4 True Crime Documentaries To Stream If You Couldn’t Get Enough Of ‘Unknown Number: The High School Catfish’

If you’re a true crime enthusiast, chances are you already know this story. If, for some reason, you’ve been living under a rock and have not yet seen Netflix’s Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, strap in.

Released in September 2025, Unknown Number documents how high school sweethearts Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny who were terrorized over the course of two years by a stranger hiding behind a masked phone number. Their exchanges, as the couple discovered, did not just sever the bonds of their relationship, but led to paranoia rippling through the halls of their small Midwestern school. When the mystery of the masked number was solved, Lauryn and Owen would finally find out who was really behind the phone.

Investigators eventually traced the masked number back to Lauryn’s own mother. Kendra Licari, who had been maintaining the cover of a complete stranger, was sentenced to prison and served time before being released in 2024 and pleaded guilty to stalking a minor. If you had your eyes glued to your screen while watching Netflix’s Unknown Number, you’ll want to dive in and start watching these four true crime documentaries next.

Tinder Swindler (2022)

What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on? Dry conversation and halitosis? Or a quarter million dollars? For the women at the center of The Tinder Swindler, “bad date” is measured by a much higher standard. The 2022 Netflix documentary reveals the truly unbelievable story of Shimon Hayut, an Israeli con artist who, using the fake name “Simon Leviev,” swindled hundreds of thousands of dollars from women by posing as the son of a diamond billionaire. Through his Tinder profile, Hayut would dazzle women with private jets and five-star meals before convincing his unsuspecting victims that his “enemies” were out to get him, asking them to open credit cards in their names and leaving them with a mountain of debt in his wake.

Stories from victims Cecilie, Pernilla, and Ayleen show the audience how Hayut preyed on his victims’ trust, leveraged fear, and sustained the scheme across several countries. The Tinder Swindler is not just the story of a con artist out for money, it also is a tale of comeuppance as the women seek revenge. Alternating between indulgent luxury and hellish betrayal, The Tinder Swindler is an twisted documentary for anyone interested in the rise of scams in the modern era and the perils of online dating.

Con Mum (2025)

All Graham Hornigold ever wanted was a mother’s love. What he got instead was a £300,000 scam. He had a great career, a girlfriend and a baby on the way. When he received an email from Dionne Marie Hanna, his biological mother whom he never knew, it seemed like the missing puzzle piece that he was searching for. It was a different story for Dionne who saw an opportunity for a con which would see almost £300,000 siphoned from her own son.

Between promising him an inheritance, citing a royal connection, drenching Graham in love, and dropping expensive gifts (such as a Range Rover) in his lap, Dionne always found a way to make Graham pay. Claiming to be dying of cancer, Dionne would make requests for money and find new ways to insinuate herself into his life both at work and at home. The most terrifying part of the entire situation? The DNA test results proved that Dionne was Graham’s mother.

Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare (2024)

It began with a friend request on Facebook. That’s how these things always seem to start. For Kirat Assi, back in 2010, the appeal of social media was different than it is now. It was safe and somewhat innocent. For her, the friendships made there felt like little more than a place for jokes, photos, and links, with little real-world consequence. So when a man named Bobby Jandu sent a request to the 29-year-old radio host, from a family that her Sikh community respected and trusted, it seemed safe enough to accept. It was the beginning of a decade-long scheme that she now terms “online entrapment.”

For years, Bobby coaxed and pushed Kirat further and further into a relationship with a man she’d never met. He was a “cardiologist: who, in turn, confided in her, fell in love with her, and eventually became engaged to her. In between, he used a never-ending string of emergencies: shootings, comas, witness protection programs, strokes, heart attacks, all to avoid in-person contact. When the truth finally came out, the shock of betrayal proved worse than she could have imagined. Bobby wasn’t an outsider. He wasn’t even a stranger. He was from within her own family. Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare is a tell-all memoir about a long con that is more about the weaponization of trust, culture, and intimacy, which from your own family can be shocking, heartbreaking, and chillingly familiar all at once.

Into The Fire (2024)

In 1994, Cathy Terkanian placed her baby daughter for adoption. Years later, she got the call every birth mother dreads: her daughter had been missing for 21 years. That’s where Netflix’s new two-part docuseries, Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, opens. The search for Aundria Bowman began as a Facebook page entitled “Find Aundria Bowman” and ballooned into a network of internet sleuths, childhood friends, and survivors who would help Terkanian piece together a dark, incomplete picture of Aundria’s life with her adoptive father, Dennis Bowman. Dennis is described by those who knew him as prone to violent outbursts and extreme punishments, and had a knack for keeping police at arm’s length.

It took decades and the help of a separate cold-case murder linked to Dennis’s DNA to reveal that he had buried Aundria in the backyard of their family home. Dennis told investigators that Aundria died when the two fought in the home and that he “cleaned up” after her. He later changed his story, describing in grotesque detail how he had “put her in a barrel” before the couple’s dog got into the garbage and scattered some of her remains, according to an interview with Cathy on a local morning show. Dennis first told police he cut up Aundria’s body and then drove around to dispose of it. In a second account, he directed investigators to Aundria’s remains in the family’s backyard. Instead of answers she was hoping for, Cathy found ashes and a story too disturbing to tell.