Betrayal by Text: The Cyber Munchausen Case

The digital shadows we cast can sometimes conceal our darkest impulses - but what happens when the monster behind the screen is the very person sworn to protect you?

In the tiny Michigan town of Bill City (population 312), 13-year-old Lauren received her first anonymous text message during a Halloween party. "Owen is breaking up with you," it claimed, referring to her boyfriend. What began as seemingly typical teenage drama quickly spiraled into a 15-month nightmare of relentless psychological torture. The unknown texter bombarded Lauren with up to 40 messages daily, calling her an "anorexic toddler," commanding her to "kill herself," and attempting to destroy her relationship.

The texting intensified around social events, showcasing intimate knowledge of Lauren's whereabouts and activities. Even after the teenage couple broke up under the pressure, the harassment continued, shifting to target Owen's new girlfriend. Parents contacted police, school officials held meetings, and the FBI was eventually called in. The entire community became consumed with speculation about who could harbor such hatred toward these teenagers.

When digital forensics finally traced the messages through sophisticated VPN networks to their source, no one was prepared for the truth. The tormentor wasn't a jealous classmate or online predator - it was Lauren's own mother, Kendra Lacari. The same woman who coached Lauren's basketball team, comforted her after receiving the texts, and actively participated in the investigation was creating the very trauma she pretended to help solve.

Psychological experts suggest Kendra's behavior aligns with "Munchausen by Internet," where someone creates crises to position themselves as heroes. While financial troubles and job loss may have contributed to her mental state, the calculated cruelty of her actions - including attempts to frame another student and explicit encouragement for the teens to engage in sexual activities - reveals something profoundly disturbing about the potential for betrayal from those we trust most.

Despite everything, Lauren showed remarkable resilience, continuing her education and becoming a standout athlete who now studies criminology in college. Her story reminds us that while technology can be weaponized in unimaginable ways, the human spirit can withstand even the most intimate betrayals.

If you've experienced cyberbullying or digital harassment, remember that help is available, and you deserve support no matter who the perpetrator might be.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Introduction and Trigger Warning
• 1:41 Introducing Lauren and Owen's Story
• 4:24 Mysterious Texts Begin Targeting the Teens
• 10:10 Relentless Bullying Campaigns Escalate
• 18:15 FBI Investigation Reveals Shocking Truth
• 28:13 Kendra's Disturbing Tactics and Motives
• 37:46 The Aftermath and Legal Consequences
• 45:46 Lauren's Resilience and Moving Forward

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:29

Welcome everyone to Podcast Sixty Nine South, where we cuss and discuss true crime, code cases, current events, and hot topics, along with our state of society today. This is your trigger warning. Our podcast content is produced for adult listeners 18 years of age and older. We discuss situations that may be offensive and triggering to some listeners. Sit back, relax, and enjoy. Welcome back, everyone, to 69 South Podcast, where we bring you true crime stories from places that seem utterly unbelievable. I'm your host, Chop, and today with my beautiful co-host Julie, we are going to dive into a wild story.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10

Hello, everyone. Well, wild is an understatement. Today we're excited to break down the new Netflix documentary, Unknown Number, which follows the story of a young girl, Lauren, and her boyfriend Owen, both around 13 years old, and students at Beale City High in Bill City, Michigan.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30

If you haven't seen it yet, no worries. We've got you covered and we'll unpack it all. I recommend watching it before and after you uncover the suspect's identity. Trust me, your perspective will shift once you figure out who's behind the unknown number. Let's start with Bill City, Michigan, a small town in the heart of the state with a population of just 312. We're talking a tiny, unincorporated community with one K through 12 school, a blinking yellow light, a gas station, and two taverns. Blink while driving through, and you'll you might miss this little spot. The biggest events here revolve around the school and the sports.

SPEAKER_02: 2:07

13-year-old Lauren, an all-star athlete and straight A student, who's timid, shy, and soft spoken. She excelled in basketball, volleyball, softball, and even cheered as a cheerleader, making her a standout in extracurricular activities.

SPEAKER_01: 2:23

Then there's 13-year-old Owen, equally involved in school academically and athletically, football, basketball, and baseball, sharing a passion for sports with Lauren. Their young love story begins during the fall of their eighth grade year when a local family hosted an invite only Halloween party. Lauren wasn't originally on the guest list, but Owen asked her to join, and she reluctantly agreed. Though outgoing on the field, Lauren was more reserved off of it, a quiet, shy teen. A few weeks before the Halloween party, she received a text from an unknown number saying, Hi, Lauren, Owen is breaking up with you. He no longer likes you, and he hasn't for a while. It's obvious he wants me. Naturally, she showed the messages to her mom, Kendra. They dismissed it as a prank and moved on. But those texts planted seeds of doubt in Lauren, as they would any young girl.

