari, as in Lauren's mother. Yes, that is right, the whole time. It was Lauren's mom sending these vicious, harassing text messages to her own child and her friends. Sexually explicit messages, messages encouraging her to harm her's all to her own daughter, bullying her when I first heard about this case. I was blown away. But watching it in the documentary, it's just sent me to the fucking moon because the way I can't believe they got Kendra to participate in this, because if you did not know this story before watching this, you had to just have your jaw on the floor when this shit was revealed, because her mom is literally in it in the beginning and talking about, oh, Lauren and Owen had to break up over this. And I just had to encourage her to stay strong and whatever bullshit she said. Meanwhile, it was her, the whole fucking time over two years, dude. Like this is one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard and now is a mother myself of a daughter specifically. I can't even put into words how much I fucking hate this woman. Like what a nasty evil bitch. And like I said, watching people's reactions to this who did not know before watching the documentary, what happens was a very interesting, very entertaining, honestly, so I'm gonna put in a little compilation for you guys to see for yourselves. Lauren's mom Kendra. - What the fuck? - Lauren's mom Kendra. - You ugly ass bitch. - I knew there was something about that woman's teeth. (laughing) - Didn't you? (crying) - John Henry. - Lauren's mom. - It was her mom. It was her mom. - She looks like quasi-butter. (crying) - Lauren's mom Kendra. - I honestly thought that a minute ago, and I thought, no, it's not mom. (laughing) - Are you fucking kidding me? So yeah, if you already watched a no-no number, you gotta tell me what you're doing. What your reaction was, if this is your first time hearing this, I need to know your thoughts, of course, but if you have already seen the documentary, or you went and watched the documentary and then came back to this episode, let me know in the comments what your honest reaction was when you found out that it was her mom. Dude, I'm telling you, even though I already knew, I was still just like that moment, just chills, like, oh, disgust. I felt like I had to fucking shower after-- oh, it's just so bad. I mean, Kendra was saying things about her daughter, like, I mean, let's just go over some of these messages again, okay? Or, I guess I'll read some new ones. Kendra was saying things to her daughter, saying things about her daughter, like, "His life would be better if you were dead. We want to take low down. She's a fucking waste. She don't deserve the air she breathes. She's a pointless human." Her wack-ass even talks about, in the documentary, she admits she starts talking about how, like, "Yeah, I would pick on her in securities." I would think-- and she tries to be like, "Oh, it's, you know, I'm anorexic, so that's what-- it's really just me talking to myself," or, like, the producer suggests that, and she agrees with it. And remember, she told her that she's a flat ass in her leggings, like, just, "Oh, my God! Coming from her mother! Oh, it's so sick. It's so heartbreaking." I can't even find the words to describe Kendra. I really can't. She's just so violent. And let's not forget the shit that she was saying to Owen! That is disgusting. And that's why I feel like I should read them on here, even though YouTube's probably not gonna love that, and we'll have to bleep it or whatever. I think it's important people understand the gravity of what she was saying to this child. I mean, it's just-- it's sexual harassment. And that's one point I really want to get into here. But first, in the documentary, they spend a lot of time showing the body cam footage of police telling Kendra that they figured out it's her. To say, her reaction is something. It's really interesting to watch because she knows Dan well, as soon as they approach her, that they have something that it's all coming to an end. And she tries to, of course, they know that it can't be, you know, tries to play it off. But just after a very slight amount of pushing her on it, she finally just unravels. I mean, what they really did was ask her if she did this because of Owen. And at that point, she was like, no, it's nothing like that. I think when she realized where this could go and what she could be accused of, she just was like, oh, shit, I gotta confess to everything. But it's wild to see her face and see her reactions to this. And it is just bizarre. I will never understand the way that this woman is acting in this moment. It's so fucking weird. And as she's questioned too, she starts saying that the text started from someone else, but then she just, you know, jumped into it or I think she said fed off of it. Which, come on, we know is just not true. Absolutely not. And what's really weird is later in the documentary, she says she did this to draw attention back to the text that were sent around Halloween to find out who did that. Which it took me a while to even, like, comprehend to register what this woman was saying, she's trying to say that someone else sent the original text, which is bullshit. And that in her delusional world. She was trying to protect them by figuring out who it was that she could, like, infiltrate their minds by becoming the texture and asking them questions and try to narrow down who was and see if they would give her any information. It's just such a load of shit. It's surprising to me that she really thinks anyone is going to believe