Podcast Summary: True Crime Obsessed – Episode 457: "Unknown Number" (September 30, 2025)

Overview

In this highly anticipated episode, hosts Christine and Patrick, joined occasionally by Adriana, dive into the Netflix documentary "Unknown Number: The High School Catfish," recounting a true story from Beal City, Michigan. With their signature blend of humor and outrage, the hosts recap the disturbing events in which a 13-year-old girl, Lauren, and her boyfriend, Owen, are relentlessly harassed by an anonymous texter—revealing layers of small-town dynamics, parental failures, cyberbullying, and ultimately a shocking twist about the perpetrator’s identity.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Scene: Beal City and Its Social Dynamics

• Tiny town, tight community:
  • Beal City is so small that preschool through 12th grade is housed in one building; everyone knows each other from childhood.
  • “K through 12. Yeah, that is small town.” (Christine, 04:41)
• Small pond, big drama:
  • The close-knit nature doesn’t prevent cliques, exclusion, and bullying; in fact, it intensifies them.
  • Hosts wonder about how marginalized kids fare in such a setting: “If you’re like the little chubby gay kid, they all seem like nice people, but I cannot imagine I would have done well there.” (Patrick, 04:52)

The Text Harassment Begins: The "Unknown Number"

• Kickoff at a Halloween Party:
  • Tensions surface when Lauren is snubbed from a class Halloween party but ultimately attends with boyfriend Owen.
• First texts' flavor:
  • Two weeks before the party, Lauren starts receiving bizarre, hostile, sexualized messages from an unknown number aimed at breaking up the “golden couple.”
  • “Hi Lauren. Owen is breaking up with you. He no longer likes you … He is coming to the Halloween party and we are both down to fuck.” (Christine reading text, 10:10)
• Initial suspicions:
  • The group suspects mean girl Chloe (who threw the Halloween party), then considers the possibility that Lauren herself is behind the messages for attention (a suspicion fed by adult “research” and students alike).

Escalation: Cyberbullying and Systemic Failure

• Text content becomes aggressively sexual and hostile:
  • Lauren is called degrading names, shamed for her appearance, and pressured sexually. Owen is roped in through group texts.
  • “Fudgeing trash bitch. Don’t fucking wear leggings, ain’t no one want to see your anorexic flat ass.” (Patrick, 15:33)
  • “Making it cream.” (Patrick, 20:24 — recurring vulgar language highlighted)
• Volume and persistence:
  • Lauren receives up to 50 texts a day, describing real-time school events, suggesting the harasser is nearby.
• Personal impact:
  • Lauren’s mental health spirals. She begs not to go to school; her home life suffers; her grades and self-esteem nosedive.
• Institutional responses:
  • Parents’ pleas to the school and police are largely ineffective for months. School leaders and police waffle or take minimal action.
  • School has no unified cell phone policy, instead allowing teachers to decide individually.
  • “Every single teacher in the school each had their own policy about cell phones.” (Patrick, 24:51)
  • Police finally intervene only after explicit threats and suicide encouragement appear in messages.

The Investigation: Chase for the Culprit

• Initial focus on Chloe:
  • Evidence suggests the harasser is within Lauren’s peer group, perhaps even Chloe, who is later exonerated after a forensic phone search.
  • “Chloe and her family provided Chloe’s phone for a forensic download, but there was just nothing on her phone.” (Christine, 41:58)
• Adriana’s ordeal:
  • Owen’s cousin Adriana, herself a bullying victim, is falsely suspected next—deepening her trauma.
  • “I did not want to go to school … There was no way out.” (Adriana, quoting herself, 47:25)
• FBI steps in:
  • A year and a half into the terror, the FBI traces spoofed numbers used via an app (Pinger). All evidence points shockingly to Lauren’s own mother, Kendra.