SPEAKER_02: 3:20

Then in the fall of twenty twenty one, when they were in ninth grade, Owen and Lauren got more messages. And these texts read like this. And we are both DTF. He wants nothing to do with you. He thinks you're annoying and an ugly ass bitch and wishes you would leave him the fuck alone. Why do you think he is on his phone all the time texting me, question mark? You didn't get invited to sleep with him. I did. I'm spending the night with him. I'm sharing a bed with him, not you.

SPEAKER_01: 4:01

Damn, that's harsh for a teenage girl to hear about her boyfriend.

SPEAKER_02: 4:05

Well, absolutely it is. And the the weird thing is, is so in 2020 there was that Halloween party. Right. And um, and then the next year there was another one. So it was like the messages just popped up around the Halloween party, and then they quit, and then here comes, you know, next year's and they start all over again. It's odd.

SPEAKER_01: 4:32

So right off the gate, you think it's some jealous other girl uh going to the Halloween party and got her eyes on Owen this whole year. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 4:41

And can you imagine what you know these texts are making this young girl think? DTF. We are both DTF, meaning We're both down to fuck. Yeah, and so as a as a young girl, if you got a message like that, that would probably make you think, oh well, I should get involved sexually with this boy. That's what that makes me think she's gonna be insecure about it, so she's thinking, oh well, maybe if I give it to him, he won't.

SPEAKER_01: 5:14

Right. Whoever the slut is that's texting me might be might be having sex with my dude, so maybe I better step my game up type shit.

SPEAKER_02: 5:21

Exactly. Now, Tammy, the host of the Halloween party, caught wind of the incident and she called Lauren's mother, Kendra, to assure her that Lauren was certainly invited to the Halloween party. So the text continued sporadically through the end of that year. Jill, Owen's mom, showed them to school officials who just told her to block the number.

SPEAKER_01: 5:45

Sometimes Lauren would fight back. I don't care what you say. Owen and I are solid and you're not going to break us up, she texted back. Other times she would take the bait. She'd text Owen, Are you hanging out with other girls? Or she would text, Do you want to break up? Owen would always FaceTime back and reassure Lauren that he didn't want to break up and that he wasn't hanging out with other girls. Poor dude.

SPEAKER_02: 6:09

So this went on for months. Now, by the start of high school, Owen began to pull away from Lauren. The text made up 75% of the reason he calculates why they broke up. It's and he said it's just hard to be with someone after all of that. At a volleyball match in their freshman year, Owen and Lauren sat apart from each other. That's when Lauren started getting texts from her mom, Kendra, who was across the gym, and she was texting Lauren, sit next to him.

SPEAKER_01: 6:43

Wow, that must have been intense for her, especially coming from her own mom.

SPEAKER_02: 6:47

Well, it didn't stop there. The text kept coming in from Kendra. She was texting, answer me. Come here now. I'm pissed.

SPEAKER_01: 6:56

That escalation just sounds weird. Why would a mother be pushing her daughter to do that?

SPEAKER_02: 7:01

Well, it got worse. The pressure from Kendra kept building. Move your ass now. Now I'm fuming, pissed off. This is fucking ridiculous. Answer me and move your ass.

SPEAKER_01: 7:13

That's unbelievable. It sounds like Kendra was really putting the pressure on this little girl.

SPEAKER_02: 7:18

Could you imagine how awkward, you know, Lauren felt? And her mom's like, move over there next to him. And she's like, Well, we're broke. She's in her mind, she's thinking, we're broke up. Why would I be stalker-ish and go sit next to him? If he wanted to sit next to me, he would have sat next to me. And she's like pushing her to do things that she didn't want to or was uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01: 7:39

Exactly. Meanwhile, the anonymous bully was picking up on the tempo. In the lead up to the homecoming dance, the bully claimed that only one of them would be voted on to homecoming court. Could this be the end of the aka golden couple with the relationship that everyone idolizes?

SPEAKER_02: 7:56

Now, just imagine what these messages are doing to Lauren's emotional psyche.

SPEAKER_01: 8:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 8:02

You have somebody just hammering on you, you know, that they're gonna break your relationship up with your boyfriend. And you know how young love is at that time.

SPEAKER_01: 8:12

Oh yeah, that's the person you're gonna be with forever, for sure.

SPEAKER_02: 8:17

Well, they think that in the moment anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 8:19

Absolutely. Owen and Lauren went to the homecoming dance together, but in early November he called Lauren and asked to break up. He said he was just sick of fighting and the texting had driven down trust. Lauren remembers he asked whether they could just take a break. They both cried. To Owen, breaking up was also tactical. He hoped it would satisfy the harasser and they would be left alone.