that. And again, yeah, just complete bullshit because the FBI could only trace the text messages back to Kendra. Let's be super clear on that. And even if we want to live in her delusion just for a second and say, oh, yeah, someone else had sent the original ones and she was just trying to solve the case. Investigator Kendra. This is the worst possible way you could possibly find out who sent the messages. I mean, yeah, solve a crime by committing it yourself. Excellent work, Kendra. Just genius. Plus, let's not forget, there was like a 10 month gap after the original text messages came in around the Halloween party to win the bulk of them really started coming in. So what, as time passed, she just thought, you know what? I need to finally get to the bottom of who sent those messages 11, 10, 11 months ago. Okay, yeah, let me play detective by terrorizing my child. So in my opinion, and I think I'm sure all of you agree. She is just trying to make herself look a little better in this documentary. I mean, she's probably like, shit, this is going to be on Netflix. I better have a good explanation for this, and I've been really curious how they suckered her into doing this, how they convinced her. I mean, one of her friends, or I think it was her cousin, maybe. Yeah, I was a family member. That was featured in the documentary talked about how she like loves attention and they would go on cruises together and they showed footage of her and how she's just like, life of the party. So I kind of feel like they were like, hey, Netflix. And she's like, oh, big star. I could be all right. And she must have just thought like, I can really convince people that I'm the victim here. Maybe they even said something to her. Like, we want to hear your side of the story. We want people to see the real Kendra and understand your traumas because she does try to of course blame this on her own trauma and her childhood trauma. And we'll get to that. But yeah, I just, I found it really interesting that they convinced her to not only participate, but participate in a big way and even get her like doing these weird shots, like one of them they have her. She's like, on the couch and it's all dark and she's like texting. It is wild. It is seriously one of the craziest documentaries I've ever seen in my life, dude. But anyway, back to the Bodycam footage. So while the cops are confronting her, she gets freaked out when they say they have to tell everyone that was a big moment. Her eyes got big there. She was like, oh shit, everyone's going to know my daughter is going to know. And she even said that she's worried about how Lauren will be treated at school once it all comes out, which it's hard to even take this woman even like 1% serious. Like, you really expect anyone to believe even these officers that you're worried about her wellbeing and what it's going to be like for her at school. She's been suffering trying to get ready for school every single morning for the past two years at your hands. You have been harassing her. You have been torturing her, tormenting her mentally and now you're worried about her wellbeing shut the fuck up. I don't think she was worried at all about Lauren having a hard time about her being embarrassed. I think she was actually worried about what people were going to think about her. I think that's what's really creeping up in her mind is everyone's going to know it was me all along. I'm going to look like a crazy ass. And then Kendra just wants to go ahead and bring Lauren in the room and tell her with them. So they do that. They bring Lauren in. And a lot of people do have opinions on Lauren and how she reacted to this. So I want to spend some time on it. And first of all, I just have to say the police were pretty vague when explaining it to her. I found it like very unsatisfying but just super super super strange the way that they told her. They never directly said, Hey, your mom has been the one harassing you the last two years. Your mom has been the one sending these text messages. Instead, they actually say mom got wrapped into some stuff and she didn't start it, but she continued it. And my first thought was I would have so many questions. I don't even know she fully understood what they were telling her at first. It's just not a very clear way for them to relay this horrible news, this shocking life changing news. So it probably took her a minute to grasp it. And if she did, I think she's just completely frozen in shock. It's really hard to watch. And I think most teenagers or what we would expect from most teenagers is for them to yell and freak out and look so horrified at their mom. Certainly what I would do, I would have had a big old meltdown. But that doesn't seem to really be in Lawrence nature. She seems very just even killed. But because she didn't have the typical reaction, of course, people have had a lot of thoughts. But her friends really describe her as a quiet girl who's more on the reserved side when it comes to emotional things. And she certainly comes across that way in her interviews. And I think that's just really hard for people to understand that. Some people really do process things completely differently, especially big traumatizing moments like that or big information dumps, shocking information. So when you think about it like that, it doesn't seem that odd for her to have been internally processing everything the way that she was. And I also don't think it was the right decision for police to tell her all this in front of Kendra. I mean, maybe they were legally obligated to because