Anonymous Texts

n this episode of Unspeakable: A True Crime Podcast by Kelly Jennings, KJ tells the story of a true crime in Beale City, where high schoolers Lauren and Owen's romance is disrupted by harassment, from a person you would never expect.

Unspeakable Listener Deals! Eric Javits
Chic, Provactive, and Iconic-Eric Javits hats are the essence of designer elegance. Made famous by sex and the city and worn by Melania, these travel friendly sun hats and accressories are known worldwide.  20% off for my listeners by using the code UNSPEAKABLE via the link below
 Eric Javits Designer Hats and Accessories

Follow “Crime Wire Weekly” on it’s new channel HERE:
Apple Podcasts  
 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crime-wire-weekly/id1815864889
Spotify 
https://open.spotify.com/show/3zyrgjtW6gLUVbicJaYXV9?si=0dbf4983938344a2
Amazon Music 
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/3738411d-828e-4138-9976-223ab5de2c87/the-crime-wire-weekly

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell
stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are
so shocking that many are left wondering how is this
even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections,
and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator,

(00:28):
dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so
evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended

(00:52):
for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm
not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, kJ
You're back with another episode of Unspeakable. How's it going
this week? My week has been going pretty strong so far.
I've got a couple of shout outs I want to
give y'all before I get into this episode. And we're
gonna start right here in my backyard and Walker Walk. Hello,
I live here, and I just flubbed the word that's

(01:15):
impressive in Walker, Louisiana. And I have to say hey
to my girl, Candy Candace Lockhart, what is going on?
My friend? How are you doing? I hope you're watching
me podcast right now. Remember you can get the Patreon
app on your phone. You do not have to log
into a desktop to watch and a couple people keep
asking me about that, it seems, so get that app
on your phone and you can watch me podcast. Then

(01:36):
I'm gonna go to Warsaw, Missouri, which low key, that's
a cool place. Warsaw. I like the name, But Carrie Melson,
what is going on? Carrie? All the way over there,
I'm waving to you as well. I hope you're having
a great week. Thank you so much for joining. And
then last, but certainly not least, for today is gonna
be no address, So I don't know where in the
world she is, but wherever she is, Kayla Joe Dixon,

(01:58):
I'm waving to you and I'm saying hello, So thank
you so much for supporting me. I want you to
know the episode I'm gonna do today was not the
one that I had planned to do, but people were
just all over me about this, sending messages and asking
me what I thought. So I'm just gonna go with
this one this week and we'll switch it up and
next week I'll do the one I had planned for

(02:18):
this week. But I got to take you all the
way back to high school for this one to start out,
and so I took the bait. Like I said, after
everyone was going crazy over this Netflix documentary about an
unknown number, So I went and I watched it because
so many people messaged And now I'm going to give
you my take on it. But in my humble opinion,

(02:40):
we've got to put ourselves in the minds of young
high schoolers as I tell this story. Please don't look
at this through the lens of an adult yet. Let's
put ourselves back in high school and we're going to
go to Beal City, Michigan, to be exact. And I
thought this tidbit was kind of cute about bal City.
It was settled around eighteen eighty by a man. Are
you ready for this drum roll please, mister Beale. But

(03:03):
he opened a grocery store, and that is what it's
named after, a guy that opened a grocery store. So
that's kind of cute. And this is an area that's
very small. It's not densely populated, and from what I saw,
the census back in twenty twenty said there was only
three hundred ish people in this small area. So when
I say small, I really mean it. This is really tiny.

(03:26):
And the school district there is run by Beale's City
public schools, but it also encompasses portions of the surrounding
townships area and that area around it. So the schools
are very small compared to many others. And it's a
place where everybody knows everybody. I know, when we say that,
that's kind of become kind of cliche, but this is legit.

(03:48):
Everybody knows everybody. Everyone's either related or dated or something
along those lines. But seriously, the preschool through twelfth grade
is in one like one school altogether, So it's a
district where half of the students are literally considered impoverished.

(04:10):
And I got this information from their website, and I
think that plays into this story a little bit. That
said Bull City High School boasts an eighty percent plus
graduation rate against many odds, and that's a really that's
a blessing in such a demographic type or type of demographic.
So educating kids, I'm gonna tell you this, that's got

(04:31):
to be one of the hardest things to do. If
you've never done it, you wouldn't understand it. Today's schooling
is different from when even I was in middle school
high school. The standards are different, and it's just a
I don't know. It's a different ballgame. And I saw
a stand up comedian one time and he said something
that really hit me because it was so true. It

(04:51):
was funny because it was true, but it was something
to the effect of teaching is a job where we
put kids in a room and we force them to
learn things that they don't want to know. And if
that is not so true, I've been there. I did
it for seventeen years, and it's an art to effectively
teach teenagers. Specifically. Add to this a minimal attention span.

(05:14):
With the introduction of cell phones and social media, it's
nothing but an uphill battle these days. We're only a
few weeks into school this new school year, and I've
already had a few teacher friends reach out to me
and be like, man, this is hard. You know, I'm
having a rough time. So the reality is, why would
these kids want to listen to history or science or

(05:35):
something like that when you could just pull your phone
out and look at a hot girl, stick her tongue
out and do a stupid dance and a mini skirt.
That's pretty much what the fight is that teachers are having. Well,
beal City High School is no different from schools across
the nation in that regard, and more time is spent
trying to combat cell phone usage in school than you

(05:57):
would ever imagine. And then you add to that mix
computers with YouTube and games, and you have to see
how ridiculous this fight is day in and day out.
If not, I want to just I want to encourage you,
go sub for one day in your school district or
the district near you, and you'll see what I'm talking about. So,

(06:19):
now in today's world, kids and schools have also upped
their tech game. So cameras are all over the schools,
and it's a responsibility that the schools now have to
protect kids from each other. And what I think a
lot of people may not realize is that even extends
off campus, specifically when it comes to social media, and

(06:41):
so some people don't quite understand that that the schools
are now not only responsible for what's happening from seven
to three on campus, but other instances that happen off
campus that affect school related activities. Those two are now
becoming the responsibility of the schools to take care of.
This story, considering everything I've just told you, begins in

(07:03):
October of twenty twenty and the leaves were changing. The
cool weather had that crispness. You could just feel it
in the air. It felt like football season. So it's
kind of where we are almost right now as I'm
telling this story. But something else was in the air
as well, and that, my friends, was young love. Now,

(07:23):
remember I said, we got to go back and put
ourselves as high schoolers as I tell this story, because
I remember my first love. You know, my high school boyfriend,
And do you remember your first love? Whenever you were young,
that feeling, that innocence all mixed up with you. You
got to figure out how to control yourself and that

(07:44):
first kiss and everything that you go through that just
seems so big and so huge in that moment. And
then you're hanging out under the bleachers and you're being
teased by friends about y'all holding hands. First loves, I
think we can all agree that they're special, and it's
something that usually ends, it doesn't last, but it's never
fully forgotten because it's a feeling that most people can

(08:07):
never achieve again because it was a first of something.
I remember my first dog, I remember my first championship
when I was playing sports. It's just first or awesome,
and we all look back on it and realize, Okay,
it was puppy love, but it was real in the moment,
and you don't yet at that age, have the capacity

(08:28):
for nor the realization that you will need real conflict
resolution in a true relationship. Give and take is much
harder because you've never done it before. When you're in
your first relationship, you realize that people are going to
make mistakes and that it's not the end of the world.
But when you're thirteen years old, fourteen years old trying

(08:51):
to navigate this, it's a lot harder. And this was
exactly where Lauren and Owen found themselves. They had known
each other really their whole life, but now that those
hormones had begun shifting, the friendship would shift as well.
And since seventh grade this duo had been very close.