SPEAKER_02: 8:43

Now I never understood why they never changed Lauren's phone number or put a block on her phone that only contacts are allowed to call or message that phone. I know Apple has that in the parental controls, and if your number isn't in the contacts, you're not even able to view the message. It's a fact that social media for young teens under 18 can be a very dangerous place.

SPEAKER_01: 9:10

So they kept the breakup quiet in school, but in the days after, the cyber bully started declaring victory.

SPEAKER_02: 9:17

Lauren is heartbroken and feeling defeated. That is just downright evil. Some very serious bullying. And can you just imagine if you had no idea who was sending these text messages? I would be petrified.

SPEAKER_01: 9:30

It would be driving me insane.

SPEAKER_02: 9:32

Her sense of security is completely shattered. This invisible person is controlling her sense of self-being, her emotions, and this is leading her to a nervous breakdown. This was a sustained, flooding torrent of messages, sometimes as many as 30 to 40 a day arriving at all hours day and night. The relentless assault left the teenagers and their parents exhausted and frightened.

SPEAKER_01: 9:57

And the content of these messages were brutal. The words weren't just insults. They were designed to inflict maximum psychological damage. They were deeply personal, targeting Lauren's body and her athletic ability. One message which we've seen documented was a truly vile and demeaning statement, calling her a quote, anorexic toddler. And this is where the sheer evil of the bully shines through was a direct and horrifying command to kill yourself now, bitch. The bully, whoever they were, seemed to derive pleasure from Lauren's suffering from her obvious pain and her vulnerability.

SPEAKER_02: 10:35

The harassment wasn't confined to just text messages either. The bully took their campaign public. An Instagram account was created, posting a heavily doctored photo of Lauren and Owen, accompanied by a caption filled with hateful and mocking comments. The social media component was a significant escalation, moving the cruelty from private correspondence to a public spectacle. It was a calculated attempt to humiliate the teenagers in front of their entire school and friend group. And the emotional toe, as we can see from the police reports, was immense. The teenagers were becoming reclusive, sad, and anxious.

SPEAKER_01: 11:15

You got to remember this was a K through 12 school with a population of just above 300.

SPEAKER_02: 11:21

Yeah, and I think there was um 700 students in the school altogether, K through 12.

SPEAKER_01: 11:28

So everybody knew everybody in this school. I mean, you probably went to kindergarten, and these teenagers are in eighth and ninth grade now. So you know it was bugging the shit out of them, man. Which one of these people that I've known my whole life is fucking with me like this?

SPEAKER_02: 11:43

Yeah, and they're already suspecting that it's a jealous girlfriend or somebody because who else would send messages like that? And it all revolves around these this couple.

SPEAKER_01: 12:58

Teenagers are brutal, especially jealous teenage girls.

SPEAKER_02: 13:03

Yeah, ruthless, 100%.

SPEAKER_01: 13:06

One of the most chilling details we've seen in the reports is the story of the Halloween party. This was a private party, a simple get-together for a close group of friends. And yet the unknown number who they referred to as a ghost friend at the time was seemingly in attendance. The bully sent messages that were so specific, so detailed about the events of that party that it gave the teenagers and their parents a terrifying thought. The bully wasn't a distant online figure, they were physically present. The bully was said to have been there the whole time, according to one source, a phrase that sends a shiver down your spine. The fear that the tormentor was a trusted friend and a seemingly harmless acquaintance was unbearable.

SPEAKER_02: 13:48

The parents, in their desperation, tried everything. They called the school, they went to the local police department and filed a report. They gathered hundreds of pages of text messages and screenshots, a massive file of evidence that was presented to Sheriff Michael Maine and his department. But the messages were coming from burner apps and massed phone numbers, making them impossible to trace. For 15 months, the bullying continued obsessively. The police were stumped, as one officer put it, the case felt like a dead end.

SPEAKER_01: 14:24

The torment continued even after Lauren and Owen's relationship ended. This is a critical detail, one that dismantles the perpetrator's later defense. After the two broke up, Owen started dating another girl. But the bullying didn't stop. Instead, it shifted its focus, now targeting Owen's new girlfriend. The messages were just as vile and manipulative. It was about something far more insidious, a predatory fixation on controlling the lives of these kids.

