The Mom From ‘Unknown Number: The High School Catfish’ Says ‘Everyone Makes Mistakes’
“Realistically, a lot of us have probably broken the law at some point or another and not gotten caught.”
The internet is obsessing about Netflix’s latest documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish. Why? After the doc describes the cruel cyberbullying students at a Michigan high school were subjected to, they reveal the identity of the anonymous bully. Shockingly, one of the students was being told to take her own life by her own mother.
14-year-old Lauryn Licari was the main target of the savage text messages that told her she wasn’t sexual enough for her boyfriend Owen, that she dressed too slutty, that she should kill herself, that no one liked her, etc. Owen also received as many as 50 text messages a day.
A police investigation led to Lauryn’s mother, Karen Licari, linking her phone number to the text messages. Unknown Number includes bodycam footage of Licari confessing after police served a warrant for her tech devices. Lauryn is in the video and looks completely shocked at the revelation that her cyberbully was her own mother.
How did Kendra Licari respond to being caught?
An infuriating aspect of Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is that while Kendra Licari is definitively caught — police linked her number to the texts and she confessed when confronted — she never really takes responsibility for her crime.
Throughout her interviews in Unknown Number, Kendra doesn’t own up to anything, even while admitting she is guilty. She uses language like “I was someone different” and “It was like I had a mask on” and “that time frame is not who I am as a person” to distance herself from her actions. Kendra sees her cyberbullying, including telling her own daughter to kill herself, as a mistake anyone could make, comparing it to something like drunk driving: “Realistically, a lot of us have probably broken the law at some point or another and not gotten caught. I’m sure people drove drunk, haven’t been caught.”
What happened to Kendra Licari after she got caught cyberbullying her daughter?
Fortunately, Kendra Licari did face several consequences for cyberbullying her daughter, her daughter’s boyfriend and other underage children in her town:
- Divorce. When Kendra’s husband (and Lauryn’s father) was informed by police that Kendra was the culprit, he asked police to wait at his home while Kendra packed her things and left. After kicking her out, the husband divorced Kendra and got full custody of Lauryn.
- Jail time. Kendra pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking a minor. She received a harsh sentence (per sentencing guidelines) of 19 months in prison, of which she served a year.
- Estrangement from her daughter. Lauryn is currently not speaking to her mother. In Unknown Number she says she hopes her mother gets the help she needs.
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