she was a minor, but I don't know why they wouldn't have told her father Sean first, which we'll talk about how he found out and then maybe inform Lauren in the room with him later on. in a safer environment or take some time like Kendra had just been confronted with all this and it seemed kind of a rush to to tell Lauren I don't know. The whole thing was so strange to me but of course there are a lot of people out there who think that Lauren may have been in on it and that's why her reaction was the way that it was and I can see why people think this I won't lie there's even a part of me that's been like hmm especially because Chloe's parents specifically in the documentary alluded to believing strongly that Lauren and her father Sean were both in on it and basically like had campaigned they got away with it and that they must have known something this whole time but I really don't think you can come to that conclusion just based on the body cam footage you know her being quiet while receiving this information and trying to process it all I don't think that truly indicates that she knew about it or was in on it or anything like that and trust me I've read up on the theories about her being involved and we will talk more about that but for now let's get back to the body cam but it's really uncomfortable to see the way that Kendra is holding Lauren's hand and I should mean she looks incredibly nervous to tell her and I don't know the manipulation is just really really strong I get serious mother daughter manipulation vibes going on that it's hard to judge Lauren's reaction at all and this is just completely my opinion but I honestly think she might be pretty afraid of her mother and that's why she doesn't want to say how she really feels or show how she's feeling in that moment I don't know that's just my opinion I get very very strange vibes between them but after telling Lauren the cops call Sean to tell him what's going on and of course he immediately comes home and I have to say man I was so upset for Sean when he learned everything I know again that there are people that think he was it on it too I didn't get that vibe honestly I it seemed like he was absolutely floored by the entire thing he looks so disturbed so upset now one of the first questions that he asks is if the cops took all of Kendra's phones and they seem surprised by this because she told them that she only had one and I just have to wonder what would have happened if Sean didn't say that would they not have asked her if she had more devices or tried looking for them did she want to keep that phone to hide more evidence probably and you know they finally tell her okay we know you have another phone here where is it and she's like oh it's on the side of the house and they like from where she was originally standing when they approached her they go out and find it now after this Sean is brought into the room with everybody and immediately he's pissed off he starts questioning Kendra who finally starts to reveal the truth to him but yeah man I personally felt so bad for him in this moment I just think seeing someone in real time processing how he was deceived by his wife is just heartbreaking and when I say that I don't just mean the messages he was also lied to by Kendra about having a job now this wasn't included in the documentary but I was able to find out the reason why she was unemployed so back in the spring of 2021 when Lauren was in eighth grade Kendra worked for Ferris State University well turns out she actually got in trouble with them and was put on a performance improvement plan that cited excessive time on not work related texts and calls I'm really surprised that Netflix didn't include this because yeah her cat fishing her child actually affected her job but no no no that did not make her realize she need to make a change quite the opposite actually she quit that job in August of Lauren's freshman year because she fell short on meeting the standards of the performance plan so now Kendra had all the time in the world to focus on harassing children but of course she could not tell Sean that she sacrificed her income for her own sick game no no no no no instead she told him she took a different job with a higher salary and this phantom job allowed her to work from home so he didn't even question why she was sitting around on her phone or computer all day and Lauren even said she would take fake work calls and just talk about how swamp she was at work how busy and overwamp she was just working so hard for the family and if you're wondering how she was able to pull off the lack of income well she was the one who handled the family's finances she was in charge of the accounts therefore Sean had no idea that there was no money coming in from her and also this wasn't in the dock but Sean worked at an auto body shop and his co-workers we even joke that Kendra was his sugar mama they also said that Sean wouldn't be able to function without her but the cracks were definitely starting to show their home was being foreclosed on and then they were in the process of being evicted from another place however Kendra always had a reason why this was happening so Sean didn't know how bad it really was until it all came crashing down and it's just so hard to wrap your mind around how Kendra or anyone could make victimizing children one of them being her own daughter her number one priority in life even over her own work and her home her husband everything at one point the documentary she's talking about how it became like an escape for her how sad is that but