(09:12):
But now things were official and their friends knew it
it was real, and everyone around them in their class
but also beyond they knew that this love was out
in the open and that it was official and they
were a couple now. He was a nervous wreck when
he officially asked Lauren out, but he thought that she

(09:33):
was cute. She thought that he was cute, and now
they were absolutely inseparable. Both kids were very athletic, very
involved in each other's athletic events. Lauren was really really
big into softball and basketball, while Owen loved football. And
they were a cute little couple too. If you look
at him, these are just some cute kids, and it's

(09:53):
just sweet. Lauren was a small, really thin little girl
with long blonde hair, and Owen would shoot up in
height rather quickly. But he looks exactly like what you
think he would look like. He's got that boys short
athletic haircut, it's ruddish brown hair, he's got a strong jaw,
and they just looked the part of two young athletes.

(10:16):
Sure there may have been some jealousy amongst other kids
their age that they were dating, because everyone wants to
be loved in high school. But their class was small.
I mean I think their class was a total of
like thirty kids, so they all knew each other really
really well. Now for a perspective, I grew up when
I was younger, I went to a really small i'm

(10:39):
gonna say it was a private school, but please don't
get it twisted. This was like some high end private school.
But I did go to a private school, and we
grew up like this. The same kids that I went
to kindergarten with were the same kids that I graduated
eighth grade with, and we all knew each other's families
and everybody really really well. So where I taught high

(11:02):
school though up until recently, for perspective, that senior class
this year, just the seniors, is five hundred and thirty seven.
So this is a place where everyone doesn't know everyone,
and there's beef even when the kids don't know that
there's beef. It's kind of funny like kids will fight
and one one kid won't even know they're in the fight,

(11:23):
but another group hates them because of where they're from
or whatever the BS is. But the campus is so
large that some kids may not even see each other
throughout the day. We literally have a road that splits
our campus. It is so large. And I tell you
all this for perspective, as this story really breaks open
because the school where these two kids went, their class

(11:46):
was thirty kids total. So, as I mentioned, it was
October and the young lovebirds were invited to a Halloween party,
and as you can imagine, it was being thrown by
one of their classmates. But this was a type of
part where not only were the kids gonna go, but
that parents all went as well, so it was almost
like a family friendly type of Halloween party. Lauren really

(12:08):
didn't want to go. But Lauren was more of like
I would say, she was friendly with everybody, but she
was more of a loner, very quiet, and I don't
think that these type of get togethers were her thing.
But Owen he wanted to go, and so he insisted, look,
go with me to the party. I'm going. I want
you to come with me. And it was at this
time that a text message came through from an unknown

(12:32):
number that was claiming to be a person, assumingly a
girl that Owen really liked. And while off the top,
this seems so juvenile, I'm telling you, I know right
now you're listening to like, is this really the true
crime story that Kj's telling? Yes, but you gotta follow
me here. You gotta hang with me on this one.
While it seems really juvenile off the top, the messages

(12:55):
also told Lauren that Owen was going to break up
with her and he just didn't like her. He couldn't
stand her, so Okay, whatever, this is stupid teenage drama.
I can't believe that you know this is going to
be something that is even worth telling a story on. Again,
trust the process, my friends. So, even after the party

(13:16):
was over, the messages continued, and really they started to
come through at a very rapid succession. This message that
had started out just saying Owen's going to break up
with you, he doesn't like you from this unknown number,
well now they were kind of starting to escalate a
little bit, like Owen loves me and I'll always be
the one he wants, he doesn't want your ugly ass

(13:37):
and things along that line. Now, of course, the teens,
they're young, and so when these first start coming through,
they're talking to each other and Lauren's like, who is
this girl? Why is she texting and sending me all
these messages about you want her and you don't like me?
And Owen adamantly denies knowing who it is or why

(13:59):
they were in that message. He's like, look, I had
no part of this. I don't even know who it is,
Like whose number isn't So Lauren tries to call the
number back, but the person who was sending those messages
absolutely refused to answer the phone, but the messages continued,
and those messages were becoming more and more invasive as

(14:20):
well as aggressive at times. And even stranger to this
whole situation was that the person who was sending these
messages really knew intimate details about the teenagers' lives, even
down to where they were at in the school, what
they were wearing, who they were talking to in the

(14:41):
middle of class. So obviously this led the kids to
believe that it's got to be one of our classmates
watching us and sending the messages and being really super
ugly about it. So asking around and thinking, okay, well,
maybe this is like a joke or someone's being just
kind of a snotty joke type thing trying to mess
with with us, the kids kind of started asking each other,

(15:03):
you know, do you know who's sending her these messages? Hey? Man,
where were you did you send this message? But no
one ever admitted to it. But the messages were at
this point thought of more as a nuisance, maybe even
an aggravation if anything. But it was then that they
really started to escalate into a very provocative type of

(15:25):
messaging and completely not appropriate for the age. That these
kids were The messages said things like, you're a sweet girl,
but I know I can give him what he wants.
We're down to fuck. Well maybe in today's society that
type of language is more profound than the younger people,

(15:47):
but it just seems completely completely inappropriate considering the ages
of these kids. And I want to tell you again,
remember they are twelve and thirteen years old when these
messages are coming across, So it seems kind of stranger
at the age we're holding hands is awkward, But then
that type of communication seemed just like wow. So the

(16:11):
kids really started looking at school. When I say the kids,
the students, they all kind of started looking at each
other in class and wondering who was sending the messages.
And even on the slick they're starting to kind of
watch each other and keep an eye on one another,
who was on their phone at what time, to try
and figure out who it was that was sending them.
But eventually the messages got to be so consistent and

(16:33):
so out of pocket that the teens decided, and they're
young teens, we got to get our parents involved. This
is like beyond now just some squabbling amongst kids. We
got to tell our parents, this is getting kind of
out of control, And even at their young ages, they
knew and they realized that this was way above their
pay grade, so to speak. We need adult intervention here.

(16:55):
So when their parents started paying attention, it became rather
clear that this this was beyond just average shit talking
by some kid who was jealous, because these messages were
outright hatred being spewed at these young children. The messages
would range from telling Lauren, you're the ugliest person I've

(17:15):
ever seen, to the fact that she was fucking trash,
and then would insult her and say things like, don't
wear those leggings, bitch, No one wants to see your
anorexic flat ass. That's the level of harassment that these
kids were under. And while an adult my age could
brush that stupidity off and be like, okay, whatever, I
have a flat ass, moving on, and I do you know,

(17:36):
we joke by the way. One of the kids said
why did teachers always have flat butts? And I was
like hey, and my daughter looked over at me and
was like, wow, from your asses kind of fun. I get,
you know, I could brush it off. I guess it's true,
but this was this was different this is young, very young,
impressionable a teenage girl, that these insults, they're hitting her

(18:01):
in the most vulnerable area at that age, when you're
very self conscious, you're very unsure of yourself. And the
reality was Lauren did know that she was thin. She
was very thin, and she didn't necessarily like it being
pointed out that she lacked curves like some of the
other girls were developing faster, and so that meant a

(18:22):
lot to her. That hurt her heart. And then there
would be poking and prodding in these messages to make
her even more insecure. So like a message had come through,
how's the happy couple? And then later on would be
followed up with picking on something that was just very
very important to her and made her very insecure. And

(18:43):
I know this story is not about me, but I'm
talking to you, my friends, my listeners, and I thought
back to when I was that age, and I can
tell you right now I cannot remember what I ate
for dinner three nights ago, but I can tell you
where I was standing in seventh grade when I'm not
going to say is because it doesn't matter now, but
I know the first and last name of the boy

(19:05):
who tortured me through middle school, tortured me in every
way that a young girl could be tortured. He made
fun of how pasty white I was. He made up
the nickname Grimace from McDonald's, that purple creature, because when
I get cold, I get that lacing in my skin
that apparently everybody else doesn't get. He made fun of
my curly hair and got other kids to say chit

(19:27):
chi chi chia. And maybe it was funny to them,
but I'm gonna tell you it hit me somewhere strong.
Hence why I'm probably the way I am about victims
in every sense of the word, because we all need
a hero, we all need someone to stand up for us.
And the hero for me was a man by the
name of Coach Pope. If he's listening, shout out Coach Pope.

