r/netflix • u/AnotherDarnDay • 2d ago

Discussion Unknown Number High-school Catfish Spoiler

What the hell did I just watch? And what the hell was this person thinking?

I'm in shock that someone would do such a thing to their own child. And that she doesn't seem to have any focus on what she actually did.

The daughter didn't seem to grasp what her mother did when they told her but the father acted on it right away.

Was she totally jealous of her own daughter?

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373

u/RogueKitteh 2d ago

So livid after watching this. Holy hell. Let me rant some thoughts/questions I have after watching.

How did the cops not immediately separate Kendra from her daughter/victim when they came to the house?? Instead they let her creepily hold/pet her? Wtf?

Why was the sexual component treated like an afterthought?? Why weren't there specific charges relating to that and why when they did briefly touch on that with Owen's mother did they try to sugarcoat it with older pictures of him instead of younger pictures of him when it actually started to drive home how creepy and fucked up it was?

Why did they give a platform to Kendra after sexually harassing children? Why did they try to humanize her and make us sympathetic with her to some degree? Would they do that with a grown man who sent equally sexually explicit messages to children?

Why didn't they focus more on how Kendra went after the new girl that Owen was talking to and her mother and what that means? I.e. that she did in fact have a fixation on him that went beyond her daughter

Why are they ALLOWING ANY contact between Lauryn and her mother after everything??

That woman belongs under the jail. For life.

Lauryn needs a world of therapy. It's almost like she needs deprogramming even

125

u/Danz-Macabre 2d ago

Right there with you. The whole thing made me sick. My own mother is a piece of work..so watching this really set my teeth on edge. Her sitting there so smug comparing what she did to someone drunk driving?! Okie that is not good either..terrible in fact..but to try and act like cyber bullying her daughter for what..2 years, wasn't so bad. Then the love bombing from prison. And the guilt and manipulation. I was furious because I recognised it. That poor girl needs to run far away from that woman.

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u/Cultural-Chart3023 2d ago

Yea the way she made it sound like she didn't do anything wrong everyone does something I was just caught... no.. wtf?! She clearly hasn't learned from it and has no genuine remorse she should not be free in society let alone still contact with her daughter wtaf

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u/pudgiedee 1d ago

omg when she said “everyone has done something illegal” it’s like no bish EVERYONE has not.

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u/MamaOwlInGlasses 1d ago

Well and focusing on the “they just don’t get caught” part as what separates what she did from whatever infraction “everyone else” does. Really said to me that she doesn’t view WHAT she did (stalking, emotionally and psychologically abusing two children, plus sending them graphic sexually inappropriate content NONSTOP for literally two years) was wrong or any worse than any other thing someone might do, the only thing that really matters to her is that people found out it was her so she had to pay the social and legal consequences. Just really disturbing.

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u/pudgiedee 1d ago

absolutely. Beyond disturbing and so bone chilling! I also really wondered about the husband and daughter’s reaction to finding out. Yes, everyone handles shock in different ways, but the husband was just obsessed with the fact that she wasn’t working/lying and not like WTF why were you sexually physically and emotionally harassing our daughter for this long?! and the daughters share silence of it all - I just don’t understand those reactions. Maybe they did know after all!

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u/MamaOwlInGlasses 1d ago

So, my interpretation of the dad reacting to the work thing was a little different: throughout the doc, they said that she took care of all finances and exerted a lot of control, and that they were having financial trouble. Turned out she wasn’t paying bills so they got evicted several times AND lost everything in their storage units of value (functional, monetary, and sentimental by the sound of it). It also sounded like there may have even been some insurance fraud (according to the cousin lady) to cover up her lack of income, but obviously that’s not something she was charged with so that is conjecture. They also were saying that she was like fully faking having a job, so I think that revelation was about him realizing how big her deception was to their whole family, in ways that emotionally and financially impacted all of them. So that was my take on his reaction about the jobs.

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u/Maxismydog1981 9h ago

The husband does not impress me as the sharpest tool in the shed. lol

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u/pudgiedee 1d ago

Ah okay, good way to put it. And then maybe given that they knew something was up - like why are they getting evicted, etc.. maybe they were in denial or enabling her and so maybe they weren't really that surprised at the end of the day. :(

3

u/Excellent-Cable-1366 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes she started with everyone does something illegal and only a few gets caught? WTF! She wants to generalise what she did and also assumes everyone does things like this? Also said she didn’t start it she just continued it then who started it? She’s a liar. 

37

u/_chicksareforfags 2d ago

I actually had to skip through endra talking cause it was nauseating. I do think including her speaking while overlaying the text messages though kind of shows how manipulative she is... so like totally agree she doesn't deserve a platform, but also i think they were showing how easily she started spouting those crocodile tears and saying all "the right things". it was fucking disgusting to realize it was her, my money was on the principal the whole time and I was pissed I was wrong for the sake of Lauryn. Like jesus how do you get over that.

19

u/mafaldajunior 2d ago

I was convinced that someone had hacked Lauryn's or Owen's phone, had access to their mic and phone content, and were aware of conversations because they were listening in that way. No way in hell did I suspect any of the parents.

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u/Lcky22 2d ago

I got spoiled and knew it was a parent so I was trying to guess which one and was still totally shocked. I was thinking it was Adrianna (? the cousin)’s mom trying to frame the dark haired girl (Chloe?) for being mean to her daughter or something. I was so so shocked!

