Unknown Number High-school Catfish

[u/AnotherDarnDay]

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?

[u/RogueKitteh]

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

[u/meowmir420 → u/RogueKitteh]

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.

[u/PollutionFar5423 → u/meowmir420]

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).

[u/Webbie-Vanderquack → u/PollutionFar5423]

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.

[u/PollutionFar5423 → u/Webbie-Vanderquack]

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.

[u/Webbie-Vanderquack → u/PollutionFar5423]

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.

[u/meowmir420 → u/PollutionFar5423]

….are you HER?

[u/Palsyanna → u/PollutionFar5423]

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

[u/PollutionFar5423 → u/Palsyanna]

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.

[u/daphnedelirious → u/PollutionFar5423]

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.