SPEAKER_02: 14:53

Now the police were making little progress. The school officials were at a loss too. They held meetings, they talked to students, but no one could or would admit to being the bully. The perpetrator was using a sophisticated mix of technology to remain anonymous. One of the key tools we now know was a messaging app called Pinger, which allowed them to send messages without revealing their actual phone number. They were also using VPNs or virtual private networks to mask their location and IP address. The combination of these tools created a digital ghost, a phantom tormentor that seemed to exist everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

SPEAKER_01: 15:39

That shit would be driving me nuts, man. Somebody texting my kid, my teenage girl, saying, kill yourself, bitch. You're worthless, you're ugly. I mean, somebody had to hate this girl at this point, is what I'd be thinking. I'd be looking at everybody like you're the one fucking sending those texts. I know it. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 15:57

That'd be Yeah, and these children were young, 13, 14 years old. They had cell phones, they had social media, and I'm sorry, but my personal opinion is that's too young to have a cell phone or any type of social media whatsoever. So I think that the parents should have taken their phones, I mean, and waited a few years to even give them back because once if they would have took their phones, they wouldn't have been getting these messages. I mean, and then you have the parents being like, Well, why does my child have to suffer when they haven't done anything wrong? I get that side of it too. That's just my personal opinion.

SPEAKER_01: 16:45

Could you imagine the rumor mill going around this small town? Like everybody had a fucking opinion on who was sending this shit, who was tormenting these kids.

SPEAKER_02: 16:54

Oh, it was controlling the whole town. That's I bet that's the only thing the town talked about. You know, parents would share their thoughts and opinions with other parents. And I I'm sure it was like, oh my God, have you seen the new messages uh today after it all came out? Wonder what was sent today. It was the talk of the town.

SPEAKER_01: 17:17

You know, they was like, I know this bitch is doing it. I know this bitch is doing it. They was pointing fingers every which way. Everybody looked like a porcupine, all the fingers digging out of it, pointing every which way.

SPEAKER_02: 17:29

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 17:30

But this is where the story takes a dramatic turn. The local police, realizing that they were out of their depth, reached out to the FBI. Special agent Peter was assigned to the case, and he brought with him a level of expertise and digital forensics that was far beyond what local law enforcement had to access. Peter's task was daunting to trace the anonymous messages back to their source, despite the layers of technology obscuring the actual source.

SPEAKER_02: 17:57

Peter's investigation was a painstaking process of sifting through digital data, a massive haystack of information to find a single tiny needle. He began to trace the IP addresses associated with the Pinger app. The trail was difficult to follow as the VPNs were constantly changing the location of the IP addresses. But Peter, with his experience, was able to find a pattern, a common thread that linked the various IPs, and that common thread led back to a single reoccurring physical location.

SPEAKER_01: 18:35

And here's where the story just shocked the shit out of me. The location that the FBI found was Lauren's home. The IP addresses, despite the constant shifts in masking, were consistently being routed through their Wi-Fi network. The evidence was irrefutable. The bully wasn't a rival or a stranger. The bully was Lauren's mother, Kendra Lakari. The police obtained a search warrant and on April 15th, 2022, they descended upon the Lacari residents to seize the electronic devices of everyone in the house.

SPEAKER_02: 19:09

Now, that's wild. I could not bel I was shocked when it came out that it was her Lauren's own mother that was doing this. Now, Kendra Lacari had been in constant contact with the police and the FBI throughout this investigation. I'm sure she was.

SPEAKER_01: 19:33

I guarantee she was inserting herself into the shit. I wonder if they if they're on to me and shit.

SPEAKER_02: 19:38

She had faked concerned, offered help, and acted as a supportive parent, all while being the source of the torment. The deception was so complete, so all-encompassing that it was almost impossible to believe. The police had a hard time processing the truth, let alone the victims their self.

SPEAKER_01: 19:59

I can't imagine how a mother could say that to her teenage daughter. I mean, over and over.

SPEAKER_02: 20:05

Now let's let's explain how Kendra was acting. She was acting like the best mom in the world. Everybody thought that she was a good mom. She was the softball coach, she was the assistant basketball coach for like seventh or eighth grade.

SPEAKER_01: 20:23

She did CTA fundraiser.

SPEAKER_02: 20:25

She was involved in everything, everything, and always showed up for Lauren. So not a lot of people expected that it was gonna be her, but you know what? Some people in that town knew that Kendra was a liar, and they had their inklings that this may be her.

SPEAKER_01: 20:48

I couldn't even like text or say kill yourself to any of our kids, even jokingly. Any kid, but especially our own kids, you know what I mean? That's fucked up. Very. We talk a lot about child abuse on this podcast, but I mean this is severe child abuse without even laying hands on the child. It's just insane to me. But with the evidence in hand, the police confronted Kendra Lakari. She was initially defiant, maintaining her innocence and claiming that she had been hacked. She told police that she had been suffering from mental health issues, including depression and anxiety, and that she was under a great deal of stress. She even went so far as to blame her past quote unquote sexual abuse as a contributing factor. But the police had the data, the irrefutable trail that led directly to her. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide for Kendra.