7

u/JETPAKZAK 1d ago

Juat finished this as well. Im disgusted! Telling your daughter to inflict harm on herself, all the sexual things she said. This should be prison time. Absolute monster! Just needed to rant for a second. So much more to say but ugggh

8

u/RocketXsockzXisJoneZ 1d ago

Honestly the sexual nature alone from her to her own child should carry its own charge

4

u/Lcky22 1d ago

It’s crazy cause the fact that she was torturing her own child overshadows what she was doing to the others which was so awful as well. Absolutely unbelievable I feel so bad for her family.

As soon as Kendra’s cousin (?) said what she did about how much attention she demanded I started to understand

2

u/RocketXsockzXisJoneZ 1d ago

That did it for me too.. I didn’t see that (they didn’t want us to I guess) but she described her perfectly as an attention seeking performer which made all of it so much more disturbing. Idk if it’s just me but those 45 min were the longest 45 min I’ve ever watched, I went to work and was pulling up clips for a coworker & completely forgot it wasn’t a series with multiple episodes but just one 45 min documentary

1

u/Lcky22 1d ago

Wow yes it did seem way longer!

1

u/gummi_behr 1d ago

I believe the full documentary is 1hr30 mins

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u/Maxismydog1981 9h ago

If it was that dad instead of the mom, he would never have gotten out.

3

u/KVil32 1d ago

Same here. I thought it was a parent too and definitely thought Adrianna’s mom had a motive for framing Khloe

3

u/Ok_Course_2788 1d ago

I knew it had to be a parent and a older woman but I never suspected it to her mom 🤯

1

u/PAngel111 1d ago

I was thinking from the start it was his parent to try get her away from her son or for for some reason, I never guessed it was her parent it was shocking

•

u/Maxismydog1981 9h ago

Why did you think it was an older woman?

2

u/_chicksareforfags 1d ago

I thought that too, like a microphone app or something even. When they said that the only person who was around was Lauryn when the texts would bring something up from that day. I was like well it’s not her so it must be her phone

1

u/Longjumping_Elk2580 19h ago

My gut said one of the parents .. I donno why

•

u/Maxismydog1981 9h ago

I thought it was going to be someone nobody suspected. A mother of a student who rarely interacted with Lauryn and Owen, a male teacher no one would expect, or a neighbor who the families were barely aware exists.

3

u/hoosiergirl1962 1d ago

Not long into the show I said to myself, "I'll bet it was a teacher, and a female one who was fixated on Owen". I didn't know anything about the case beforehand and was truly shocked to find out it was the mother.

1

u/MostlyHarmless88 1d ago

I didn’t even make it through the whole thing because I was so disgusted with the entire situation. The mother is a sociopath and the daughter needs therapy. She knows deep down what her mother did was wrong, but she can’t accept it right now. She’s going to get angry about it at some point when she’s older and has more life experience, count on it.

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u/Professional-Dirt-87 2d ago

Drunk Driving is bad but is a mistake. I don't think anyone wakes up and intends to drive drunk that day. 

She deliberately chose to do what she did for 18 fucking months, it's beyond mental. 

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u/anon8232 2d ago

I believe it was 22 months.

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u/Cultural-Chart3023 2d ago

A mistake? Wtf it's definitely a choice!

1

u/Troth70 1d ago

I ask this sincerely: Aren’t most mistakes a choice? 

12

u/PollutionFar5423 2d ago

Take it from a recovered alcoholic: MOST alcoholics wake up (er, come to) and know full well that they're gonna drive drunk later that day/night. How else will they get their booze? (No, they're not gonna waste precious booze $ on cab fare.)

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u/dmbeeez 1d ago

Did you happen to catch the amount of alcohol on the dining room table?

3

u/pudgiedee 1d ago

yes WTF was that about

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u/PollutionFar5423 14h ago

Sure did! LOL! (Actually made me do a double-take, there was so much of it! And these people were supposed to be broke? Hmm...)

-1

u/rtrice10 2d ago

🤣🤣

2

u/Traditional-Emu-6167 1d ago

She watched her daughter cry over this and broke up with her boyfriend, she kept going to school to try to solve it and watched everyone involved losing their mind, people being blamed, so much more, and yet the mother carried on. There is something really wrong with her.

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u/whatsausername17 16h ago

Yeah f that woman. That was horrible.

2

u/ffflyin 2d ago

YES the love bombing… it’s just so wild

2

u/EveryMoose9523 1d ago

Another member of the Shitty Mom Commitee here. Before I started watching it I told my boyfriend “I wonder if it’s one of the parents” and uh….🤡 just kind of have an eye for this shit unfortunately

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u/carlandmidge 13h ago

Oh my god, same. I just went no contact with my mother last year at 42 - I’m still in trauma therapy and unlearning the abusive patterns that were normalized for me in childhood.

Reading the lovebombing texts sent by Kendra when she was in jail, I was SHOOK by how they could have been written by own mother during her attempts at manipulation and guilt-tripping. The evasion, avoiding accountability, redirection, and obvious lying during her interviews made me physically ill and were way too familiar.

I hope Lauryn gets so much therapy with a trauma specialist and is able to go no contact ASAP - those were the only things that helped me start to heal.

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u/Square-Sun654 2d ago

I do agree- this was child sexual abuse against Lauryn and Owen.

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u/mafaldajunior 2d ago

Plus death threats and psychological torture

3

u/snacky_snackoon 1d ago

“Weren’t you scared she would do it when you told her to kill herself” “No.” I WAS SO MAD!!

Not to mention Owen said STRAIGHT OUT it was making him suicidal and she KEPT GOING.

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u/mafaldajunior 1d ago

Ikr? It really baffles me that doing this to kids only gets you 18 months of prison.