(19:49):
And you may not even know this, but by the
time eighth grade rolled around, he recognized that I was
being tortured by this kid who was the ringleader of
our school. And he stood up in front of our
class one day, and it was a big deal to me,
and he told everybody, you know, I see what's going
on here. I see what you're saying, and He made

(20:11):
a point to point out that boy and he said,
you know, y'all are at this age where everything's changing
and these insults are being spewed, and I can tell
you that it's wrong, he said, But I can also
tell you this. That girl right there, Kelly, if I
was a boy, that's who i'd be dating. She is athletic,
she is smart, she's pretty, and I think a lot
of her. And I'm going to tell you something. That

(20:33):
man hit me somewhere and did something for me that
I needed. And the fact that it was a male
teacher made it even better because it was like a
man standing up to the boy in my class and saying,
you're dead wrong. And it eased up. It really did.
It eased up. But I haven't forgotten it, y'all. I'm

(20:56):
you're forty years old, and I can tell you where
I was standing. I can tell you where I was
sitting in that classroom that doesn't even exist anymore. That's
how impactful it is at that age. So while these
text messages may seem petty, put yourself back at that age,
put yourself there. But let me tell you this. On average,
these kids, Lauren and Owen, they were getting fifty text

(21:19):
messages a day to their phone, spewing hatred. Fifty messages
a day to these young kids. They simply couldn't escape it.
And I'm gonna tell you it was a stalker ish
with a side of obsession. What was happening. Their parents
looked at their phones, and when they read the constant

(21:40):
assault of insults and the barrage of accusations and just
the heaviness of it, they decided, we have to get
the school involved with this because these messages were coming
in during the school day as well, so it's got
to be something that they can help curb. Being harassed
or in class wasn't something that they were willing to

(22:01):
tolerate because it was affecting both Owen and Lauren not
only at home, but now it was also affecting their
performance at school. They were kind of starting to withdraw.
They weren't wanting to talk to anybody because somebody in
this room is harassing me and saying all these things
to me, but everyone's being nice to my face. So

(22:22):
this is scary that someone is capable of this. Louisiana
as of last year, okay, as of the time that
I'm recording, this. Louisiana literally changed the cell phone law. Okay,
as it goes to schools, and I always say it
in Spanish es la lais okay, it's the law that
you may be able to carry the cell phone onto
the campus. No worries there. But the cell phone, by

(22:45):
law must be turned off and it has to be
properly stowed. Means put away. Don't pull it out of
your booksack, don't let us see it. You don't need
to have it even in your pocket. Just put it
away and then we're good. Then when school is over,
you can turn your cell phone back, like if you
have practice or something like that, and you need to
get in touch with your parents. But that's how critical
the problem had become in Louisiana, but Michigan it wasn't

(23:08):
the case. So at this point the messages had been
coming through for roughly a month, and that's whenever the
principle was made aware of this and he decided to
get involved. Now, to his credit, he expected this to
be the typical phone bullying and fighting situation that is
constantly occurring between kids. It's an absolute pain in the ass,

(23:31):
but it's a necessary evil that must be dealt with
in today's society. But when Lauren and Owen's moms showed up,
they came on a united front and they provided proof
of the level of problem problematic content in this situation.
He was flat out stunned, not only because of the

(23:51):
sheer volume of the messages, but the just flought out
vileness of the of the messages. They were were so
revolting that even when reading them, it made the adults
in the room uncomfortable. I mean, we're talking about kids here,
you know, kids talking to kids, and it's just sick.

(24:14):
So naturally, the kids were called in and a game
plan was made where the school says, look, we're gonna
help you get to the bottom of this. We want
to solve it as much as you do. And so
while the school had a game plan, I'm gonna switch
over real quick to the kids, the kids also had
their own game plan. Amongst themselves. They decided, and this
is pretty slick on the kid's part considering their age,

(24:36):
but they would start saying things in front of the group,
like during school, to see what would be repeated, so
they could try to pick out the person that it
was said in front of. All right, that's pretty good.
So they're trying to set each other up basically, and
it would be stupid false things that were said. But
when the kids started doing this, it only brought them

(24:59):
to a really uncomfortable conclusion. They thought, based on what
was being repeated back, Lauren was sending the messages to
herself because she was the only commonality amongst who was
there when things were repeated, So attention seeking behavior possibly,

(25:22):
I mean, it was it was very extreme to be
texting yourself that many times. I mean, that just seemed wild.
But that's what the kids came up with. But I'm
gonna tell you this again. To that principle's credit, the
school didn't agree the principle after evaluating everything, genuinely felt
that Owen and Lauren could be ruled out as the

(25:45):
originators of these messages. But there were seven hundred kids
total at the school. Obviously, obviously some of them were
just way too young to matter. But to try to
vet all of them without sparking more rumors is now
a task in and of itself. I mean, you're now,
what you're gonna ask twelfth graders eleventh, tenth, ninth, eight, seventh,

(26:09):
I mean, where do you stop? And how are we
gonna do this? Okay, So the school admin decided to
invest a good bit of their time into trying to
figure it out. It's it wasn't just teens fighting at
this point. I need you to understand that this was
above that who was able, capable, willing, and ready to
send fifty to sixty text messages a day, assaulting and

(26:34):
just barraging with insults. So they started investigating the times
that these messages were sent versus timestamps on the school cameras.
So can we see a pattern here? Maybe if the
sender knew something about science class, was there someone who
was excusing themselves to go to the bathroom or something

(26:56):
like that that would allow them to send the text unseen.
Lauren and Owen and the principle had an agreement that
whenever they received a message, they would immediately tell text
the principle and or whoever the contact point was that day,
and it would be as soon as they got a message.
So imagine now being in class and now you're having

(27:18):
to add this added stress to your day. Okay, I've
got to pay attention, but I've also got to check
my phone, and if I get a message, I've got
to send it to the principle. I mean, there's a
lot going on for these kids. And while this tedious
process was underway on the school's behalf, Owen and Lauren's
moms were so overwhelmed by who was watching their children

(27:40):
that they were now afraid are they in danger? I mean,
is someone going to hurt them? Who cares this much
to do this to our kids? These two moms began
leaning on each other for support because no one understood
what they were going through but each other. So the
fear was ever increasing. Basically that whomever was behind these
messages was now escalating and would actually cause enough stress

(28:05):
to the kids that these kids might end up hurting themselves.
Because every single day the messages were bombarding Owen and Lauren,
which was now also causing strain amongst that small classmate
group of their age. Everybody was now accusing everybody or
thinking everybody was involved. Both or Owen and Lauren's moms

(28:28):
remained very involved at the school at this point. They
were very involved with the principle. They were keeping him
updated on the situation as this was a daily occurrence,
not just every now and then. So the principal suggested
the obvious things that right now, all of the adults
are saying, block the number, Hello, block the number. Maybe

(28:49):
get the kids a new phone, get him a new number.
But the realization was that blocking the number wouldn't work.
Why because whoever was doing this was smart enough to
use a random number generator application. Thus any number that
was blocked it wouldn't matter because then they would just
generate a new number to text from. So are you

(29:12):
curious as to why this is even a thing that
would be created this, this random phone number app? Because
I know I was. I had an idea obviously of
what it was about, but I did look deeper into
this because I was curious. And random number generators do
have very valid uses, and these are the ones that

(29:32):
I thought that they would be for. So, as with
most crimes like this, it starts as a useful tool,
but someone with deceit in their mind decided to use
it for alternative purposes. So, for example, the biggest advantages
of using a temporary phone number service is for privacy

(29:54):
protection and to avoid unwanted calls. And I'm gonna give
you an example here. Let's say a podcaster that you love,
maybe she's waving at the camera right now. All right,
let's say that she started this new thing she's doing
on Patreon. Okay, I'm talking about me and I am
now gonna have prompts on Patreon. I want you to
go get involved in this because it's got it's kind

(30:16):
of cool, I think. But I'm gonna ask you to
tell me what cases would you really like me to cover?
Which ones are really irking you or you any it
could be any type of case you want. And then
I'm gonna randomly, I'm gonna have Jimothy over here, producer Jimothy.
He's gonna create numbers and I'm gonna pick a random
number out of that and whoever is that number? Comment
is who is gonna get chosen? But I'm gonna take

