A Michigan mother who tormented her teenage daughter online in a year-long campaign of anonymous bullying shared a tearful message before receiving her sentence.
Starting in 2021, Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend, Owen McKenny, were subjected to a barrage of anonymous threatening messages. The harassment, which also extended to social media, persisted for a year without the identity of the perpetrator being known.
Lauryn’s mother, Kendra Licari, appeared to collaborate with Owen’s mother, along with school officials and Beal City law enforcement, in an effort to identify the anonymous tormentor.
It was eventually revealed that Kendra Licari herself was behind the harassment.
In 2023, Licari admitted to two counts of stalking a minor and was handed a maximum sentence of five years. She was released in August 2024, as reported by Today, but due to her plea agreement, she is prohibited from seeing her daughter.
Before her sentencing, Kendra Licari delivered a remorseful statement in court.
“I never want to hurt anyone else like I have already done,” she expressed. “I actually look forward to continuing my work and continuing my progress daily. I have caused a lot of damage to my family.”
In the Netflix documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, Licari recounted how she became entrapped in her own actions and was unable to stop the harassment and bullying of her daughter.
“I started in the thoughts of needing some answers, and then I just kept going, it was a spiral, kind of a snowball effect, I don’t think I knew how to stop,” she confessed. “I was somebody different in those moments. I was in an awful place mentally. It was like I had a mask on or something, I didn’t even know who I was.”
The Netflix series revealed several messages sent by the mother to her daughter that ultimately resulted in her conviction.
Messages received by Lauryn from her mother included derogatory remarks such as ‘He thinks you’re ugly’, aimed at Owen, in addition to ‘you’re worthless’, ‘We won’ and ‘He thinks you’re trash’.
Some messages even contained sexually explicit language, including propositions about Owen and suggestions that he did not want Lauryn, stating they were ‘both down to f***’.
Superintendent Bill Chillan commented: “They were vulgar and nasty enough to make a 53-year-old man blush. The evidence was extraordinary.”
Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is currently available for streaming on Netflix.