SPEAKER_02: 21:43

Faced with the mounting evidence, Kendra Lucari eventually broke down and confessed. But her confession was a distorted version of the truth. She claimed that she had been trying to quote get more information, end quote, on the first set of text messages in 2020 by acting as a go-between for Lauren and Owen. She said she was trying to build a rapport with her daughter and protect her from the alleged tormentor. It was an almost laughable defense, an attempt to turn herself into the hero of the story that she had created.

SPEAKER_01: 22:24

But the truth was far more complex and far more sinister. We learned from the investigation that the time of her bullying, the Lacar family was under immense financial pressure. Kendra had lost her job at a major university. Their one story cabin was in foreclosure, and they had received an eviction notice. They were forced to live a transient life, moving from one temporary location to another. The stress of these financial and personal hardships may have contributed to her behavior, but it cannot, under any circumstances, excuse the heinousness of her actions. This wasn't a parent trying to protect her child. This was an adult using her child's pain as a means to a deeply disturbing end.

SPEAKER_02: 23:07

Now, this is pretty much called the Munchausen by Internet Theory. We remember Gypsy Rose and her mom, Didi Blanchard.

SPEAKER_01: 23:20

Right. Didn't she like pretend like her?

SPEAKER_02: 23:22

Munchhausen by proxy. So she was making her daughter sick so that she could take her to the doctor. They would get all kinds of free stuff, go on Disney trips. She had everybody thinking that, you know, her daughter couldn't walk and things of that nature. But that's pretty much what this is. But by internet, it's a theory and it provides a chilling explanation for her behavior. This is a psychological condition where a person fakes or induces a crisis in another person in order to gain attention and sympathy. In this scenario, Kendra Lucari created a crisis for her daughter, the cyberbullying, in order to make herself the center of attention and appear as the hero. She would be the one to comfort Lauren, the one to go to the police, the one to fight the bully. She created a problem so she could be the one to benefit from it. It's a deeply pathological form of abuse, one that is not rooted in the desire to harm, but selfish and narcissistic need for validation. But I believe that this was rooted in some type of harm.

SPEAKER_01: 24:41

How could it not be? I mean, the shit she was saying to this little girl, her own daughter. And the continuation of the bullying after Lauren and Owen broke up only further supports this theory. This proved that the campaign of terror was not only about Lauren, it was about control, about maintaining a state of chaos and drama, and about feeding her need for attention. Kendra's desire for chaos was so great that it didn't matter who the victim was as long as the game continued.

SPEAKER_02: 25:08

The revelation of Kendra's identity sent shockwaves through the community. The betrayal was so profound, so unthinkable that people struggled to comprehend it. A mother, the very person who is supposed to be the embodiment of safety and security, was the one inflicting the pain. The psychological damage to Lauren and Owen must be immeasurable. How do you ever trust again after such a complete and utter betrayal?

SPEAKER_01: 25:38

In a statement to the judge at her sentencing, Kendra Lakari expressed a hollow remorse. She said, I am sorry for my behavior to Owen McKinney and his family. I am sorry for my behavior to Chloe Wilson and her family. I am sorry to my daughter Lauren and my husband Sean. But the sincerity of her apology was called into question by her previous actions and the depth of her deception.

SPEAKER_02: 26:01

The legal system, too, had to grapple with the uniqueness of this case. It wasn't just bullying, it was stalking using a commute computer to commit a crime and a complete abuse of a position of authority. Kendra ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking a minor and one count of using a computer to commit a crime. The plea deal was a grim admission of her guilt.

SPEAKER_01: 26:27

The judge handed down a sentence that was meant to be as a deterrent and a just punishment for her actions. Kendra was sentenced to a minimum of 19 months in prison. The ruling sent a clear message that this type of profound and pathological abuse would not be tolerated. In the end, the family was torn apart. The marriage between Kendra and Sean Lakari dissolved, and the family was forever changed. Lauren has since moved in with her father, and the family is trying to move forward, but the emotional scars remain. This story serves as a cautionary tale, a stark reminder that the digital world can blur the lines between reality and fiction, and that a predator can sometimes be found in the most unexpected and trusted of places.

SPEAKER_02: 27:12

I want to talk about some of the shit Kendra did, starting with the messages that were of a sexual nature, and very egregious, as they involved graphic sexual content directed at children as as young as 13, including suggestions of sexual acts, lewd propositions, and attempts to coerce the teens into sexual behavior. Now, examples of the inappropriate sexual messages are now these are verbatim or closely paraphrased from the messages Kendra sent. Now they were often sent in burst of forty to fifty per day, sometimes in group chats or directly to the victims. And here's one. BJs in making out. He don't want your sorry ass. This message was sent to Lauren, falsely claiming her boyfriend's sexual desires to pressure her into engaging in sexual activity with him.