(30:37):
it a step further. Not only am I gonna tell
your story, but I'm gonna call you. I want to
talk to you, and I want to know what is
it about this case that's irking you? What is it
that you want to know? Do you just want me
to deep deep dive into it or whatever? Well, I'm
gonna just shoot you straight here. I'm not gonna call
you from my cell phone. Okay, I don't want to
share my cell phone number with the world, not because

(30:58):
I don't like you, but because that's my private number.
I don't want to share it. Okay, So I would
use this type of service so that I can call you.
And the number that it's generated from is not an
actual number, it's just one to be able to do
the phone service to call you. Okay, very very valid
service option there. What if a celebrity wants to check

(31:19):
into a hotel and not give away their real phone number,
Well they could call using this service. YadA, YadA, YadA. Also,
some people that are like freelancers, they may during the
day use their home phone to do calls to sell
by phone or something like that. Well they could use
this random generator to be able to make those random
sales calls, and then when they're ready just to be

(31:42):
themselves talking to their family and friends, they use their
their regular phone number. So there's a lot of valid reasons.
The most common one I think that you and I
would come in contact with would be that a lot
of platforms require SMS verification codes. So if you want
to sign up for social media, it always asks you

(32:03):
for your phone number. Well, you could use this random
number generator to get that SMS code to put in
to verify that you're you, But then your number is
not then out there for all of the spam calls
that come out. So that is why it did have
a valid use, and that's why it was something that
was out there. The other issue, though, that the parents
were facing was that if their kids got new phone

(32:26):
numbers themselves, the person doing this was obviously in their
inner circle of friends, so once they gave out their
new phone number, it would just start all over again.
So I understand where they were coming from. At this point.
The parents were kind of like, look, our kids are
the ones being harassed, Why should they be the ones
punished whenever, We're not going to solve the problem here.

(32:46):
Every time we get them a new phone number, it
just picks up again. I get that, But the harassment continued,
and the parents were now in the school office more
than ever, which was not very conducive for a productive
school administration. It was taking up way too much time
and way too many resources. And I'm going to tell

(33:06):
you this, you would not believe the responsibility of an
admin in a school system during the day unless you
shadowed them or you were there because I have a
lot of respect for the principal at the school that
one of my children goes to. Twenty four to seven,
he is dealing with parents with emails with everything from
policy changes to trying to figure out who shoved a

(33:29):
banana in the toilet and backed it up. You know,
it's the gamut. So this was now starting to become
an issue up in that office, and these parents really
started They were pleased for help, but you could understand
at some point it kind of started turning into demands,
like you've got to do something, you need to fix this.
So what the parents were want Lauren and Owen's parents
were wanting was, look, can you enforce a new cell

(33:51):
phone policy or something like to make all of this stop.
And it's kind of like I chuckled at that, because yeah,
new phone policies and we fought this in the schools locally,
but the teachers were kind of like, oh, lleluia whenever
they said get the phones out of the classroom. But
there the principle was in a kind of a conundrum
here because he's like, look, we're not going to stop

(34:14):
the and punish the entire school because of your two
kids issue. I know it's serious, but after all, there
were legitimate uses for cell phones on campus. I know
that when we first started letting the phones on campus, y'all,
we had apps that we would use. We could communicated
with kids through their cell phones. Through those apps, there
were these games for like review, and you did it

(34:36):
through your phone on an app. So there was legitimate
school use of these cell phones. And this would now
cause a massive disruption in the day, the day to
day workings of the way everyone was using the phones
in the schools. So the messages continued, and by now
they are beyond explicit, very highly sexual in nature. They

(34:59):
said things like Owen wanted to have sex, but Lauren
wasn't good enough and she was horribly ugly. And again,
I've churched up these these messages a lot for this
episode because I'm gonna tell you, it made me very uncomfortable,
very uncomfortable to think of saying these things as sexual
they as they were, considering that they were aimed towards

(35:21):
talking about young teens. It just gave me the ick.
And I'm no prude. We all know that I'm not
a prude at all, but I am an adult, and
the things that were said were on level with disgusting
porno talk. And when this is being communicated to minors,
it really Oh, it's like jarring, and it should be.

(35:44):
It should be because it's it's beyond what children should
be dealing with. But I will, however, give you a
text here exactly as it was written for context. But
I want to warn you real quick that if you
have young ears in the car, please please pause this.
Please don't play this in front of you young kids.
Even if you're like, oh, they can take it, please don't.

(36:06):
It's uncomfortable for me and I don't want to be
someone saying this to your kids. All right, So the
messages went from bitch your ugly you know, fuck off,
and then they turned into this is a direct quote,
not my words, owen, and I down to suck finger
fuck y'all. These are thirteen year old kids. Don't forget that. Please.
Another message said his dick and fingers, my pussy and

(36:28):
mouth like, who writes this shit? I'm a grown ass,
married one man. I don't write that shit like this
is this is not on par with what kids should
be saying to one another. But on the other end,
remember kids were having Lauren and Owen were reading this
day in and day out. Okay, it's like abusive and

(36:49):
it's disgusting. That's the level of what we're dealing with here.
And that's just two text messages. They were getting fifty
and sixty a day. So Lauren would go home, she
would vent to her parents, she would cry, she would
be upset, and that would only increase the anguish when
they realized there was nothing they could physically do to
help her. There was nothing that they could do that

(37:11):
would stop this. So Lauren's mom is doing basically what
all moms would do, and rightfully. So she's like, listen,
you've got to ignore these texts, and she's telling Lauren, look,
you're beautiful, you're kind, you're a good athlete, and so
obviously this is somebody who's jealous of you and they're

(37:31):
just taking out a lot of hate on you. Owen, however,
he stopped wanting to go to school as this was
a lot on his shoulders, and his mom finally was
like okay enough and took the phone away. But that
didn't really help because he's a kid who's trying to
fit in and everyone else has a phone. And then

(37:51):
when They're like, why don't you have a phone? Oh,
someone keeps sending sexual message like it just it really
hurt him a lot too. I'm sure it had to
be embarrassing for him to have someone say that about him,
and then not only that, he had to turn those
messages over to his own mother. I mean, the whole
situation just was crappy. And the more messages that kept

(38:12):
coming through, they would say things like this, like it
was like they weren't even full sentences. It would say.
One of them said, my fucking tits in his face,
make him horny, make it cream. And I want you
to know I am weirded out just repeating this to you.
Please know there's no joy in repeating this to you,

(38:32):
but the reality of it. Whenever I wrap up this
story in the end, it's gonna matter. So that's why
I'm telling it to you. It's going to matter. Do
not forget what these messages were that I just read
to you. So as you can imagine, this is now
causing a lot of tension, not only between the teens,
but also in the homes of the teens Owen and Lauren.

(38:56):
They began fighting under all of this pressure. These adult
level accusations that were being thrown on the shoulders of
these kids. They didn't know how to deal with it.
And in one way, they seemed too young to really
grasp how horrible what was being said to them was.
And I don't know if it's just because of the

(39:16):
overexposure to sexuality in our in our society or what
it was, but maybe they were just desensitized to it
at this level, because you know, music and everything is
so just gross these days. And I don't blame them
for that. They just they didn't seem to grasp how
horrible it was. It's just that they knew that it
was horrible, but not the level of what was being
said to kids. But as you can imagine, their young

(39:39):
love couldn't take this, and so they did end up
breaking up. And maybe this, in a weird way, would
be a good thing, because the messages would stop. Okay,
if they're not together, the messages would stop. Now, these
two young kids had dated two years. That's a long time,
you know. I think that when we think about young love,
it's almost like dog years. You know, dog years is

(40:01):
every seven years. I think young dating years are like
one hundred years, because oh my God, people celebrate their
one month anniversary when we're young, right, Okay, but they
were together two years and now that first love was over,
Lauren was absolutely heartbroken, and as was Owen. But I
think the girls take it a little harder. But the
level of these messages was way too heavy for young kids.