anyway in that body cam footage we see Sean tell her that she has to leave and go stay with her parents and her reaction to this is just creepy she walks over to Lauren she starts holding on to her hugging her talking about how she can't leave her this just was difficult to watch and confusing I felt so confused I know other people did too and I think that's why there's so many theories out there I can see why and I think it could be easy to judge when you have an experiences type of dynamic or haven't learned about strange dynamics between mother and daughter a parent and child in general um I think she just had so much control on Lauren and my guess is even if the harassment hadn't have happened the two of them probably did not have a healthy relationship dynamic anyway I mean I'm sure most of you agree with that I think there's probably so much more to this story so much that has happened privately over time before this that will never truly get the full picture of what Lauren really dealt with when it comes to her mom now I was able to find one instance of it that wasn't in the documentary and it is truly shocking this really shows the control that she has the lack of boundaries that she has the strange dynamic between the two of them so back when Lauren and Owen were dating they attended a basketball game together and Kendra was also at this game and apparently she didn't like how Lauren was acting towards Owen so she sends her a bunch of text messages telling her what to do and I'm gonna read you these text messages they are wild and keep in mind she sent these as herself not as the unknown number but there's some similarities sit next to him answer me come here now I'm pissed move your ass now now I am fuming pissed off this is fucking ridiculous answer me move your ass just holy shit it's disgusting to see this I mean think back to your first relationship right can you imagine an adult let on your own parent being involved to that level I mean maybe it's worse if it's another random just any adult caring about a relationship between two kids it's sick why are you as a grown ass woman so concerned about how things are playing out between two 13 year olds it is so disgusting and disturbing all of it is just mind blowing really it feels truly impossible to understand the mind of Kendra Likari which I think is really why people are so fascinated with this case I mean it's so outlandish it really makes no sense and we have a hard time trying to imagine why any adult would do any of this and any reason that Kendra tried to give makes no sense I don't think there's any explanation that would make any sense for this other than just yeah I'm evil and weird so like I said earlier at first she was trying to play detective that was her original explanation for this that it was all just you know trying to get to the bottom of who was harassing her daughter which we all know is ridiculous and no one else was harassing her by you but another reason that she gave was that she had been sexually abused when she was 17 and as Lauren was approaching that same age she became paranoid that it would happen to her too and so she said that she sent these text messages as a way to keep her close to like stop her from growing up and she doesn't really expand on that so I don't understand at all but she meant I don't know how you're protecting her trying to keep her close by sexually harassing her really and Owen as well maybe she's trying to say that she was trying to get Lauren to be afraid of being around other people or growing up or leaving the house or a lot of people have brought up the idea and I think this makes some sense too that she liked that Lauren was coming to her for comfort through all of this and it allowed her to protect her more and to be the hero maybe that's kind of what she meant and I think that explanation like I said makes some of the most sense of them all. No, of course we can have sympathy. for what Kendra experienced as a teenager. Of course, people have questioned if that actually happened because how can you believe anything that she says, but we don't know, it definitely could have happened and I have sympathy for her if that's the case, but that certainly does not excuse or explain any of this behavior. I mean, trying to protect your daughter from potentially being assaulted by sending her sexually harassing text messages to her and her boyfriend makes absolutely no sense. So if anything, she's possibly been exposed to even more sexual trauma because of you. Actually, I'm just gonna go ahead and say that, yeah, that is what happened because of you. (upbeat music) Now, one thing that I've definitely seen talked about the most by far and was talked about a lot in the documentary is this being a case of cyber-munch-housin by proxy, which is also known as factitious disorder imposed on another. It used to be called munch-housin or munch-housin by proxy. Now, it is more respectful, I think, and correct to refer to it as factitious disorder or factitious disorder imposed by another. Now, I'm sure most of you know of that disorder, but if not, it's basically where someone fakes or causes symptoms of an illness in someone in their care, but in this case, the illness would be the cyber-bullying. So again, that would make sense of the idea that she wanted to heroically comfort her daughter in a time of need even if she was one causing the pain, or maybe she wanted attention or sympathy from others as a seemingly amazing mom. And this is often the motivation for people who make their children sick. Obviously a very