SPEAKER_01: 28:19

Another one was fucking trash, bitch. Don't fucking wear leggings. Ain't nobody want to see your anorexic flat ass. While primarily body shaming, this was part of a pattern of messages sexualizing Lauren's appearance, mocking her figure in a way that referenced her as a as sexually undesirable. It was sent repeatedly to exploit her insecurities about her body during puberty.

SPEAKER_02: 28:44

Now, some of the messages were detailed sexual fantasies about Owen. Lucari sent messages describing explicit sexual acts she or others would perform with Owen. The thirteen-year-old boy. Examples included graphic propositions like sneaking out for sex, oral sex, and other intimate acts, often phrased to make her act upon or do those things. Example, he's DTF, down to fuck, and so are we. Sneak out or lose him. These were directed at both teens and even extended to Owen's later girlfriends and cousins with context like the sexual moves they do with him. So she's not even texting Lauren at this point. She's texting Owen's cousin, Owen's new girlfriend.

SPEAKER_01: 29:44

Chloe that that they were all, I mean, Owen and Chloe were friends since they were little too, just like Lauren and Owen. So she was kind of trying to set this Chloe girl up, making it look like she was sending the text messages. So not only was she terrorizing Owen and Lauren, this poor Chloe girl went through hell with her parents and with, you know, probably friends of everybody, and there's certain cliques thinking that she was the one sending the shit.

SPEAKER_02: 30:14

And it was her friends were not trusting her anymore because they were like, is she really doing this? I mean, it was so demented that in the messages that Kendra was sending, she was like setting this little girl Chloe up by saying, Oh, well, I got so many basketball points, and the only person with that many points that on that night of that game was Chloe. I mean, it we'll go into some other stuff she did to try to frame Chloe here in a little bit, but there were also coercive sexual messages or suggestions to Lauren, messages that urged Lauren to repair her relationship by having sex with Owen, such as Owen doesn't want you because you won't see. Sneak out for sex. He's ready. Why aren't you? These implied that sexual compliance was necessary for love while simultaneously threatening her into suicide or violence if she didn't do these things.

SPEAKER_01: 31:17

She was even going to Lauren's coaches about the emotional damage these techs were doing to Lauren and you know how it's affecting her basketball game. They would offer solutions, but she never listened, and they would come back the next day. She would go back to him bitching about it the next day, like every day.

SPEAKER_02: 31:33

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01: 31:34

Like I wonder if she was doing it for attention.

SPEAKER_02: 31:37

She she had to be doing it for attention. Now you gotta remember, she was the assistant coach of the younger girls, the middle school girls, basketball, but she would go to the high school coaches and be like, these text messages are just gonna throw Lauren's game off. And, you know, they were like, block the number, take her phone, you know, or get her a new phone number when she would never listen and then come back the next day crying and whining about what these messages were doing to her daughter. So she 100% knew exactly the emotional turmoil her daughter was in because it was affecting her her basketball game. I mean, how can you have fun and play sports when you have all this going on behind the scenes?

SPEAKER_01: 32:26

And you don't know which set of eyes is watching you play basketball, and you're gonna get a text five minutes later and say, You suck at basketball. Why ain't you scoring any points? This fucking shit is mind-boggling to me.

SPEAKER_02: 32:37

Mm-hmm. What else did she do?

SPEAKER_01: 32:39

She would bring clothes to Lauren midday because she would say that the bully insulted what she was wearing, and then tell the kids she seen in the hallways why she was there, and then text other students, Lauren's friends, to go check on her in the bathroom because she was fucking crying about the text messages that she was fucking sending.

SPEAKER_02: 32:58

Yeah, and she would know what Lauren's wearing to school that day, and she would intentionally dog on her or send her text message about what she was wearing or how she was wearing it, just to show up to the school and bring her different clothes. But why would you tell the other students or anybody in the hallway why you're there?

SPEAKER_01: 33:23

No wonder this bitch didn't have no job. She had a full-time job fucking with these poor kids and her daughter.

