Hello and welcome to Till Death Do Us Part Just Melissa. And in this episode, I'm going to be talking about the Netflix documentary, Unknown Number, The High School catfish, and the story behind it.

I'm still a little sick, so bear with me, and we'll all get through this together.

Today's case takes us to Beale City, Michigan, a town so small it doesn't even have a

stoplight, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, and secrets are hard to keep.

But in 2020, someone managed to keep a terrible secret, a secret that lived inside the walls of a family home.

This is the story behind Netflix's unknown number, the high school catfish.

13-year-old Lauren Licari was just starting to find her footing in middle school. She had a boyfriend

Owen. She was on the basketball team, and her mom, Kendra, was even a volunteer coach.

Life was normal until one night, Lauren's phone buzzed. A message popped up from an unknown number,

reading, You're Ugly, Everyone Hates You. Lauren ignored it, but then another came, and another,

and another. Soon she was getting dozens of texts a day. Some called her names, some accused her

of things she hadn't done. Others told her she should hurt herself loren later recalled in the

documentary it felt like this person knew everything about me what i wore to school what i said to owen

even things i only told my mom it was like they were in my head. And it wasn't just Lauren.

Owen started getting the messages too. They'd ping his phone during dinner at school,

even late at night. By the end of 2021, the harassment reached 30 to 50 texts a day.

This wasn't just teenage bullying.

This was a campaign.

Beale City parents began whispering, who would do this to a 13-year-old child?

Some thought it was a jealous classmate. Others suspected an ex-friend,

maybe even a teacher. Teachers at the school were on edge. Students accused one another,

and even Lauren's closest friends weren't safe from suspicion. Police were soon called in.

...