famous case of this is Gypsy Rose Blanchard. And obviously in this case, this is completely emotional, sympathy-based, or looking for support, attention. It doesn't fall into the category of doing this for any other reasons, like financial gain, for example. Now, this wasn't in the doc, but Kendra also was involved in the community for a lot of things. She would even text some of Laurence friends and talk about everything that was going on. And at one point, she texted one of them that Lauren was crying in the bathroom because of the harassment and asked the girls to leave class to be with her. So it seems like she was feeding off the attention for her and then also for Lauren in a weird way. And you know, there's also the idea that this is a small town and it's hard to sometimes fit in. Like coming as an outsider to a small town it can be very hard to mesh with people and be accepted. And that seems to certainly be the case in Biel City. So maybe she did this as a way to have more of an in with other moms have something to talk about, become center of attention. I mean, you think about it. This whole situation made her closer friends with chill and did make her stand out more amongst the adults and gave her a reason to speak to the kids as well and to the police. And maybe she really enjoyed having all that. I think it's pretty safe to say that if this wasn't the main mode of this was part of it. And like I said, her own cousin said that she loves attention and she definitely was getting it during all this, especially from a community that may not have given it her much before. And then there's another big theory that was brought up in the documentary, I mean, the police brought it up in that body cam footage right away. It's definitely on the top of my mind and big when it comes to people discussing this on the internet. Like a lot. Most people I think believe that this was a huge part of it. People wonder if she did this because she was obsessed with Owen. And oh man, do I hate to say this? I hate to think about it too much because he was only 12 or 14-ish to our guess 12 to 14 when this happened. But it just can't be ignored how sexual these messages were and how they were directed at him and about him. And oh, it's just so disturbing. And that's why, again, why I wanted to read them. I just feel like it's important. People understand what he went through as well. And I do think she has a bizarre obsession with Owen. I think in a lot of ways, she's sort of entertaining in this sick fantasy and obsession that she has with him. And she would also always involve herself in their relationship like if Owen was ever over. She would tell them to go on the trampoline or take a ride on the family's utility vehicle. Almost as if she's bicariously living through her daughter through her relationship. And think about those text messages that weren't in the documentary that I read you earlier about her obsessing over the way that the two of them were interacting at the basketball game. I mean, that is a bizarre behavior that most adults wouldn't even think about doing. And not only that, this freak would go on their dates, sometimes tell them how to pose for pictures and then printed them out as gifts to give to him. And I think this again shows that there's just no boundaries in the relationship between Kendra and Lauren. I mean, if my parent got involved in my relationship at any age, especially this age, like that, oh, I would be so embarrassed, so disturbed, so angry. And at one point, one of Lauren's friends, even witnessed Kendra pretending to be Lauren and texting him, I love you. I can't remember if that was in the documentary or not, but it's stuff like that that really drives home that theory for me. And stuff like that didn't stop once they broke up. She would attend Owen's games by herself, dude, and would ask Jill about his new relationship. She even signed up to be his track coach, which he didn't think was that weird at the time because he thought of her as like a second mom, I guess. That's how close they were. So all of this behavior is really disturbing, really gross. And especially when paired with the type of sexual language that she used about him in those text messages. So I mean, in my opinion, I think it's safe to say that she did a lot of this because she was obsessed with him. And it was like playing out of fantasy as sick as that is. And I just feel so heartbroken for him and his parents as well. Just for them having to see their son go through that and for him having to deal with something like this, that such a young age is understandably going to have a long lasting impact on him. Not to mention all of the trust issues that this is going to cause him for the rest of his life. In his victim impact statement, he said, at the end of the day, this will be over and we can try to go back to our lives. You can try, but it's scarred me. This whole thing is gonna affect me the rest of my life. And if I'm being honest for a moment, I have beef with this documentary because I hated the way they completely glazed over how inappropriate and scary all of this was that this grown ass woman sexually harassed this child and it was just like, I mean, they barely addressed that. In my opinion, I think he is almost as much of a victim as Lauren is and the fact that they just kind of like brushed over that and he was a secondary to the whole thing was really disturbing to me. I just hope he is doing okay, especially now that this is all public. I just can't imagine having gone through everything that he has at his age