SPEAKER_02: 33:29

And speaking of her not having a job, she lied to her husband Sean for six months to a year after losing her job. She would pretend like she had a job. She would show up uh at the school or wherever she would be wearing her work clothes, you know, shirts that had the university's brand on it, and pretend she would pretend that she's taking calls from work while she was at home. I mean, completely a complete pathological liar. She said one time that their house that got foreclosed on, she was telling everybody it got hit by lightning and they had to come in. And she filed an insurance claim on that. So there's insurance fraud too. So after the kids broke up, Owen's parents had texted Kendra and told her that just because the kids split and weren't boyfriend and girlfriend anymore, that didn't mean they couldn't still hang out and get together because they were all friends. So we know that the text messages got worse after the breakup, which gave Kendra and Jill more reason to talk about and bond over the text messages and that the kids were getting and what they were going through. Kendra would even go to Owen's basketball games and take Lauren with her. She would then sit by Jill and force Lauren to show Jill the latest text messages that she had gotten. So like they could be best friends because they don't know where these messages are coming from, and they're getting together as a team and trying to figure out who's sending all these messages. And Kendra also convinced Jill that the texts were coming from Chloe, the classmate, where she had kind of set her up. She said Lauren's Snapchat account was hacked and accessed near the area of where the little girl Chloe lived. And then texts came from an area where Chloe's family was vacationing. So she was trying to set her up left and right to make it look like these texts were coming from this little girl that you said earlier. She would make fake Snapchat accounts and sent messages to and from the fake account pretending to be other classmates and would turn this in as evidence to the police. And they even brought Chloe and her parents in to talk. And she was like, I'm not doing this. She was in tears. She had no idea who was doing this either. And her parents were like, you know, this is not our daughter. Chloe's dad was a cop. I mean, he even plugged her phone into Cellbright and downloaded it, and there was nothing on it.

SPEAKER_01: 36:37

It's weird how this shit was so satisfying to this chick, man.

SPEAKER_02: 36:43

She was addicted to controlling the minds of these teens and making them think all of this horrible shit.

SPEAKER_01: 36:52

Her mind had to be going like 10 million miles an hour, doing this tech shit, and then talking to all the people that she talked about. You got to keep in mind, people, we've only broke the ice on the text messages.

SPEAKER_02: 37:03

There were tens of thousands.

SPEAKER_01: 37:05

Yeah, there was a thousand pages of close to somewhere around a thousand pages of text messages with who knows how many text messages on each page.

SPEAKER_02: 37:13

Yeah, and they weren't just text messages to Lauren or to Owen. She would make group chats with the other little kids in it and send these messages out like that. I mean, what was Kendra's real really what was in her mind? Because I I get the feeling that she was obsessed with Owen as well. And here's why I think that she Owen played baseball and he had this big tournament in Florida, and Kendra tried to go to Florida for quote unquote family vac vacation during Owen's tournaments. And Owen's family had to, you know, politely tell her, no, we're not doing that. Also, she would drive three hours across Michigan to go to some of his sports games. That's weird.

SPEAKER_01: 38:08

That is weird. And I get that you would think that the obsession with this teenage boy had a big part to play. And it it it probably was one part of it. But then you gotta wonder, after Owen and Lauren broke up, why was she sending all this shit to Lauren saying, kill yourself and your ugly bitch and dogging her clothes and her, you know, in a female in the most volatile time of her life? That seems like maybe another motive was in play.

SPEAKER_02: 38:36

Well, let's talk about what would have happened if her daughter did commit suicide. Let's let's build that out. What would have really happened? Her daughter would have it would have been a big story because her daughter committed suicide, because she's getting these fake messages. And it wasn't just one or two messages telling this little girl to kill herself. It was hundreds. I mean, it it was a lot. They they came in all the time of her constantly telling her daughter to kill herself, that she ain't shit.

SPEAKER_01: 39:10

Well, you got to think about the financial aspect of it. If they were in financial trouble, maybe there was a life insurance policy involved there somewhere. So she could have monetarily gained from it, plus all the attention that she would have got from her daughter's demise.

SPEAKER_02: 39:25

Yeah, her daughter's demise, her daughter passed in the way. The story in itself, uh uh, this unknown number was bullying my daughter, and she killed herself. She would have got all kinds of sympathy. I'm sure uh life insurance, if that was there, she would have got, I'm sure uh people would have started to go fund me. Look, Netflix picked up this story because it's so crazy, and I'm sure they would have done it in that situation uh as well. Like, did she really want her to kill herself?

SPEAKER_01: 40:00

Look at these text messages. You I can't help in my mind that she I mean it's a good thing that this Lauren girl was such a strong-willed person. I mean, props to her because she went through a lot. There's a lot of teenagers that are not as solid-minded per se as this Lauren girl.

SPEAKER_02: 40:22

And when we were watching the documentary, after we learned that it was her mom sending all these messages, I just I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. And she's so nonchalant about it. The Kendra appeared in the documentary and she has no remorse whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01: 40:51

Her sister did say in the documentary that she was an attention wanting woman. Like she said, if we was sitting here talking and Kendra was over here, she'd be over dancing to get your attention to pull the attention that you're giving me straight to her.