(40:24):
But get this, even after they broke up, the messages
continued and they intensified even more. Now the messages were
saying things like kill yourself. Owen would be better off
if you were dead. This is what Lauren is receiving.
So Lauren, as you can imagine, was now in a

(40:48):
decline mentally or emotionally over these messages. She continued to
get them. They would say things like dead hashtag bang bang,
hashtag suicide and how much do you have to hear
this and read this and see this before your young
heart just does something that it can't take back. You know,

(41:09):
kids do this all the time. They think that death
and suicide is the answer, and parents should be afraid
of this. The way that people treat one another, and
this is no different. These messages hit on all of
her insecurities and now they're telling her to kill herself,
and she's lost her boyfriend. That's a lot emotionally for
a kid to go through, and this level of harassment

(41:31):
and abuse on a teenager is hard enough as an
adult to fathom, but imagine being that kid that age.
More texts came through Owen wants you dead, another one
warning you finish yourself before we do so. Now both
sets of parents were afraid of whoever was sending these

(41:53):
messages because of them increasing. And now at the added
thing of we don't want our kids to hurt themselves.
We don't want someone else to hurt them. We don't
wan to hurt themselves, we don't want them to hurt
each other. This is incredible. Now put this into perspective.
Fifteen months this would go on, not one, not two,
not ten, not you know, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen months

(42:17):
these messages would continue, and now it's starting to come
to a head. I mean, this is legitimate cyber bullying.
And so they opened a police case on this at
this point. The superintendent of the public school system was
there at this meeting, as was the principal of the school,

(42:38):
as were the parents of Owen and Lauren. So I
want to give you the parents' name. So you can
keep up with the story. Owen's mom is named Jill
and Lauren's mom her name is Kendra, so both moms
were very very upset. Emotional trauma is real. Anyone who

(42:59):
thinks it's not you have not experienced it, nor someone
who's ever dealt with it. Emotional trauma is real, and
the risk elevates the more that someone is exposed to.
So self harm was now a legitimate worry, and that's
why these police had to get involved. So the officer
that was tasked with the case was advised of everything

(43:19):
that you know so far, and he knew or believed
that there had to be a group of kids with
a close bond and that they likely were involved. So
his thoughts were that there probably was like two or
three kids that knew about this and were working together
and keeping their silence to keep this going on and

(43:41):
to not have at least one person found, multiple people
must have been involved in this, and so what the
officer would do was he would come to school a
few times a week to get updates, so he was
continually continuously on top of this and in one body
cam discussion during those one of those visits, and I

(44:02):
want you to know something. I know teen girls. I
taught them for seventeen years, I parent them. I know
teen girls. Lauren's little face in that video, she looked tired,
she looked beat, she looked emotionally drained. And it makes
your mama heart, it makes your teach your heart, it

(44:22):
makes any heart that you have for teenagers. It made
it just kind of sink because you're looking at her
little face, going she's done. She's in a different world
at this point, trying to handle this while also trying
to remain a good student and a good daughter. Well,
the couple had broken up, like I told you, by now,
and so they were deciding to now focus on their

(44:45):
athletics respectively. So, after all, when all of a sudden done,
they were great athletes, amazing athletes, and this very talent
that they had would bring about a massive change of
direct in this very case, because the messages now shifted
and now they were focusing on Lauren and her athletics

(45:08):
and telling her how bad of an athlete she was
and how she wasn't any good at anything that she tried.
And you know, Lauren, like I just told you, was
awesome at her athletics. But this person who was sending
these messages would now highlight specific mistakes in her game.

(45:30):
So these messages are stalker level. This means that the
person who is making these these vile assaults at now
her athletics was at the game. They're there, they're in
that gym, So this upped the stress level as well
as not only being the team, but now as the athlete,

(45:53):
you know, they're watching me. They're gonna call me out
on everything bad that happens or every mistake that I made.
And so you're playing ball or she's playing ball knowing
that the person is there focused on her and watching
her every move. So Lauren and her mother, Kendra, they
began a little investigation of their own because one of

(46:13):
the messages that was sent by the stalker mentioned how
many points she as in the stalker, how many points
she had scored the night before. Blah blah blah blah blah.
You didn't score very well. I scored blah blah blah
blah blah. And so mom Kendra was a volunteer scorekeeper

(46:34):
during the games, and she said, we got to go
look at these logs. Let's go look at the logs,
because this means this is a fellow athlete if she's
saying I scored whatever, And so, okay, great, now we
know that this is a female sending these messages, and
we now know it's a fellow athlete. Well, since mom
kept the score books at the games, she had these logs.
So they sat down together and they started going through

(46:57):
the logs, and only one girl scored the amount of
points that the stalker said she scored. And that girl's
name was Chloe Wilson. So now put on your freshman
girl hormones for a second with me, and let me
just spill the tea, okay, because this is gonna matter.

(47:18):
Chloe supposedly had a crush on Owen, so it did
fit in. Chloe and Lauren didn't like each other. They
hadn't liked each other all through school. They were not
fans of each other. They played sports beside each other,
but they didn't like each other. And Chloe had allegedly

(47:40):
yet it was confirmed by documentation in this documentary. Okay,
but I'm gonna say allegedly because I didn't see the
report myself. But Chloe had allegedly been a bully at
the school in the past, and she was really looking like,
this is probably the right person. Okay. She was naturally
going to be called into the office to be spoken

(48:00):
to about this. She had a history of bullying other kids.
She had been brought in because of it, and so
when she was brought in, she wholeheartedly denied it. I
didn't send these messages. I have nothing to do with this,
blah blah blah blah blah. Well, the consensus amongst kids
and some of the other parents was that she's obviously lying,
and her dad's job came under scrutiny. Why because her

(48:24):
dad was a police officer. So everyone's like, of course
she's not gonna admit to and of course she's not
gonna get in trouble for it. Her dad's gonna cover
up for her. Chloe get This was also a popular
girl who ran with two other popular girls, cheerleaders and
top athlete type of girls, the ones who were pretty,

(48:46):
the ones who were the top of the food chain. Okay.
Those two girls names were Sophie and Macey, So Chloe,
Sophie and Macy were a tight trio to them. Lauren
was an out cider who only talked about sports and
very nothing, very deep in her conversation. So to them

(49:08):
this trio, they kept saying, Lauren is texting herself because
she's wanting to get Owen's attention. She's gonna want Owen
to run to her and they can get back together.
From continuing on these messages and low key, I'll tell
you this, kids do do that. I said, do do market,
But kids do that, And so for them to think this,

(49:28):
I don't think was a very far fetched assumption considering
that they're young kids. So the investigating officer originally believed,
if you remember that this was likely a tight, nips
knit small group and they were now fighting amongst themselves
that trio. We had Chloe the bully, Sophie which was
Owen's good friend, and Macy, which is the other friend,

(49:52):
and they would likely know what was up, and police
were just going to need one of them to crack
so that they could get this crack wide open. The
running thought was this, Sophie and Owen were close, their
entire lives, very very close, and so maybe this was
a jealousy thing because Owen's mom Jill, and Sophie's mom

(50:17):
her name was Koren. They were best friends. Okay, so
the Owen and Sophie were raised together. Why because their
parents their moms were best friends. So Jill, Owen's mom
reached out to Krien, Sophie's mom, and said, look, maybe
you can help us figure this out. Can you look
in the phones? Can you help us figure out what's
going on here? So Karen even took her daughter's phone,

(50:40):
she went through it. There was nothing there. So now
there's this turmoil over here on this side of things. Well,
the girls played basketball, right Well, the basketball coach at
this point was fed up. He was tired of the fighting,
tired of the drama, and both Chloe and Lauren played
ball together, Chloe the bully and Lauren the one being bullied.