and then having it all be public like this. Now going back to Lauren, okay? Obviously the biggest discussion surrounding the case online is when they're not, she wasn't on it. I know you guys are gonna be super split on this and I'm just gonna say it right now. I truly, I don't know what to think completely but I heavily lean towards, she didn't know anything was going on. The one thing that really got me was Chloe's parents alluding to that, that was strange to me. And in today's world, you just never know. So it's hard to say like 100%. But I am pretty damn sure that Lauren had no idea that any of this was going on in Sean too because first of all, law enforcement and the FBI has been emphatic that Kendra is the only person tied to any of this. Still of course people question Lauren's reaction to everything, question how she couldn't have known about it but why would she do this to herself? I can't understand a motive there at all. I'm sure people have made up something at this point. But like I said earlier, I think a lot of her reaction can just be explained by shock and confusion and sometimes people don't really want to show their real emotions to law enforcement or strangers. But there's also another moment in the documentary that has caused a lot of discussion. Unknown number ends with Lauren saying, I love her more than anything. Which has made a lot of people understandably baffled about how she could feel that way after all that has happened. But I don't know if people are giving her enough grace for the situation. Look man, a toxic parent relationship is incredibly, incredibly complicated and very confusing. I'd imagine that unpacking something as difficult as your parents secretly harassing you for two years would be very complex and very difficult, especially at Lauren's age. But I also want to point out I think that moment could also be Lauren getting an unfortunate edit by the makers of this documentary. Now let me explain what I mean. Okay, so in the doc, there are two different interviews with Lauren and one of them, she's wearing a pink long sleeve shirt and then another, she's wearing a gray sweater. Now we don't know the exact dates these were filmed, but it definitely seemed like the pink shirt interview was shortly after everything happened and the gray sweater was a follow-up interview a while later. And in the gray sweater interview, she seems a lot more logical about how she talks about her mom. She seems a lot less, I don't know even how to explain it. She seems like things have hit her. Like it's had a lot more time to sink in by this point. She does say in the gray sweater interview that she'd be open to mending their relationship at some point. But when the time is right, which is a lot different, than how she acts in the pink shirt interview. She also acknowledges that she wants to trust her, but doesn't think she can yet. And I'm curious what else she said that could have been possibly cut out. But in the pink shirt interview, she speaks more highly of Kendra. And I think that's because it was earlier on in her processing. And that last line of, I love her more than anything, comes from the interview that I think was first. I think we can all agree that that was clearly done first. So I don't think that's a reflection of how she feels now. And I think it was very unfair that they put this at the end as her final word after she was the victim and all of this. And I think we all have to keep in mind that you never know how questions were posed to someone by the filmmakers, because obviously they want to put together an edit that's going to be the most shocking. So it's possible she was asked how did you feel about your mom before all of this or something. And I don't know that to be true, but I'm just saying none of us know. She could have been asked, what did you think of your mom when you were younger? I mean, she may not necessarily have been asked, what do you think about your mom right now? But she may have. And that may have been her answer. And she may have still been processing it at that point. Or she may really feel like that. And they have this twisted relationship that can we blame Lauren for being manipulated like that by her mom after we've seen the way that she manipulates her daughter. I just felt like the way that these two interviews were like kind of weirdly spliced up. And there wasn't much from gray sweater interview. I don't know. It made me feel like it was edited like that for a dramatic effect, which obviously this is going on Netflix. They want to do that. I don't know. It is a pretty strong shocking way to end the whole thing. But I really don't think it's fair for people to use it as evidence that she was involved. At the end of the day, Kendra worked hard to manipulate everyone she manipulated, all these adults for two years. And to think that Lauren got the brunt of that, who knows what had happened in those two years that we don't know about or in all the years of her life. I just think it's really unfair after everything that Lauren's been through for people to blame her. And like I said, it is possible that she knew we don't know. I certainly don't know with 100% certainty. I feel very strongly that she wasn't. I can't say 100%. But I just don't think there, I mean, I know that there's certainly not enough evidence for anyone to be accusing her of that. Now, there isn't a ton out there about what's going on with Lauren today. And I'm glad that it seems like she has some privacy, I guess. But we do know that Sean divorced Kendra and he got full custody of