Mom in Unknown Number Terrorized Daughter Online for Years — and Explained What She Was Thinking By Liam Quinn

The Michigan mother who sent her daughter nearly two years’ worth of bullying text messages revealed her thinking and state of mind in a Netflix documentary.

Kendra Licari sent her daughter, Lauryn, and Lauryn’s then-boyfriend, Owen McKenny, thousands of anonymous harassing text messages before authorities determined she was behind them and arrested her.

Licari pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking a minor and served approximately one year in prison. The shocking story is the focus of Netflix’s Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, which features interviews with several people involved, including Licari.

In the documentary, Licari claims that she was not the one who sent the initial text messages to Lauryn, which called her relationship with McKenny into question.

“I really wanted to get to the bottom of who it was,” says Licari. “And that’s when I started sending the text messages to Lauryn and Owen.”

Licari says she first sent the messages with the hope that either of the teens would write back and discuss it among themselves. She theorized that if that happened something could possibly “come up.”

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But the messages became increasingly sexual, eventually referencing Lauryn’s insecurities by calling her “anorexic,” and culminating in Licari telling her daughter, “Kill yourself.”

“It was a spiral,” Licari says. “Kind of a snowball effect. I don’t think I knew how to stop.”

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Licari further says that she was an “awful place mentally,” and said that her own previous trauma began to reemerge as Lauryn got older.

“When I was 17, I was raped and as my daughter was hitting those teenage years I got scared, very scared,” Licari says. “I didn’t want her to go through that process that I did and I think that really led to me not knowing how to handle things.”

Both Lauryn and Isabella County Sheriff Mike Main, who led the investigation, believe that Licari was probably responsible for all of the texts sent, despite the mother’s claims.