The Reveal: Kendra’s Betrayal

• Mother as perpetrator:
  • The FBI’s tracing leads to Kendra’s devices. She is confronted; Lauren is present and in apparent shock.
  • “The person who has been doing this for 20 months is Lauren’s mother, Kendra. And I’m like, oh, it's Tall Hot Blonde all over again.” (Patrick, 56:26)
• Double life and manipulation:
  • Kendra admits partial guilt, lying about “responding” to an original harasser (there was none), and maintains control even as confronted.
  • She is found to have lied about her employment, finances, and more.
  • “She lost both of her jobs and hasn't had a job for over a year.” (Patrick, 72:07)
• Impact on Lauren and family:
  • Lauren and her father are blindsided. The family is shattered financially and emotionally.

Reflections: Motives, Gender, and Justice

• Nature of Kendra’s crime:

  • Patrick emphatically calls out Kendra’s behavior as predatory and possibly criminally sexual (given the content and targets), expressing frustration no one uses labels like “sexual predator” or “pedophile,” and questioning if this would be handled differently if Kendra were a man.
  • “If this were a man, we would not be spending the second half of this documentary talking, and like, I’m sorry, disgustingly humanizing Kendra.” (Patrick, 57:27)

• Gender and documentary handling:

  • Christine finds value in letting manipulative criminals speak for themselves—to “give them enough rope to hang themselves,” while Patrick remains firm that not pressing Kendra harder is a grave oversight.

• Lauren’s continued bond:

  • Despite the trauma, Lauren defends her mother and maintains contact, demonstrating the complexity and depth of parental manipulation.
  • “I liked communicating with my mom while she was in prison. I could talk to my mom on Mondays and Wednesdays.” (Lauren, as quoted by Patrick, 87:57)

• Larger social critique:

  • The hosts repeatedly point out failures by school authorities, police, and mental health infrastructure—the latter notably absent from the documentary, despite its obvious need.
  • “Where’s the mental health counselors, by the way?” (Christine, 39:26)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “These texts sound like they were sent by Judy Gemstone.” (Patrick, 11:25)
• “The thing that these educators are not realizing is this is a crisis. They’re treating it as like any other problem that the kids would encounter. When in fact, we’re dealing with a crisis that the FBI guy down the road is going to tell us: A lot of kids that this happens to kill themselves.” (Christine, 26:16)
• “Every single person in this documentary comes off looking exactly how they should to me.” (Christine, 44:08)
• “The mental health toll it's taking on both these kids ... I just don't understand. Like, it's just unbeliev[able].” (Patrick, 31:20)
• “Sometimes a girl's first and biggest hater is her mother.” (Patrick, 57:09)
• “She was telling her daughter to kill herself thousands of times … because, honestly, that would have been amazing for Kendra. That is endless attention for the rest of her miserable fucking life.” (Patrick, 79:40)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [09:59] - Text harassment from unknown number begins
• [14:53] - Texts grow specific, suggest insider status
• [19:42] - Parents and school confront failings
• [26:04] - Hosts lambast school’s phone policy chaos
• [36:10] - Chloe is interrogated and exonerated
• [47:23] - Adriana describes bullying trauma
• [54:41] - FBI traces IP addresses; app used: Pinger
• [56:26] - Reveal: Kendra is the harasser
• [65:00] - Police confront Kendra on body cam
• [73:12] - Sean (Lauren’s dad) finds out; family fallout
• [81:19] - Kendra’s sentencing and aftermath
• [87:40] - Lauren’s continued relationship with her mother

Episode Tone & Style

The hosts balance dark subject matter with moments of humor, empathy, and critical outrage. Their conversational, unfiltered style—punctuated with sharp asides and personal tangents—keeps the recap engaging without undercutting the seriousness of the events.

Conclusion & Host Perspectives

• Patrick is adamant that Kendra's actions should be recognized as predatory, and critiques the documentary's insufficient framing of her as such.
• Christine values the documentary’s storytelling, especially in exposing manipulative behavior, and believes audience insight is crucial.
• Both agree on the atrocity of Kendra’s betrayal and the systemic shortcomings that let it fester.
• They encourage viewers to watch the documentary, join their Patreon/Facebook group, and tease the next episode on "Who the F*** Is Jason Porter?"

Final Thoughts

This episode exemplifies True Crime Obsessed’s gift for dissecting true crime with heart and edge, challenging listeners to consider not just the facts but the cultural, psychological, and ethical implications of the crimes—and how we talk about them.