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u/EcstaticSky4987 2d ago

THIS EXACTLY. I can’t believe how lightly they skimmed over the HORRIFICALLY GRAPHIC sexual messages she was sending CHILDREN. And telling her daughter to kill herself? I’m just in disbelief. At the end she had the absolute audacity to compare what she did to drunk driving?! As if someone charged with a DUI is guilty of a crime the same par as her own? Drunk driving is irresponsible and obviously a horrible thing to do, but what she did is calculated and sinister. She is clearly a sick and twisted pedophile who was obsessed with her daughter’s boyfriend, and incredibly jealous of her own child. I hope this lady rots. I’m just disgusted.

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u/Radiant-Plum-5729 1d ago

Yeah, sending sexual messages to children is a crime, right?

Pedophiles have been convicted of 'sexual communications with a minor'.

It's no different from a perv sending sexual messages to a child on Instagram, for example.

Those poor kids were exposed to sexual stuff they were way too young to know about!

3

u/Icy_Independent7944 1d ago

Yes, THANK YOU!

Has anybody ever seen “To Catch A Predator,” FFS?

Aren’t there all these laws now in place, newly-created and specially-crafted to where you can no longer evade justice, just because you did your vulgarity, stalking, grooming, and threatening online?

What the Hell is going on? How could they DOWNPLAY this???!!

3

u/Radiant-Plum-5729 1d ago

Imagine this poor girl, her first real exposure to sexual stuff is from her own mother stalking her?

The sentence this mother got was way too lenient. She's a degenerate. Pure evil.

1

u/Ready-Flamingo6494 1d ago

Exactly how was this just missed? Oh not a big deal because she’s the mom? WTF

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u/Neat_Panda9617 1d ago

Oh my god, it’s SOOOOOOO fucked up!

2

u/ccccc55555x 1d ago

I would really like to actually read the text messages but can’t find it anywhere on line. It’s just the few that were featured in the Netflix show

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u/landofthehypocrites 1d ago

If I was Lauryn’s dad I would not let her speak to her mother. This woman is deranged and seems far from reformed 

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u/Maxismydog1981 9h ago

Considering Lauryn was 14 in 2020, she probably now an adult. The sick part is the mother is probably enjoying every minute of attention she is getting.

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u/tracebellevie 2d ago

LITTTTTERALLY it’s abhorrent, repugnant, and WILDLY inappropriate these cops. I used to be an investigator of crimes against children and let me tell you - even how they broke the news to the minor Lauren WITHOUT having an emotionally SAFE ADULT there with her for support and processing after makes me nauseous. Literally allowing the perpetrator of assault, stalking, felony harassment, and mental torture to continue touching her WTAF? And how he didn’t even DIRECT wording, dancing around the shit omg. It’s so difficult to see wide spread incompetence sometimes with law enforcement. Hell I was most impressed with the superintendent and principal in using the appropriate language and gravitas for the situation throughout. But then I don’t talk about it much, but when I needed law enforcement for any of my cases it was typical for me to remind them I needed HELP from them NOT for them to escalate or minimize the situation. Just wow.

17

u/TigreImpossibile 1d ago

Sherriff Main was a bloody moron. As the months ticked over I was like, why the fuck aren't there warrants for everyone's phones, ip addresses, data from the phone companies... this is serious harassment and sexual in nature?

Then finally, fuck, 20 months later... the FBI is finally involved and I nearly fell out of my chair realising who did it all.

Poor Lauryn. She's such a sweet, beautiful girl. I hope she gets a lot of therapy, she will need it to be OK after this 💔

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u/landofthehypocrites 1d ago

I agree , he could have subpoenaed the companies just like the fbi did , he didn’t need them for that. 

1

u/WeedGreed420 1d ago

this is exactly what i said. i guess maybe im wrong and uneducated but i dont know why it took a year and a half and the fbi to finally get warrants for the phones ip

1

u/TigreImpossibile 1d ago

It should have happened after the 3rd or 4th month in my opinion, or at least when the messages turned super nasty telling the kids sexual things and telling Lauryn to kill herself.

I understand why it didn't go to warrants sooner - Sheriff Main is not too smart and the girl's MOTHER was the one doing it. Of course she's not going to push for them to escalate and get ip addresses, etc. Maybe she even stalled them on it in some way.

They didn't tell us she works in IT until it was all revealed - my question would have been, why aren't you asking for warrants for IP addresses, you know about this stuff 🤔

That is sus alone. That's why they hid that fact from us until it was all revealed.

3

u/Webbie-Vanderquack 1d ago

This is the way the police broke the news to a minor with only her abusive parent present:

"Mom got wrapped up into some stuff and she didn't start it but continued it. So we found some evidence and have a search warrant. We're gonna take her phone and stuff. Sometimes when we're not thinking straight we do some things that aren't right. Your mom doesn't want this to get out but it is some public information. So it's not going to not get out. I wanna be honest about it, all right? She said you had no idea what was going on and I believe that. What has to happen now is I have to make sure you and your mom are safe before I leave."

What does that even mean, to Lauryn, in that situation? They never even clearly said what her mother had done. Then the dad comes in and starts talking about Kendra lying about the jobs she had (I'm not blaming the dad, he must have been emotionally all over the place, and at least he had the presence of mind to ask her to leave), but if I were 14-year-old Lauryn in that situation I'd be thinking "okay, my mom's being accused of something, maybe to do with her work situation, my dad's angry about it, and the police are here to make sure my dad doesn't get too angry at my mom?"

1

u/Ithilmeril 1d ago

Exactly, it didn't even look like it clicked in Lauryn's mind wth he had just told her. He should've straight up told her "your mother's the one who's been sending all these messages". And yes, kept the mother tf away from her. Gawd.