her, which I'm very happy to hear that. The judge also ordered that Kendra wasn't allowed to have contact with Lauren. And while that has since expired, as far as we know, the two of them haven't spoken yet. She did email back and forth with her mom. And Jail, very, very strange, the messages that they read in the documentary. Her mom is definitely, I think you could say, love bombing her, it's just gross. But at the end of the day, just because she has been separated from her mom and as far as we know, they aren't in contact now, doesn't mean that she's had a happy ending. This wasn't in the documentary, but she did end up leaving school and enrolling in online classes for a bit. She did end up returning and did graduate. And I'm happy to hear that. But I'm sure that couldn't have been easy. And I really hope that the kids at the school and other parents were kind to her about all of this and understanding and sympathetic considering she was a victim in all of this. But with the rumors about her possibly being involved, it seemed like they were definitely swirling around the small town. So I'm not sure how everyone handled it. And I don't know what she's gone on to do since graduation, but I do know that she has expressed interest in going to college to study criminology. But no matter what, I just really hope she's able to find some peace and happiness after all of this. And Sean too, I'm sure he has just been through the ringer and people think he's involved as well. And maybe I don't know. But I think for what it's worth my spidey senses, which aren't great, I'll admit. To say no, I mean, I'm normally a sucker, but I really don't think that either of them were involved. And I just, my heart is broken for them. It was so awful to watch. So I hope that Sean is doing better that he's giving Lauren all the support that she needs and that they are able to move on together. And if she ever does decide to reunite with Kendra, I hope that it's more healing for her than harmful. Now speaking of Kendra, I couldn't find much about where that freak is now. But in 2022, she ended up being arrested and charged with two counts of stocking a minor, two counts of communicating on a computer to commit a crime in one count of obstructing justice. She pled guilty to the two stocking charges in exchange for everything else to be dropped. And she was sentenced to just 19 months in jail, which is horrific when you think about how that's less time than these kids were tormented for. The prosecutors did acknowledge that she probably would have gotten more if it had gone to a jury trial, but they didn't want to put all of her victims through that. Which I do understand, but just think she got off so easy. And I think the initial charges seem so light. Stocking is a serious crime. And she did so much more than that. I just do not understand. In fact, I'm furious that she did not face any charges of sexual harassment or endangering the welfare of a child. There were also no charges pertaining to her framing Chloe or Adriana. And I've seen some people argue that they think the state should have gone for attempted murder with all the time she encouraged Lauren to take her own life. And I agree, I wish that she would have gotten attempted murder. I really do. I think she absolutely did attempt murder. I mean, thank God Lauren didn't actually listen to what her mom told her to do. And in the documentary, they asked her about that. And she was like, I didn't think that she was going to actually hurt herself like this fucking one. But if I'm being honest, I think that prosecutors and law enforcement just haven't caught up, that they don't understand the extent of a crime like this because it was done through a phone. We see many examples where the justice system just isn't caught up to the times and to technology. And I think this is a very clear example of that. But I do have to wonder and ask yourself this too. Do you think the charges would have been higher if this was a man doing this to kids? Because personally, I do. But yeah, unfortunately, she served a pretty light sentence. She's already out, actually, so that's lovely. She is under supervision until 2026, which is hopefully stopping her from doing something awful again. But 2026 is right around the bend. And it scares me that this woman barely served any time and is just free to do who knows what. But I couldn't find anything on what she's doing or where she's living. I'm sure she's keeping that lock down as best as she can. Again, dude, I'm just shocked. She showed her face in this documentary, shocked. It had to be because she like fucking has to have the attention. Sorry I'm cussing so much in this episode too. I just cannot, I cannot hold back. But I think it's pretty safe to say she's not in Bill City, right? I mean, she'd be pretty stupid to be there. But yeah, I guess as long as she's not hurting anyone as far as we know, it doesn't really matter where this idiot is, although I wish she was in jail. God, she's just such a freak, man. Honestly, I just have a feeling that this isn't the last time we're going to hear about her. And that scares me. Actually, though, I bet it's just a matter of time until she crawls out of the woodwork to do some interviews, though, to make a little press tour 'cause she would totally do that. Ah, but yeah, that's about it. I don't know. I am pretty sick of talking about this freak. I cannot continue on, but I definitely want to hear what you guys thought. Okay, let's have a conversation. Oh, my God. That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.