Bizarre Details About The Kendra Licari Cyberbullying Case We Can't Move On From

On August 29, Netflix dropped a disturbing documentary titled, "Unknown Number: The High School Catfish." In the confines of the doc, Lauryn Licari of Beal City, Michigan, recounts a harrowing tale about how she and her former on-again off-again boyfriend, Owen McKenny, were mercilessly cyberbullied for nearly two years by someone who was hell-bent on breaking them up. Alas, in the plot twist of all plot twists, it's finally revealed in the eleventh hour of the doc that it was Lauryn's own mother, Kendra Licari, who was the perpetrator of the online harassment. 

As reported by NBC News, Kendra was arrested in December 2022 and charged with two counts of stalking a minor and two counts of communicating with another to commit a crime. Per UpNorthLive, upon pleading guilty, Kendra was sentenced to 19 months to five years in prison. She was eventually released on parole on August 8, 2024, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections' offender tracking information system. As reported by The Cut, Kendra's husband and the father of Lauryn Licari, Shawn Licari, promptly divorced Kendra upon learning she was behind the harassment and was awarded full custody of Lauryn. Kendra and Lauryn remain estranged. 

While Kendra is now free from prison, there are several bizarre details about this cyberbullying case that continue to live rent free in our heads. (As the legendary "Real Housewives of Atlanta" OG Kandi Burruss would say, "THE LIES! THE LIES! THE LIES!!!") Let's discuss, shall we?! 

Getting drawn into an internet relationship isn't that uncommon. There has already been a long-running TV series called "Catfish," NFL star Manti Te'o was famously catfished, and even celebrities have been catfished. But aside from being not only bothersome and harassing in nature, the text messages Kendra Licari sent her own daughter, Lauryn Licari, and Lauryn's boyfriend, Owen McKenny, were deeply disturbing. 

At times, Kendra personally insulted her daughter, texting Lauryn things like "He will be with me while your lonely ugly a** is alone." Other times Kendra's text messages were lewd in nature and laced with sexually explicit language, even suggesting that Lauryn wasn't fulfilling her teenage boyfriend sexually. However, perhaps most disturbing of all were the text messages wherein Kendra encouraged her daughter to take her own life, penning messages that said "Kill yourself now b***h," "his life would be better if you were dead," and "DEAD #bangbang #suicide." 

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Unfortunately for Kendra Licari, the cyberbullying was only the tip of the iceberg. During the climactic scene of the documentary, when she finally admits to a sheriff that she was in fact responsible for the harassing text messages, she claimed that she did it because of "stress and financial issues," per The Cut.

The story goes that Kendra lost her IT job at Central Michigan University in 2019. But instead of being honest and forthright about the job loss, she took another position 40 minutes away at Ferris State University, framing it as a better-paying gig. Nevertheless, the family sank further and further into debt, all while Kendra's husband remained blissfully unaware. As reported by The Cut, Shawn would often recount stories to his co-workers as told to him by Kendra that her identity had been stolen by someone in New Mexico or that a check bounced because of a hacker. 

Then, in the spring of 2021, Ferriss State University put Kendra on a performance-improvement plan due to excessive time "spent texting and making calls about matters unrelated to work." Once again, however, Kendra remained mum about the reality of the situation to her husband and daughter. As a result of the performance improvement plan, she eventually resolved to secretly quit her job. All the while, Shawn and Lauryn thought she was working from home. In April 2022, the couple's finances became so unmanageable that they were evicted from their home.

In the confines of Netflix's documentary "Unknown Number: The High School Catfish," both Owen McKenny and his mother, Jill McKenny, openly theorized that Kendra Licari may have been sexually attracted to Owen, who was a minor at the time. Owen revealed that she would often personally reach out to him to see if he was okay, cut up his steak for him at meal time, continued to attend his sporting events long after he and Lauryn had broken up, and even sent harassing text messages to the girlfriend he had after Lauryn.

As it turns out, many viewers also thought she was probably obsessed with Owen. "I don't understand how she wasn't charged with any sex crimes. She was clearly obsessed with a minor child and those messages were explicit and foul," one Instagram user posted in the comments section of a video about the documentary. "She had a thing for a child! A boy! She needed harsher punishment for all of it. She can't be around teenage boys. What happens if she develops feelings again," another user penned in part.