SPEAKER_02: 41:08

Needy and it's a pathological liar. I wonder how many years she had been lying about everything, or you can't believe not a word that comes out of her mouth. And in the show, it showed that Lauren was still communicating with her, and it showed some of the text messages while she was in prison. And you can just tell that she's m so manipulative, especially when the police come in that day and said, We know it's you, the body cam, and she was holding on. I can't leave Lauren. I can't leave her. Bitch, you were trying to kill her. What the hell you mean you can't leave her? You were trying to get her to leave your orbit for life.

SPEAKER_01: 41:50

Right. She was definitely like obsessive, compulsive to the max.

SPEAKER_02: 41:55

And she only got, you know, the cyber stalking charges and stuff, but this is a form of child abuse. She should have been charged with child abuse. And in I think in some cases, she should have got some inappropriate sexual charges on her for these messages that she was sending these children.

SPEAKER_01: 42:18

Didn't we look up and she did have to register as a sex offender?

SPEAKER_02: 42:22

It said something um about tier two and a Sora notice that um she would have to register as a sex offender if this was a crime of a certain tier. They're up there in Michigan, so it's different. But I'm not really sure and haven't found out if anything's been sexual. The charges weren't sexual, so I don't know. I was confused by that on the court records.

SPEAKER_01: 42:50

What's a big fucked up part of it is so many times if she would have just quit the texting, then it probably would have just been overlooked and people would have been glad that it was over.

SPEAKER_02: 43:00

And it would have died down.

SPEAKER_01: 43:02

Nobody would have known shit, but she was like addicted to fucking with these kids' lives and the attention. She couldn't stop. No. It's a good thing there ain't no heroin in Beale at this time because she would have got a hold of that. Her obsessive compulsive would have really shown, I guess. I mean, it's fucked up.

SPEAKER_02: 43:18

And we got to remind everybody on the outside, this was a PTA mom, a mom that was there for every game, who was there to coach, who was playing the mom part spectacular to a T.

SPEAKER_01: 43:33

Even Owen's mom, Jill, when they suggested that it was kind of she was like, There ain't no way that she's doing this. There's no fucking way that Lauren's mom is d has done this to her own daughter.

SPEAKER_02: 43:44

But shout out to Tammy, Chloe's mom. She's like, No, it's this bitch. Yeah, I I know. I'm she they didn't get it past her. She had that inkling and that feeling that she read that bitch.

SPEAKER_01: 43:57

She sure did it.

SPEAKER_02: 43:58

For her.

SPEAKER_01: 43:59

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 44:01

But I I just thought that this was an important story to bring to light that a mother is doing this to her daughter, and now she's out of prison, her time is served, and and what's gonna happen next? She's still trying to get back in Lauren's good graces, but I don't know really where they stand. On the show, it said Lauren wasn't ready to see her, which I don't blame her. But I have to tell you what happened with Lauren after all of this. Could you imagine going? She was in school when her mom got arrested for this. How humiliating. And she stayed going to school.

SPEAKER_01: 44:43

I could not imagine what she went through or what she felt, having to walk in that school, knowing everybody and the other cliques, or talking shit about her, probably. I have to say, man. She went through a lot. She seems like she's got a heart to go, though.

SPEAKER_02: 44:58

So sweet. Well, you know what? She pushed through all that, and she ended up being a real big softball player in in Michigan. She was like ninth in her region, 85th in her in the whole state of Michigan. She got to go to college.

SPEAKER_01: 45:16

She plans on studying criminology, I believe.

SPEAKER_02: 45:19

Maybe she's trying to figure out why in the hell her mom did this to her.

SPEAKER_01: 45:23

Or how in the fuck she got away with it for so long.

SPEAKER_02: 45:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 45:26

This shit went on for like 20, 21 months until she got caught.

SPEAKER_02: 45:31

It's unbelievable. I think she should have got a lot more time than what she got.

SPEAKER_01: 45:38

If you guys haven't seen this documentary, you really got to go watch it. It's fucking mind-blowing.

SPEAKER_02: 45:42

It's called Unknown Number.

SPEAKER_01: 45:45

On Netflix. It is just mind-blowing. Go check it out.

SPEAKER_02: 45:49

Well, we thank everybody for joining us on this episode of Cyber Munchhausen Mom. The story of Kendra Lakari is one that focuses us to question our assumptions about trust and safety in an increasingly digital world.

SPEAKER_01: 46:05

We love to support you by giving you information to look for.

SPEAKER_02: 46:09

And if you'd like to support our cause and keep the lights on the studio, go to www.patreon.com forward slash 697.

SPEAKER_01: 46:18

Until then, have a good morning. Good evening.