Where Is Shawn Licari Now? Inside His Life 3 Years After His Wife Kendra Was Arrested for Cyberbullying Their Daughter By Samantha Stutsman

Beal City, Mich., resident Shawn Licari was blindsided when his family was thrust into one of the most disturbing cyberbullying cases in recent years.

Netflix’s documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, which debuted on Aug. 29, revisits the scandal that shocked the small Michigan community — when a mother was revealed as the person behind hundreds of anonymous messages that terrorized her own daughter, Lauryn Licari, and her boyfriend, Owen McKenny.

In October 2020, Lauryn and Owen began receiving threatening texts from a series of unknown numbers, which escalated up to 40 to 50 texts a day. The harassment continued for years, leading the couple to split and suspicions to fall on a number of their classmates.

The FBI cracked the case in August 2022, revealing that the culprit was Lauryn’s mother — and Shawn’s then-wife — Kendra Licari. She was arrested in December of that year, per NBC News, leaving Shawn to grapple with the fallout of his wife’s actions and the public attention that followed.

So, where is Shawn Licari now? Here’s everything to know about the Michigan father and his relationship with Kendra Licari today.

Who is Shawn Licari? 

Born and raised in Beal City, Shawn met Kendra while she was studying at Central Michigan University, about 15 minutes away from his hometown, according to The Cut. The pair eventually got married and welcomed their daughter, Lauryn, in 2007.

Before Kendra’s arrest, Shawn worked at a local auto-body shop and spent most of his free time with Lauryn — taking her hunting and cheering her on from the sidelines at basketball and softball games.

Kendra was the breadwinner of the family, and his co-workers at the body shop often teased that she was his “sugar mama,” as she handled the finances and most other household responsibilities.

“We used to joke that Shawn couldn’t even dress himself without her,” one person told The Cut. “It never felt mean-spirited — he just seemed content to let her handle everything.”

How did Shawn Licari learn that Kendra Licari was cyberbullying Lauyrn Licari and Owen McKenny? 

For nearly two years, Shawn had no idea that the cyberbullying campaign against his daughter, Lauryn, and her boyfriend, Owen, was coming from inside his own home.

To hide her identity, Kendra relied on an app that generated new phone numbers for every message, leaving Lauryn and Owen unable to block the harassment and making it nearly impossible for police to trace.

The investigation shifted in 2022, when the FBI stepped in. An agent subpoenaed the app company’s records and meticulously cross-referenced each number. Their goal was to find an IP address — the unique identifier assigned to every cell phone and computer — that could reveal the source. There was only one match: Kendra.

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In August 2022, police arrived at the Licari home with a search warrant, and Kendra admitted she was behind the messages. Law enforcement called Shawn, who was at work at the time, and told him the news.

“I get this crazy phone call while I’m at work, and it’s the sheriff saying that they figured it out. I’m like, ‘Sweet. Finally, this is gonna be over with,’ ” Shawn said in the Netflix documentary. “He’s like, ‘Unfortunately, it’s your wife.’ I don’t know what to say to him because, you know, I’m in shock.”

Shawn rushed home to confront Kendra, only to learn another shocking truth — she had secretly been unemployed for nearly a year, a revelation that explained the family’s worsening finances.

“Shawn looked like a broken person,” Isabella County Sheriff Mike Main said in the doc.

How did Shawn Licari react to Kendra Licari’s catfishing scheme? 

Unknown Number: The High School Catfish included footage of the confrontation between Kendra and Shawn, who looked visibly furious with his wife.

“If I blow a gasket when [the police] leave, I’ll probably go to jail. You need to go somewhere tonight. You need to call your parents and have them come get you,” Shawn said to Kendra in the police footage. “This is it. I can’t do this anymore.”

Kendra begged him to let her stay, insisting that she couldn’t leave Lauryn, but he stood his ground.

“We gotta get some time apart. If I or you do something stupid, we’re both in trouble, and then [Lauryn’s] gonna go away,” Shawn said. “We gotta be separated for a little while.”

Are Shawn Licari and Kendra Licari still married? 

Following Kendra’s arrest in December 2022, Shawn divorced his wife and won full custody of Lauryn, per The Cut.

“I just can’t believe she would do something like that to her daughter that supposedly she loved dearly,” he said in the documentary. “Just makes me sick. She stabbed me in the heart — shot me in the heart — and threw it away.”

In March 2023, Kendra pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking a minor and was sentenced to serve 19 months to five years in prison, according to UpNorthLive.

Where is Shawn Licari now? 

Shawn is focused on moving forward from the cyberbullying scandal, with Lauryn as his top priority. Skye Borgman, the film’s director, told Netflix’s Tudum in September 2025 that the two have a far deeper relationship than they once did.

“Me and my dad have gotten so much closer since this has happened. We just bond so well together,” Lauryn, who has since graduated from Beal City High School, said in the doc. “Everything we do, we can find a way to laugh.”

More than ever, Lauryn is leaning on her dad, and he’s relishing the chance to watch her enjoy a normal young adult life.

“It’s fun to watch her smile and giggle and be a kid and do stupid things like we all used to do,” Shawn said. “She’s just growing up to be a beautiful woman.”

On Aug. 8, 2024, Kendra was released from prison on parole, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections. She and Lauryn are currently not allowed to see each other.

As of January 2025, Kendra is living with family near Detroit, per The Cut.

Shawn has not yet spoken publicly about the documentary’s release.