#crime documentary

Okay, besties, pull up a chair, grab a snack, hydrate, do some stretches — because I just watched the new Netflix documentary The Unknown Number and my soul hasn’t known peace since. I feel like someone dumped me in the Upside Down but forgot to give me a flashlight.

Let’s begin.

So the story centers around Lauren — a 13-year-old living her small-town life, minding the business God gave her — and her boyfriend, Owen. Cute, small, wholesome couple doing wholesome teenage things.

UNTIL.

They start getting messages from an “unknown number.”

And when I say “messages,” I don’t mean silly prank texts like “ur mom” or “lol who r u.”

No.

I mean:

full-on threats, body-shaming, psychological warfare, and “unalive yourself” level harassment.

And these texts don’t stop.

For years.

The whole town gets involved. Parents are in a frenzy. The school is investigating like they’re all auditioning to be in True Detective. The police are in there. They’re interviewing children like someone lost the Infinity Stones.

And THEN enters Chloe — poor, innocent, scapegoat Chloe — who seems to be everybody’s favorite suspect because… reasons? She basically got bullied INTO being the bully without ever being the bully. Like she’s in the documentary looking like she’s aged ten years in stress alone.

And listen — the messages are NOT normal. They’re not mild. They’re not teenage drama. They are vicious.

They shame Lauren.

They tell her Owen doesn’t want her.

They talk about her body.

They tell her to do unspeakable things.

It gets dark.

But THEN — because the universe decided this case wasn’t deranged ENOUGH — the harassment spreads to Owen’s new girlfriend… in another town. Another ZIP code. New ecosystem. New air. New existence. And the mystery number STILL finds her.

At this point, the local police are like: “We’re out.”

And the FBI enters like a dramatic reality show cameo.

So the FBI starts tracing the IP address.

And BESTIES…

They find out the perpetrator is…

✨LAUREN’S.

ACTUAL.

MOTHER.✨

THE MOM.

THE WOMAN WHO WAS “HELPING” INVESTIGATE.

THE WOMAN WHO WAS CRYING ABOUT HOW HER BABY WAS BEING HARASSED.

THE WOMAN SITTING IN THE FRONT ROW OF THE WHOLE CRISIS LIKE “OH NOOO WHO WOULD DO THIS 😭”

It was her.

For TWO YEARS.

Tell me WHY this woman was sending her own daughter messages telling her to unalive herself like she was applying for Villain of the Decade.

And then she had the NERVE — the absolute Olympic-level audacity — to go on the documentary and say:

“People do bad things all the time. People drink and drive.”

Girl.

Ma’am.

MOTHER OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNER.

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.

A DUI and tormenting your 13-year-old daughter with threats are NOT the same category. Not even the same sport. Not even the same planet.

Now here’s the part where the documentary tries to be clinical and “objective.”

The experts start talking about Munchausen by proxy, the idea that the mom wanted her daughter to need her emotionally.

And like… maybe?

Sure?

But there’s just one teensy little problem:

If she JUST wanted her daughter to rely on her…

WHY WAS SHE ALSO HARASSING THE NEW GIRLFRIEND??

What does a girl in a DIFFERENT TOWN have to do with mother-daughter codependency?

The math isn’t mathing.

It felt less like Munchausen by proxy and more like:

✨obsessive jealousy, competitive weirdness, and inappropriate fixation on her daughter’s relationship✨

BECAUSE LET’S TALK ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THE TEXTS.

The mom was literally sending messages like:

“You’re not giving it up fast enough, I’d give it up faster, that’s why he wants me not you.”

I’m sorry.

WHAT???

Why is a grown woman writing fanfiction about stealing her teenage daughter’s boyfriend AND sending it TO HER DAUGHTER???

This isn’t illness.

This is ego.

This is jealousy.

This is full-blown “I want to be my daughter” energy.

And here’s the part that disturbed me the most:

The documentary kept implying Lauren might’ve been involved somehow, even though she was literally 13 and the victim.

Other parents in the doc were straight-up blaming her.

Blaming.

HER.

A child.

Who was being tormented by her mother for two years.

Like, what rehearsal for Bad Parent Olympics did I just watch???

And THEN you have Owen — the ex-boyfriend — sitting there saying he’s STILL upset with Lauren and somehow partially blames her like SHE sent the texts from prison.

Sir, be for real.

Be so serious.

She was THIRTEEN.

Meanwhile, Lauren — literal sweetheart — still wants a relationship with her mom. Not because she’s naïve but because trauma bonds be trauma bonding. She misses her mom. She says she loves her. It’s heartbreaking.

And honestly?

You can tell the documentary didn’t know how to handle that nuance without blaming her.

By the end of the doc I was like:

“Great concept, terrible execution. Deeply unsettling. Not enough accountability. Too much victim-blaming. Too many parents deflecting. And NOT ENOUGH INTERROGATION OF WHY THIS MOM WAS SO WEIRDLY FIXATED ON HER DAUGHTER’S DATING LIFE.”

My conclusion:

This case is horrific, heartbreaking, and bizarre.

The mom is terrifying.

The community reactions were questionable at BEST.

And the documentary creators needed to think HARDER about what narrative they were feeding millions of viewers.

Anyway, that’s my dramatic TED Talk.

Thank you for coming.

Please hydrate.

This is me. Pointing out all the things the killer has done wrong.

I stay away from documentaries that focus on animal abuse, since that’s just a massive no-go area, I can’t even think about someone as little as shout at an animal.

But I’ve watched quite a few at this point. I know a lot of people out there are also interested in this kind of thing, so I’ll give you some of the ones that have really had an impact on me. I’ll start with the tamest ones (available on mainstream platforms like Netflix) and it’ll get progressively more upsetting lol.

I’m actually quite a desensitised person, so if a documentary affects me, you know it’s worth it.

Green = unfortunate and upsetting

Orange = Jesus that’s fucked up, that’s latched onto me for a while

Red = The above + will find it difficult to watch again, and this made me cry my eyes out

Bold Red = Kept me up at night for a while + all the above. Still think about it to this day.

Bold with ** = don’t watch if you don’t have a strong stomach and can’t handle emotionless gory images