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u/LeadingAd412 14h ago

Or Lauryn knew to some extent her mom was doing it?  

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u/Rolliepollieollie013 2d ago

Why isn’t she a registered sex offender???!!!! If it was a man he would have been… This grooming children

Then again America thrives on protecting child abusers….

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u/Remarkable_Rip6231 2d ago

I wondered the same thing! Why is she not registered on a sex offender list???

6

u/mafaldajunior 2d ago

She 100% should be. And she should not be able to contact her daughter after all the abuse she put her through. How did she get away with all of this that easily?

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u/Treefrog54321 2d ago

This! I wish I could like this comment a million times. They gave her way too much airtime. She is delusional.

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u/Englishmatters2me 2d ago

Exactly. Everytime she touched her i wanted to scream. If I was the father I would have yanked my daughter away from her. At first I thought it was Munchausen syndrome, but adding in all.the factors surrounding Owen..she is a pedophile and is jealous of her beautiful daughter. Sad all around 

3

u/WandaFuca 1d ago

I think it was one of the FBI guys who even called it "Cyber-Munchausen" which I thought was pretty astute. My heart breaks for the daughter who still wants a mother, but can't see that hers isn't worthy of the title.

2

u/snacky_snackoon 1d ago

I did find a small amount of comfort in her daughter not being receptive at all to the weird hugging as the cops were there. She kept her arm on the table. Never hugged back. Just looked like she was stuck there in shock.

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u/pudgiedee 1d ago

I was watching that and she does put her arm around her Mom at one point. that was so confusing. I wasn’t sure if she was even shocked.

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u/Pink_Dragon_Lady 18h ago

Someone on another thread references some NY Times article that implies Lauryn figured it out about a month before the cops did... *shrug*

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u/pudgiedee 9h ago

oh wow that horrible

1

u/Longjumping_Elk2580 19h ago

Same feeling.. I jumped in my skin when she is hugging her daughter.. she probably convinced her daughter that she can't live without her

•

u/Maxismydog1981 9h ago

There is something really messed up about mothers who compete with their teen daughters for attention.

22

u/assntittiescolomb 2d ago

That was the weirdest part to me. Like she is speaking graphically about sexual shit about kids, about her daughter, and somehow they just brush over that. I mean there has to be some sort of child exploitation law she broke. Anything that isn’t 20+ years seems insane 

15

u/BayPhoto 2d ago

Lauryn needs a world of therapy. It's almost like she needs deprogramming even

I can’t help but feel like it goes beyond this incident, and the abuse Lauryn experienced went on much longer than we know.

0

u/phatdinkgenie 1d ago

Khloe's mom seemed to indicate she thinks Lauryn and her dad were not only aware of it, but complicit in it. This seems unlikely but it would change the dynamic that Owen was the only true victim (and Klhoe but to a lesser degree).

4

u/BayPhoto 1d ago

Khloe's parents did not come off as credible to me. They seem incredibly arrogant. I don't think they were involved or anything, but they almost seemed giddy in their loathing of Lauryn's situation.

4

u/lostlakemountain 1d ago

Khloe’s mom seems like an incredibly cruel person.

12

u/Crazy-Employer-8394 2d ago

Bravo! All of this! This documentary was all sorts of fucked up and they created the sexualization of Owen as an afterthought and not like a key piece of the puzzle. Her bizarro rant that we all do some illegal things and like, no psycho, we are not the same.

And yeah, she definitely belongs in jail, and I am so beyond confused that Lauryn was able to forgive her at all, and at least they are physically separated for now. Cringe all around.

16

u/mafaldajunior 2d ago

Sometimes it takes a long time for victims of abuse like Lauryn to realize what actually happened to them. Kendra is a master manipulator so I'm not surprised that Lauryn is still under her spell. What I don't understand is how the authorities are letting this happen. Where's the restraining order? Where's the sex offender regisration? Unbelievable.

1

u/Physical_Orchid3616 1d ago

I guarantee you that in time, and it may be 10 years, it may be 20 years, Lauryn will come to realise the level of abuse hurled against her by her own mother. People do not forget.

1

u/mafaldajunior 1d ago

For sure. I hope she'll get all the help and support that she needs.

3

u/Palsyanna 1d ago

She is Lauren’s mother. No one needs to be calling this child out for wanting to hold on to her mother. Children will do anything to hold on to the belief that their parents are benevolent—it’s a survival mechanism. She hasn‘t “forgiven” her; she hasn’t processed the situation. I don’t know if it can be processed. The poor kid was still in that goddam school when this doc was made!

2

u/Webbie-Vanderquack 1d ago

I completely agree with you, but to be fair, I read this not as u/Crazy-Employer-8394 "calling this child out for wanting to hold on to her mother," but rather expressing confusion about how Lauryn appears to have been left to make sense of this horrific abuse.

I was baffled by the explanation the police gave Lauryn when they came to the house. They were so unclear about what was going on, they didn't really even tell her what her mother had been accused of. "Mom got wrapped up into some stuff and she didn't start it but continued it?" "Sometimes when we're not thinking straight we do some things that aren't right?" What was the poor kid supposed to make of that? And they didn't seem to have any intention of arresting her or separating them.

They should have explained this to Lauryn very clearly and apart from her mother, with a clear explanation about what would happen next, and with a social worker or another adult present.

So it's not surprising Lauryn doesn't have a clear idea of how she's supposed to relate to her mother now, especially with the obvious love-bombing via text message.

TL;DR: I think we're all actually on the same page her, and not blaming Lauryn.