(51:02):
So the parents of Owen and Lauren, they wanted to
talk to all of the students and confront people at
this point because it was so out of control. Remember
we're like fifteen months into this, sixteen seventeen at this point,
and the school was like, not only no, but hell no,
you're not gonna come up in here and just start
accusing and harassing other kids that have nothing to do

(51:23):
with this. That's not gonna happen. This was making a
you problem become an everyone problem. And in all blunt honesty,
schools can't be having that happen. That's ridiculous. The parents
were pissed when they were told no, but I have
to say I agree with the school in this one.
So meanwhile, another offshoot of the messages began an additional

(51:46):
issue for the bully Chloe. And I'm saying bully just
so we can keep up with the names. I'm not
saying she's actually a bully in real life, okay, but
everyone was now confronting her, and everyone was saying, you're
doing this, and she's like, I'm not doing this. I
am not texting her. So Owen confronted her, as did
her own friends. Now Chloe's school experience had become dramatically different,

(52:11):
and now she was being affected at school as well.
She wasn't having fun either. More texts came through, things
like he wants sex BJ's and making out he don't
want you? Like when would enough be enough? You know
they're broken up? What more do you want? So I

(52:33):
get why the parents were so adamant that the school
should do something, because it's just not stopping. But as
it would play out, Chloe's family decided to go on
a vacation to Florida. She went with her family. They
were out of town and they were having a good
time away from the drama at home. But more texts

(52:55):
were sent to both Lauren and Owen. Well, when tracing
down the location or the origination of where those texts,
the area that they came from, wouldn't you know that
the number showed that they came from Florida. Yes, exactly
where Chloe was. So Chloe is now under the microscope

(53:17):
more than ever. Here is a fourteen year old girl too.
To be put in perspective, here, a fourteen year old
girl is basically outsmarting an entire police department. That's wild.
And her phone then was confiscated by the police. They
were over it, they were done. They took her phone

(53:38):
and they had it forensically downloaded, which means they dumped
everything from her cell phone and they went through it
bit by bit. The police searched it top to bottom
and guess what, there was nothing on her phone, nothing sent,
nothing from as far as relation to this. It was normal,

(53:58):
typical teenage girl stuff on that phone. Yet even after
they took her phone, more messages came through to Lauren
and Owen. And they were laughing. The messages were the
context of them where that haha. The police took my phone,
there was nothing on it, ha ha, what are you
gonna do now? But also a message came through, but

(54:20):
this time it came through with a picture. The picture
was of Chloe and Owen together, like hugging up, like
not anything bad, just like friends with their arms over
each other. But this made no sense to police because
she wouldn't set herself up for failure like that, especially
under the scrutiny that she was under. So this was

(54:44):
now really looking like a setup of Chloe. She didn't
even have her phone, so she didn't have an extra
phone either, so and the messages had continued and then
She's not gonna send a picture of herself, Come on,
get real. So over a thousand pages of messages were
downloaded from Lauren and Owen's phones for this investigation. And

(55:08):
one other message was sent and this one also included
a picture, and this would become important. This picture was
taken at a family Christmas function for Owen's family, and
Owen was in it. You can't really see his face
or anything. All you can see is the couch and
the side of his body and he's holding a gift
and then there's some open gifts next to him. There's

(55:30):
like a football and stuff. Well, only family was there
at that function. Whenever the parents were asked, they said no,
only family was here. So the police asked, is there
anyone in the family that's also a student, and incredibly,
the answer was yes. It was Owen's cousin. Her name

(55:50):
was Adriana. And guess what, not only did she go
to school, but she went to school with Owen and Lauren.
She was at their school. So looking into a little
bit of the history, remember how Chloe was kind of
identified as a bully. Well, there was old beef between

(56:11):
Chloe and Adriana, So could this be it? Could this
be part of why there was a setup of Chloe
because Adriana was behind all of this. Now, let me
explain Adriana to you, and I mean this with all
love in my heart when I tell you this, but
Adriana does not have a cool kid vibe at all.
When you get to see her and hear her talk.

(56:32):
This is not cool kid confident type personality coming through here.
And she absolutely was an outsider to that trio of girls.
The Chloe Sophia and Macy group. She was quiet, She
was definitely not a popular cool kid, and while the

(56:52):
trio of girls would disagree, the less than popular at
the school, they felt like they were targets of trio bullying,
and a lot of kids would kind of agree with that,
that that trio of girls were mean. So Adriana's mom
now got pissed. She's like, whoa, you're just going to

(57:14):
point the finger at my daughter, who's got nothing to
do with this. So she did what a lot of
us probably want to do, and her mom, Adriana's mom,
she got online and voiced her opinion and she made
a generalized post on social media about the situation. But
it blew up. It went big, and so now everybody

(57:39):
turned on Adriana and they were like, you're framing Chloe
and you're over here playing the victim, and you know,
obviously you're the only person who was at Christmas who
could have taken that photo. Blah blah blah blah blah. Well,
when the police questioned Adriana, she like all the other kids,
said hey, I have no answers for you. I don't know,
I haven't done anything. I don't I don't bother anybody.

(58:01):
I've never been blamed for anything in my life as
far as being a bully or going after people. I'm
not a troublemaker. I would never attack somebody. And she
knew that she was now in the limelight and that
this was a situation that she knew nothing about. She's like,
I really don't know, and the reality was she didn't.

(58:25):
She was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing. So how that
photo came to be was now again a mystery of
how it was gotten and sent out. So this is crazy.
While the sheriff was literally standing in Adriana's family's living
room whenever they were trying to like kind of point

(58:46):
the finger at her and say, we think you might
be involved in this. He's in their living room, Adriana's
phone dinged. She looks at it, lo and behold it
was a message from unknown number and it was the
harasser telling Adriana, Hey, you need to blame Lauren for

(59:08):
ruining Owen's life and we need to work together to
take Lauren down. So Adriana is now terrified. She's a
very timid type of person. Maybe not timid, but this
is just not her jam because She's not gonna get
in the middle of this drama. She's scared. Now, how
did they get my number? Look, they're texting me. I'm
not I'm not doing this. So Owen is now getting

(59:32):
messages all night long, causing his family a very tense
home life. They're fighting left and right. Lauren's parents are
going through the same thing. They're fighting left and right.
The stress was just too much. Everyone now was breaking,
even the families. One text that came through said to Lauren,

(59:53):
no one ever want your anorexic flat ass and tits.
No dude ever touching that pussy, you pasty slut. Well, Lauren,
who was just resigned at this point, She's tired. She
wants it to end. She answered the unknown number and
she texted back, Okay, you win, you win, I give up.

(01:00:15):
Please stop or tell me what I have to do
to make you stop. And that hurt my heart as
a mama, because that poor baby was just trying to say,
you win, leave me alone, please, I don't want to
do this anymore. But more messages came through and it
wasn't telling her what to do, and it wasn't going

(01:00:37):
to leave her alone. These said, you don't deserve the
air you breathe. We all fucking hate you, he said,
he cheated on your ass. I fucking own Owen's dick.
Cry more, you fucking jealous bitch. Like she wasn't even
dating this kid anymore. They had moved on from each other,

(01:00:59):
and she's still getting these sexual harassment messages. So Owen's
mom goes back up to the school. There's video of
this in a body cam, and she's crying. At this point,
she's desperate, she's crying, her head is down. She's like,
we've got to do something. This is too much, this
is too much. These are kids. She eventually did take

(01:01:20):
away his phone altogether because she looked through it checking it,
and Owen messaged the harasser back also and said, I
hope you people know that you make me feel suicidal.
He said the words I'd rather not be here than
deal with this anymore. And this threw his poor mama

(01:01:40):
over the edge. She was at her breaking point. And
I know that I've been going on now for what
an hour telling you about all these messages, and that's
a long time just to tell you about it. This
kid and all these kids have been dealing with this
now for way over a year. Okay. So basically the
local cops are like, look, we're tapped out. We've used
up all the resources that we have. This is not

(01:02:02):
something that we are going to be able to deal with.
And eighteen months, eighteen months after this all began, the
sheriff's office in April of twenty twenty two, they reached
out now to the FBI to make this stop and
to get help. That's how insane it had gotten. The FBI, though,
took the call and was like, okay, bet we're the FBI, bitch,

(01:02:25):
step aside. We got this. So they took Owen's phone,
did a full extraction of it, messages, pictures, emails, locations,
everything from that phone, and they didn't learn really anything
from the phone. Owen was an average teenage boy. He
talked about sports and his friends talked about like hanging out.
There was nothing on that phone beyond that. Owen had

(01:02:48):
also moved on from Lauren. They found out he didn't
hate her or anything. It just wasn't fun anymore. This
was too traumatic, and he had actually started dating a
new girl that he met from out of town. They
met at a sporting event out of town. It was
nice that she was from a distance away because they
didn't have anybody in common, they didn't share the same