11

u/mafaldajunior 2d ago

Totally agree with you. I just can't believe how badly all of this was handled. Why didn't they arrest Kenda on the spot as soon as she confessed? How on Earth was she still allowed to communicate with Lauryn, even from prison! She should have been charged for a lot more than stalking. She tried to push two kids to kill themselves and framed two other kids for her crimes. She sent pornographic messages to kids. She committed insurance fraud and scammed her own husband. A year and a half prison for all that and still having access to communication devices is ridiculous.

And I hate that this documentary gave Kenda so much airtime. "We've all done wrong things". Err, excuse me, but no. None of us do things as bad as cyberbullying kids, sending them sexually explicit texts, and threatening to kill them if they don't kill themselves first. What an absolute pos she is.

She should still be in prison and not get a single second of airtime or communication. The damage that she must still be causing her daughter is unfathomable.

6

u/Full_Egg_4731 1d ago

The fact that she even wanted to be a part of this doc shows me she hasn’t changed at all.

1

u/mafaldajunior 1d ago

Hear hear

•

u/Maxismydog1981 9h ago

It is very clear Kendra was actually having fun.

•

u/LouisvilleLoudmouth 7h ago

Brilliant comment. The whole time I was watching I thought it was a parent, but also that nobody in their right mind would agree to participate if they were guilty.

Except a narcissist with no sense of shame.

2

u/Webbie-Vanderquack 1d ago

How on Earth was she still allowed to communicate with Lauryn, even from prison!

I don't understand this either. She sent her constant streams of texts full of explicit sexual messages and instructions to take her own life for almost two years, and now she's replaced that with constant streams of texts full of love-bombing. How are the authorities okay with that? It means that, at the end of the day, the abused child is the one who has been left with the task of dealing with her own abuser.

3

u/mafaldajunior 1d ago

I don't even understand how inmates in max security prisons have access to phones. There's something really fishy on the law inforcement side of things for this many weird things to have happened.

1

u/jtet93 1d ago

I’m pretty sure they said it was emails. Still gross but it’s not like she had 24/7 access to contact her daughter

1

u/mafaldajunior 22h ago

I remember them mentioning text messages but I could be wrong

2

u/SaltySallyanne 1d ago

Exactly. Why was she not arrested immediately?

12

u/Cereal_Palsy7 1d ago

That the police didn't immediately put the woman in cuffs so she couldn't clutch on to her poor daughter ENRAGED me. I really hope that if Lauryn watches the finished product documentary it will give her the opportunity to step outside herself and really SEE what that woman did to her.

IMO, she's still wildly dangerous and a predator.

10

u/heirophant-goddess 2d ago

This whole thing was definitely child abuse and I am shocked that she was charged as a sex offender!!! What the hell were they thinking???? She is a menace and her poor daughter and the other kids need so much help to begin to deal with this. Lauryn should never be allowed to have contact with her mother ever again.

10

u/heirophant-goddess 2d ago

*I meant to say that she was NOT charged as a sex offender

2

u/mafaldajunior 2d ago

She should 100% not be allowed around kids, I totally agree

2

u/Rebalance8030 1d ago

Yeah. That doesn't make sense to me. The only difference between her and any other adult inappropriately texting a child is the anonymity of it... Any other adult who says things like that to a minor is immediately charged as a sex offender.

19

u/dea80 2d ago

This! These messages were deeply disturbing. Sexual, telling kids to unalive themselves. Her daughter needs to have a restraining order and the mother needs to be on the sex offenders register!! WTAF!!!

25

u/OkVermicelli3588 2d ago

You saved me a lot of time typing my thoughts. I don’t think I’ve ever been so shocked & disturbed. 

That woman is next level psycho sociopath. 

This was sexual for her-  She got off on this in some sick twisted way.  She wanted her daughter‘s boyfriend and I feel like she really did hate that her daughter was so pretty because let’s face it. Mama’s hit every branch on the way down!  She wants to blame it on her rape? YOU RAPED YOUR CHILDS MIND…& many others!  I’m gonna go out on a limb & say I bet she wasn’t even raped.  Women suffer all types of abuse & don’t resort to such depravity especially against her own child. 

And then she kind of wants to chuckle & say “well a lot of people do bad things I mean a lot of people have drove drunk but don’t get caught”  WTF!?!?  Your out if your mind!!

And the way the parents reacted to each other even the dad when police arrived, way too calm & collected like…-ohh ok it was actually my wife the whole time?  And did you say she got fired too? She’s lying about her job. I’m so confused?-   my husband would’ve physically picked me up and immediately removed me from the house! At minimum yelled in my face called me names and would ask me what th F wrong with you how could you have done this to our child?

And honestly, the most disturbing thing is that the poor girl wants her mom still and is taking up for her! 

The crazy woman that had no accountability and made light of what she had done still has her daughter THE VICTIM as her one and only friend and cheerleader? WOW master manipulator.

My son was bullied in middle school, it was on a super low scale basically a mean, girl saying some mean things, but for him, it felt like the weight of the world. It crushed him, he was devastated and felt like everyone hated him just because of one person.   I was heartbroken for him and watched him go through some really tough times. That small amount of bullying left him scarred. 

I cannot on any level fathom how scrambled her daughter‘s brain is after this, and that is not to leave out the other victims, but YOUR MOTHER verbally sexually emotionally traumatize you for over a year of your life.  And no siblings to talk to I imagine not too many friends. That was her first love, Everyone remembers their first love, a really sweet relationship you’re supposed to look back on and treasure.  Her mother was like JAWS On the 4th of July!  She came in and massacred. what a uniquely sick and twisted individual

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u/Weekly-Role-1132 1d ago

I actually thought the husbands reaction was valid. He was most likely in shock but he immediately called her parents to pick her up and said she had to leave. He believed the officers and took action no questions asked. His daughter was also present so he probably tried to remain calm for her while he processed everything.