(01:03:09):
friend group, and she was a breath of fresh air.
It was starting something new. The excitement was there, and
this was just really good for him. They were still
just getting to know each other and it was the
beginnings of a romance. They didn't know each other well,
but it was a start. Until the new girl's mother

(01:03:29):
got a text from an unknown number. These people were
hours away from where Owen lived. They had no common friends,
no common people, and the girl he's dating's mother gets
a text messages. So obviously this wasn't good and Owen

(01:03:50):
was literally being stalked at this point. It's very clear,
and I'll save you the drama from all of this.
He and the new girl broke up really quickly because
that new mama was like, oh, hell no, and that
new girl was like, I don't want none of this,
and that was a wrap. It was over. So Owen
by now had had enough and he was starting to
become a very angry and more aggressive in life. He

(01:04:11):
was starting to lash out at people where he hadn't before.
He was becoming more physical, like in sports and not
in a good way. Necessarily Lauren's parents also, they were
at each other's throats about this. Dad was yelling at
mom because Lauren's mom was like, I'm gonna take care
of this, I'm gonna do something, but she obviously wasn't
able to handle it, and his baby girl is now

(01:04:33):
in the throes of just all out trauma. Well, the
FBI did take this case seriously, like I told you,
and the FBI started fbiing okay, behind the scenes, and
this included getting real technical, well beyond my pay grade
for sure, but basically their cyber crimes unit was ready
to handle this once and for all. Basically they were

(01:04:56):
able to deduce and figure out that the random numbers
were being generated as a service by a certain company,
and through their methods they identified the name of the
company that was creating these autogenerated numbers as the PingER Company.
So PingER is an app and you can get it

(01:05:18):
right through the Apple Store right now, I know because
I went and looked it up. Okay, but you could
get this through Apple and it has a multitude of uses,
but mainly it attracts users because of its free unlimited
calling and texting. That's what it's promoted for. So some
of the features also in this app is that you

(01:05:39):
can personalize your number, Like if my name was Sarah,
I can be two two five Sarah, or you know,
I love you cookies or something. I don't know, that's
too many letters. But you can customize your number. You
can change your number as often as you want. You
don't have to actually have a phone. You can do
it from an iPad or something like that. But guess
what else. You can also choose the area code of

(01:06:02):
your choice. I don't know, Like if you were trying
to set up a kid named Chloe who was in
Florida and put a Florida area code, it had that feature.
So the FBI then subpoenaed PingER, and the numbers that
were being used were identified as originating from a Verizon customer.

(01:06:22):
The only way to id that customer, though, was through
these two IP addresses, like from your computer that utilized
the random numbers to text. Those IP addresses were then
registered to a phone number. So I've broken that down
as simplified as I can, but that's basically how they

(01:06:43):
did it. So the FBI agent on the case took
those numbers that were deduced from the IP addresses and
went and spoke to Owen's mother, and Owen's mom gave
him a list of all of the contacts in her phone,
Owen's phone, and they basically were going and manually trying
to compare and see if any of the numbers matched.

(01:07:06):
So she sent all of her possible contacts through and amazingly,
guess what one phone number did match. Twenty months had
passed at this point, and the FBI when they identified
this number was really confused. It just didn't make sense

(01:07:29):
why because the number that matched was registered to Kendra Lacari,
Lauren's own mother, the woman who had been fighting beside
Owen's mother this whole time, the woman who had been

(01:07:49):
fighting the school to make it stop, the woman who
held Lauren as she cried every night about these attacks,
the woman who helped to look for the culprit in
the basketball logs. That was the number it came back to.
So Owen's mom said, it's not her. There's no way
she's been helping me through all of this. This has

(01:08:10):
got to be a mix up. A new level to
this story. When the school was told like mind blown,
They're like, no, that can't be. Kendra has been a
big time parental supporter for years. She's a helpful mom,
she's a good mom, an avid volunteer at the school.
Always that can't be right. The local sheriff, however, sat

(01:08:35):
back and started thinking about the past twenty months and
that Kendra had asked for updates throughout the entire investigation.
She did, in fact, insert herself quite often, but it
was just an insane thought to consider. However, you can't
go in with blinders on things like this, and they

(01:08:58):
had a job to do. So the sheriff's office got
a search warrant for Kendra's phone, and in the bodycam video,
they pull up to a small, middle class home and
Kendra comes from the side of the house. She kindly
greets them, Hey guys, what's going on. She's dressed in
shorts and a tank top, kind of like she's been
working in the art or something. They're like, look, we
need we need to talk to you, okay, and she's like, okay,

(01:09:20):
what's up? And they said, let's go inside so we
can talk. And they go inside and then quite frankly,
just confront her with the findings of the FBI, and
she's taken by surprise. She kind of sits down in
a high stool at their bar and she's like what, no, no, what,
But they keep speaking and talking to her and saying

(01:09:45):
this is where it came back. I mean, what else
could it be? Kendra, like you know, She's like no, no,
But the more that they kept speaking, she then says, well,
it didn't start that way. Wait what did she just
admit that it's true? Yes, she realized the jig was up.

(01:10:12):
She started to panic, and she then immediately shifted her
focus on her daughter Lauren. Then, all of a sudden,
when she realizes she's caught, she's worried about her daughter Lauren.
She won't be able to show her face at school,
and then she starts feigning this protective mom show, even

(01:10:35):
though everything understand this, everything that her daughter has been
through was because of her. This entire time, her own
mother was the harasser, the stalker, everything. It was almost unbelievable.
So they call Lauren inside. Lauren was outside by the

(01:10:57):
pool or something in the backyard, and they call her
inside and they break the news to Lauren of what
is happening. But I'm gonna tell you, I can tell
it's not clear to her. I don't think that she
understood what they were saying, because she was stoic and
rather flat. She was like, oh, okay, you caught them,
But them was right next to her. Them was her mom.

(01:11:19):
Her mom's hugging on her and kissing her on the head.
I really don't think she understood in that moment. The
police then say you need to call your husband now.
So she gets her husband and it's on speakerphone and
they get on the phone, and the police they're like, look, man,
we hate to do this, but we found out who
has been cyberstalking your daughter and her ex boyfriend. He's like, oh, really,

(01:11:39):
who who And they're like, brow, it's your wife. And
you could just hear the wind sucked from his lungs.
So he jumps in his car and he flies over
there to the house and he just couldn't understand how
this could be. And he said something to the effect of,
you know, like, oh my god, this can't be. This

(01:12:01):
can't be true. And the police say, look, we got
a warrant for her phone. We're gonna go through it
and we'll know for sure. And he looks up and
he goes, well, which phone he is the one who
I did or opened up the idea that she has
multiple phones. I don't think they realized it. And that's
when he enters the house, this dad, Lauren's dad, and

(01:12:22):
his eyes are dead locked on his wife, Kendra, and
he said, you better start explaining now, And then all
of a sudden, she's this little, sheepish, sheepish creature, and
she admits it was her, it was me. But then
additional bombshells were dropped on this poor man right there

(01:12:42):
in the living room. Not only was his wife a
harassing stalker, but while they're talking, she had told him
that she quit one of her jobs. She had two jobs,
and the police are like, no, she was fired. She
was let go from that job. So now Kindrin's like, oh,

(01:13:06):
dear in the headlights that he now knows that she
was fired. Not only that, but she was actually fired
from both of her jobs. She wasn't even employed over
the entire last year. She had been faking it, faking
that she was doing a job on the computer all
day long, and no one in her family was. They

(01:13:29):
were none the wiser that she was lying to them,
And now it was realized that she was harassing their
daughter and friends all day. No wonder the text for
coming through constantly and all day and hours of the night.
It's because that bitch was on the computer, pretending to
have a job and harassing kids for a living. Her

(01:13:50):
alleged employer, You're gonna love this too. Farris State University,
they would confirm she was never employed there when she
said she worked there. Casey Anthony much here. Remember how
she claimed she worked at Universal and didn't like this
is crazy. She was lying about her income. She wasn't

(01:14:11):
paying their family bills. Hell, they lost their entire house
during all of this, and they lost all of their
belongings because she was telling her husband that she was
paying for their storage facility and she never paid one bill.
So now that all of this was coming out, this
poor husband and Lauren, the daughter, are like, oh my god,
we don't even know this woman. She had been handling

(01:14:33):
all their finances this past year and they lost everything.
So Kendra was taken into custody and she was brought
to jail, but not before crying and hugging her daughter,
saying I can't leave her. I can't leave bitch, you
did this to her. I'm gonna say it again is sick.
It's sick that you would even think you could, you
should be allowed to hug on her after what you've

(01:14:53):
put that kid, not to mention other ones. Through this
entire time, Lauren, by now though, was understanding what she
was being told, and she was shocked, sad, mad, every
emotion you can imagine, Like why. The truth through all
of this was that everything that the stalker, now we
know her own mother had said over the last two years,

(01:15:16):
honed in on everything that that little girl was insecure about,
and her mother knew it. Her body, her inexperience with boys,
her likability amongst peers, and now to know that it
was her own mother spewing such hate at her, it
is the antithesis of what the very word mother stands for.