Finding out your wife was abusing/stalking your daughter and that she lied about having a job for 2 years at the same time would be hard to take in all at once.

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u/Englishmatters2me 2d ago

I pray Lauren comes out of this sane

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u/Party_Ad_4918 2d ago

You said everything I was thinking and more! I have a 13 yr old daughter and I couldn't imagine. She's had the same boyfriend for going on 3 years now as well. I couldn't believe the things she was saying. I'm so disgusted! I read a lot of stuff but this documentary has pissed me off so badly.

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u/hoosiergirl1962 1d ago

Sorry, not laughing because any of this is funny, but I'm chuckling over you saying "hit every branch on the way down". When I was a teen I once heard my dad say that someone "fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down" and I honest to god thought he made that up.

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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 1d ago

That woman is next level psycho sociopath...The crazy woman...

Some people are just plain bad, not mad. She might be a psychopath/sociopath (the formal diagnosis would be Antisocial Personality Disorder), but I think you were right on the money when you said "this was sexual for her - she got off on this in some sick twisted way."

She developed an attraction to the daughter's boyfriend which became an obsession, and she enjoyed stalking him and destroying the competition.

I believe she's using mental illness as an excuse, when in fact this was just a crime motivated by something she wanted. In the same way that a depraved individual might harm or kill another person for money, this woman was willing to hunt and destroy children, even her own, in order to preserve and enjoy the obsession she had with her daughter's boyfriend.

If she had been a man, it would absolutely have been viewed this way.

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u/landofthehypocrites 1d ago

I disagree, someone who spends up to 8 hours a day for over a year stalking their child thru text messages is mentally ill. Even after they broke up she continued bombing her child with threats and degrading texts. From her interviews you can see that she still doesn’t grasp the severity of her actions and that she is far from reformed. I think two things can be true at the same time , she may like the young boy and also have serious psychopathy 

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u/meowmir420 2d ago

Totally agree. Netflix documentaries are absolute trash. The way they just swept the pedophilic aspect of this whole case under the rug is deplorable. As soon as I think Netflix can’t stoop any lower, they surprise me with even worse.

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u/PollutionFar5423 2d ago

I must have watched a different documentary. They spent several minutes on the theory that Kendra was motivated at least in part by a sexual attraction to Owen (which, btw, would make her a hebephile, not a pedophile).

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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 1d ago

They spent several minutes on the theory that Kendra was motivated at least in part by a sexual attraction to Owen

I think you're both talking about different things. In mentioning "the pedophilic aspect," u/meowmir420 is referring more to the fact that police and prosecutors didn't seem to view the case in this way, and the documentary never questioned that, nor did they ever raise it with Kendra.

The interviewer asked Kendra, for example, whether the insults she texted her daughter were actually aimed at herself (something Kendra eagerly latched onto as an excuse). But they never asked the more important question of whether she had a perverse interest in Owen, whether she was a pedophile, why she kept texting Owen and his new girlfriend after Owen broke up with her daughter, etc.

The "theory that Kendra was motivated at least in part by a sexual attraction to Owen" was included, but it was really left to Owen's mother to articulate.

It would have been great if the documentary had raised some of the hard questions with investigators, prosecutors, and the criminal herself. They would absolutely have done so if the villain was a man.

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u/PollutionFar5423 14h ago

The police and prosecutor never pursued the "pedophile angle" (side note: she would've actually been a hebephile, not a pedophile) because Kendra's possible limerance for Owen was legally irrelevant. She never touched him. How, then, could she be charged with a sex crime (against a minor or anyone else)? Her likely sexual interest in him, then, while certainly of vast psychiatric interest, is a legal non-starter.

That said, you might recall that Sgt. Main's *very first question* to Kendra upon executing the search warrant was, "Is this about Owen? Is there maybe some infatuation there?" Just based on this, I suspect the police and prosecutor actually discussed at some length the distinct possibility, even likelihood, that Kendra was "into" Owen (and in a big way, by the looks of things!). But again, because she never touched him or even "sexted" with him, such discussions would've been purely academic from a prosecutorial standpoint.

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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 10h ago

She never touched him. How, then, could she be charged with a sex crime (against a minor or anyone else)?...because she never touched him or even "sexted" with him, such discussions would've been purely academic from a prosecutorial standpoint.

I sincerely hope you know the answer to this and just forgot! You can absolutely be charged with sex offenses against children without physically touching them.

Any person who employs, uses, persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct is committing a sex crime. Online sexual solicitation of a minor is considered sexual abuse.

she never touched him or even "sexted" with him

"Him?" I'm not talking about Owen, I'm talking about the sexually explicit texts she sent her daughter coercing her to do certain things with Owen.

That said, you might recall that Sgt. Main's very first question to Kendra upon executing the search warrant was, "Is this about Owen? Is there maybe some infatuation there?" Just based on this...

I'm not basing my criticism "just based on this," and nor should you. They didn't pursue this explanation legally, and they would have (qyite rightly) with a man accused of doing the same thing.

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u/meowmir420 7h ago

….are you HER?

4

u/Palsyanna 1d ago

If I were you, I would stop parsing this “difference”. It does not come off well.

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u/PollutionFar5423 14h ago

Yes, I'm well aware that nuance makes people uncomfortable. It's messy, untidy. Requires actual, honest, unflinching thought - something of which few are capable and which even fewer are willing to engage in.