(01:15:39):
A mother's role in the household is to uphold a child,
to ensure and to develop strength, where a young girl
often fails to see her value in the moments as
growing up, that's what a mama does. A mama's job,
in my opinion, and I'm right, okay, is to stomp

(01:15:59):
a mudhole through anyone who dared just tear their daughter down.
Why because we've already lived through it, and we'll be
damned if we're gonna let somebody else do it to ours.
You leave our daughters alone. They're young ladies, and now
to know the very woman Lauren trusted in her vulnerable

(01:16:21):
moments was taking that as intel to then turn around
and try to destroy her with it. This is so
much darker than I think even the documentary gave. It's
just dark. And then Owen and his mother were both
speechless when it was actually confirmed. It was kindre. She
confessed to it. This had Owen's mother really reflecting on

(01:16:43):
the last basically two years, and her thoughts really aligned
with my own and something that I personally, while I
was researching this felt from the jump. I don't think
that any of this was actually about Lauren. I think
that all of this was about Owen. Kendra would go

(01:17:08):
out of her way to get a lot of attention
from that young boy, even after her daughter broke up.
When Owen and Lauren broke up, Kendra was still going
to all of Owen's sporting events. Whenever they were dating.
She would take his food and cut up his food

(01:17:28):
for him before giving it to him, waiting on him
hand and foot and as a grown ass woman. She
would text him all the time. Now, I'm not saying
you wouldn't text the boy that your daughter's dating. I'm
not saying that at all, but not all the time.
My text would be more like where are you? Y'all?

(01:17:50):
Be home on time? You know why, because if you're
taking my daughter out, then you better recognize that you're
in charge of bringing her back. And I'm holding you
to that standard. I'm not just gonna text you how's
your day? Not gonna just text you what are you doing? Oh? Good?
You know, just that's weird. And even her own family
agreed that Kendra was an attention seeker. But me, someone

(01:18:13):
who's covered true crime for a long time and studied
it for a long time, I feel like there were
sexual overtones to this entire situation. The texts talking about
having sex and how much he wanted to were part
of a fantasy that she was living in. I'm telling y'all,
this was a fantasy she had built up in her head,

(01:18:34):
and she was getting to vocalize it and play in
it like it was real while hiding behind a cell phone.
That's what all of this was. She was stalking Owen
obviously so deep in this and I'm assuming through social
media that she found his new girlfriend's family. Think about
how much you're focusing on this boy. Who would care

(01:18:57):
unless the new girl was a threat to Kendra's fake
relationship with Owen. That's why she was going after the mom.
I one hundred percent think that this woman was obsessed
with a teen boy and that she was jealous of
her own daughter's relationship with this teen boy. Some of

(01:19:19):
those texts, let's revisit them now. You're a sweet girl,
but I know I can give him what he wants.
We're down to fuck. Her mother sent that, how's the
happy couple. Her mother sent that, Owen loves me and
I will always be the one he wants. Not your
ugly ass. Her mother sent that, you're the ugliest person

(01:19:41):
I've ever seen. Her mother sent that to her, fucking
trash bitch, don't wear leggings. Ain't no one want to
see your anorexic flat ass kill yourself. Her mother sent
her that, I want to tell you there's a million

(01:20:03):
warning signs of adults that obsess and groom teenagers. But
there's a couple I want to point out while I
wrap up this episode. Number one excessive interest and attention
to a teenager by an adult is a problem. If

(01:20:24):
it is not your child, then there's no reason for
frequent calls, texts, social media messages beyond the happy birthday.
Number two targeting vulnerabilities people who are grooming teens. They
will often prey upon a teens insecurities, their fears, or

(01:20:49):
their family issues, and they will position themselves as sympathetic
and trusted confidants. And I want to tell you the
twist on this one. She wasn't doing that necessarily to Owen.
She was doing it to her own daughter to gain
intel for Owen, like not for him to use, but

(01:21:10):
for her to use against her own daughter so she
could focus more on Owen and then isolating the teen.
Anytime an adult encourages eighteen to pull away from their family,
their friends, or any other positive support relationship, they'll often
start fostering this us versus them mentality that's common in groomers.

(01:21:34):
And I want to tell you something that seemed very
poignant to me. Whenever the message is shifted to saying
we in them, things like you know we want you gone,
we know he wants me. I'm telling you it's convoluted
and it was weird because in my own mind, I'm like,
is this Munchausen by IP like IP address instead of

(01:21:54):
Munchausen by proxy? It's like Munchausen by IP. It's weird.
The words that this woman used not only to her
own daughter but to someone else's teenagers, it's just vile.
So what did Kendra explain about what happened? When she
was asked what happened here, she says, let me give

(01:22:15):
some backstory. He real quick. She claims that this all
started because she wanted to get to the bottom of
who was actually sending those original messages. She says it
wasn't her. She didn't actually send the original messages. She
thought that maybe they would answer back and say something
that would help her figure it out, but then she
just had to continue on with it. Of course. She

(01:22:38):
then also adds on that that she was supposedly raped
at seventeen and had a hard yat life, and YadA, YadA, YadA,
YadA YadA. I'm gonna tell you now, I'm calling bullshit
on that woman from the start. When her mouth opens,
she is lying. She absolutely started all of those messages
one hundred percent, and she is trying to minimize her

(01:22:58):
involvement from the jump, while trying to also gain sympathy
because there's plenty of rape victims out there that don't
go out hurting other people. Rape victimology that is fake
is disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself, ma'am. You
should be absolutely wholeheartedly ashamed of who you are. That

(01:23:20):
is unbelievable that you would traumatize your own daughter, you
would traumatize other people's children. You would set up another
teenager from another state on vacation. You would let people
point the finger at a kid that had nothing to
do with this, and then you're gonna turn around and
say that being a rape victim somehow explains this away.
Get the fuck out of here. You're disgusting, regardless of

(01:23:46):
whatever bullshit she brought up. She would eventually plead guilty
to two counts of stalking a minor in April of
twenty twenty three, and she was sentenced to nineteen months
for her crimes, which I would like to point out
is less time than she spent harassing the kids. There
was a no contact order placed by the judge. He says,

(01:24:06):
you're not going to be in contact with your daughter either.
I agree with that. I think that she is very
bad for her own daughter, and that is sad to say,
but it's true. And I'll let you know that she
has since served all of her time and she has
been released, but she will remain on supervised release until
February of twenty twenty six. So look, I can tell

(01:24:27):
you this. If you've made it this far in the episode,
if you think you are failing at parenting, you're not.
This episode is an actual parental fail and what it
looks like if you were curious. The courts always seem
to keep kids with terrible parents with those parents. Yet
this court took your teenager away from you, ma'am. So congrats, Kendra,

(01:24:53):
you just won the gold medal of being terrible at
the one job you are biologically wired to do. Because,
let's face it, babe, you can say whatever you want,
but nothing screams stable adult like competing with your own
daughter for the attention of a boy who requires a
hall pass to use the bathroom. Warning unspeakable as intended

(01:25:29):
for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm
not your girl. Listening discretion is advised