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u/daphnedelirious 2d ago

I also feel like the media literacy is in the toilet with these posts. They highly focused on how Owen’s trust was destroyed, had a section towards the end about her attempted grooming, and whenever Kendra would make an excuse would cut to another person saying how she’s a liar and how her excuse didn’t make sense.

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u/Sufficient-Record-63 2d ago

Are you me? I came to write alllllllllll of this!

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u/Alternative-Bison615 1d ago edited 1d ago

These are all extremely valid questions. I think why so much time was given to Kendra was to let us see exactly who she is; I didn’t feel like it humanised her at all, it revealed her to be a deeply disturbed predator

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u/BudgetPicture7315 1d ago

This was it. It allowed all of us to see that, even now, she hasn't changed one bit and is an abusive, sick, manipulator and people need to be careful around this woman.

I just watched another netflix doc about a manipulative ex boyfriend who raped his girlfriend and then mounted a campaign against her so that she was arrested and charged with felonies she never committed. Lauren's mom would be the type to do this kind of thing. Their delusions are so extreme that they have no problem destroying other people's lives.

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u/Cultural-Chart3023 2d ago

Especially via phone wtf she should be banned from phones and internet for years too I feel like a year in jail is pathetic honestly she ruined so many lives

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u/mafaldajunior 2d ago

Even the cousin Adrianna who was only in the periphery of all this got totally traumatized by it. All those poor kids she hurt. There should have been a lot more consequences.

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u/Cultural-Chart3023 2d ago

Yes!!! It's awful the ripple effect it had. The whole school was effected by it everyone suss of each other. What a horrible thing to not just do to your daughter but a whole damn community! I'm surprised there's not much online about it.

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u/geemav 2d ago

You nailed this, asking everything i'm wondering myself. I'm livid and disgusted

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u/Vikingfan2k2 2d ago

I would say on the new girlfriend of Owen that they didn't want anything to do with this doc and the train wreck that it caused for everybody in it.

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u/Individual_Wear_6737 1d ago

Dude HOW did this woman access the phone number of the mother of a REMOTE teen  gf??? Are we NOT addressing that?!?!!

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u/WebConsistent3251 1d ago

Everything here. Literally wanted to vomit. What a fucking pervert. I feel sad the daughter being blamed. Kendra took no accountability. She's a predator.

2

u/Webbie-Vanderquack 1d ago

I have all the same questions.

It really made me angry when the mother was talking about zeroing in on her daughter's insecurities, e.g. being "anorexic," and the interviewer said (paraphrased): "do you think you were actually directing these insults at yourself?"

Of course the mother immediately latched on to an explanation that offered her a way to look like the victim. The whole thing was just a big self-esteem problem! The poor, suffering mother is the one to be pitied here! /s

She repeatedly made vile sexual comments to children, and repeatedly told her daughter to kill herself. When he husband said "you need to get out of this house, I've called your parents to come get you," I thought "uh...surely the police will be taking her out in handcuffs?" But no.

2

u/Different-Rub-499 1d ago

The softball questions lobbed at Kendra from the documentarian made me sick!

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u/iraqlobsta 1d ago

At the very least, Lauryns father should have filed a restraining order against that psycho. She was telling Lauryn to kill herself ffs!

She isnt even a registered SO, which equally blows my mind. The cops were complete clowns.

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u/mkcov 1d ago

Also wtf was up with Khloe’s parents saying that Lauryn and Shawn were going to “play victim” they literally were victims??? Khloes parents made me just as mad as Kendra

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u/RogueKitteh 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah that lady was something. And her daughter may not have been behind the texts but she was definitely giving mean girl. Something something apple not falling far from the tree. Like how can you call Lauryn anything other than an actual victim??

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u/lincarb 21h ago

100% in agreement with you.. and why not charge her with encouraging her daughter to commit “s”..???? There have been 2 cases in Massachusetts where people were convicted on doing that via text. Michelle Carter and Inyoung You.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/23/us/michelle-carter-text-suicide-release?cid=ios_app

https://www.suffolkdistrictattorney.com/press-releases/items/inyoung-you-guilty

Why not charge the mom with attempted murder?

2

u/EngineeringRight3629 17h ago

This lady shouldn't have access to a mobile device or a computer ever again

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u/ciscnzhnrq 16h ago

You said it perfectly!!

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u/Christyf64 15h ago

I'm watching it now and could scream! All the same questions. The husband, Mike being told she's lying about her jobs and she's a psycho. Kendra hugging and holding her shocked daughter. Them not arresting her.

Everyone was way too calm imo and now she's talking about 'everyone has done something illegal at some point in their life'..

Then she tries to explain why she started. I 100% think it was her from the beginning.  When Lauryn matures she will realize her mother deserves no contact from her!!!

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u/Kissfromarose01 13h ago

Just imagine for 5 minutes if it turned out to be the husband, that man would be locked behind bars and defamed for life. Done. The lewd sexual messages I mean really 

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u/amylucylou 9h ago

Isabella County is super corrupt. Mike Main has a long history of not taking things seriously. Read up on the Rowan Morey Pols story. And listen to his mother because they absolutely did not, and treated her like garbage bc she's blonde and bubbly. The amount of things that get swept under the rug because people are tribal members is also wild. It's a whole lot more than this case. This area is just verrry different.

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u/PollutionFar5423 2d ago

I agree that the woman is profoundly disturbed and requires lengthy, intensive, at least predominantly inpatient care (in addition to her 19 months in the clink). But let's not get carried away. We don't even sentence most second-degree murderers to life in prison. Kendra said unimaginably cruel things which could well have impelled her daughter to take her own life, but compared to the animals rotting away in super-max pens, she's a repeat traffic offender.

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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 1d ago

compared to the animals rotting away in super-max pens, she's a repeat traffic offender.

This comparison is not helpful. It's certainly not an appropriate way to categorize abuses of children.

I'm also not convinced she needs "care." She was motivated by self-interest, not illness.

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u/PollutionFar5423 14h ago

Assessing someone's motivations based on a 10-15 min. interview in a Netflix documentary, without having even come within 200 miles of him/her (much less having actually met him/her face-to-face), is essentially impossible and wildly irresponsible from a professional psychiatric point of view. (Note: a layperson's "clinical" opinion is, rather by definition, utterly worthless. I assume you are, as I am, a layperson.)

And actually, the comparison I made is PERFECTLY helpful, at least to the point I was striving to make: to wit, one who has caused no PHYSICAL, TANGIBLE harm to anyone should never be punished *by the legal system* to nearly the same degree as one who has not only wrought such harm, but done so multiple times to multiple victims, often brutally and sometimes even to children. If anyone deserves to rot in prison, then surely it is this LATTER ilk - not some sad, pathetic, demented suburban mom who developed a crush on a kid but never acted on it and instead merely sent nasty texts to her daughter.

Is she a POS? Duh. Do I want to hang out with her anytime soon? Helllll no! Does she deserve to "rot in prison" (beyond the 19 mos she's apparently already served)? No, she does not. Not in MY opinion, anyway. [For what it's worth, which is likely not a whole lot, I'm an attorney.]

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u/Leockette 2d ago edited 1d ago

I don't think they tried to humanize her and she didn't attract any sympathies at all. Quite the opposite. Just look at the comments. Lots of incriminating stuff came from her which makes it even more damning. What she did is truly awfull and the lack of accountability she displayed in the interview makes her even more unlikable. Kendra played the pictures card and it failed. But the documentary clearly did not intend to portray her in a good light. They let her dig her own grave.

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u/s-b-mac 2d ago

YOU ARE 👏🏻FUCKING 👏🏻ON 👏🏻POINT 👏🏻

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u/Excellent-Cable-1366 1d ago edited 1d ago

I’ve just seen it. I often try to understand why people act the way they do, whether they have mental health issues, past traumas or their own explanations but whatever lies behind them doesn’t let them to act this way. It’s wrong and should be punished by law. This mother definitely had a crush on her daughter’s boyfriend and also she was jealous of her own daughter as she is beautiful and wanted to put her down and this is why she always criticized her looks and tried to lower her self esteem. She says in the end she wanted to protect her but I don’t agree with that. If she wanted to protect her then she would’ve written different messages. She wrote many sexual messages of what she would do with her daughter’s boyfriend and that’s her fantasy which she wanted to come true but how did she get his new girlfriend’s mothers number? But she also harassed her because she wanted him. This is absolutely disgusting and why is the law easy on such criminals? Yes it’s hard for the daughter and she’s trying to survive by still thinking her mother loved her but I think she clearly didn’t. It’s sad but one day she will accept the truth. But I feel very sad that there are people like this in this world. I hope the law will be more strict when it comes to child abusers. Children are vulnerable. What if these children didn’t tell parents about what was happening? Most don’t. Then what would’ve happened? Nobody would’ve paid attention until one day the victim actually kills herself. 

There should be strict rules on whoever tries to hurt/ abuse/ harass children. Whether it’s verbal, written or physical regardless of how minor it is the criminals must be punished! 

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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 1d ago

She says in the end she wanted to protect her but I don’t agree with that.

Same, that was absolute nonsense. You don't repeatedly tell your child to take their own lives unless you're hoping they will. And even if it had been something similar to Munchausen's Syndrome, that wouldn't explain why she continued to text Owen and Owen's new girlfriend after Lauryn and Owen broke up.

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u/Excellent-Cable-1366 1d ago

She was jealous at her child and the nice teenage years she was living because she didn’t have it. Maybe she was bullied for the way she looked and she never could have a boyfriend. When she saw how much fun her daughter was having it made her angry and which was why she constantly said that she looked ugly and her boyfriend didn’t love her. She also had a crush on the boy and it’s disgusting but she wanted to do all the things she texted on the messages with him. She thought she would never be caught and she enjoyed living the life of a mean teenage girl who is texting other teens. She shouldn’t be out living a free life. She should be admitted in an mental institution. 

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u/gemlox83 1d ago

Here here well said

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u/FineSandwich1240 1d ago

I still have 28 Mins to go but why is the women even in the documentary? Why is she not in jail?!

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u/FineSandwich1240 1d ago

And how can she say it removed her from reality? she created a reality for her daughter, which was horrible via text and then in "real life" comfort her daughter for the hurt that SHE gave her... she is crazy crazy

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u/phatdinkgenie 1d ago

that poor daughter doesn't even know how this is going to affect her entire life. And why the hell is she allowed to have a computer IN JAIL after a CYBERSTALKING felony?

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u/Fluffy-Future-4674 1d ago

💯   I'm watching now and am enraged. I just keep thinking about how she told her daughter to kill herself. This type of emotional abuse is horrific and coming from her mother? Wow. This woman has no shame as they interviewed her and it's so awful.  It's a trauma bond between Lauren and her mother and it's so sad to see. 

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u/ccsr0979 1d ago

I think it was smart giving Kendra airtime. She sounded completely mental and it was great to see her digging her own hole becoming more unlikable with each sentence.

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u/untamed2020 1d ago

Like I said in another post, Kendra is extremely jealous of her daughter. Kendra is a very unattractive woman. Her daughter is beautiful. It's very common for mothers to be jealous of their daughters. And that's part of the reason for Kendra's behavior and actions.