The director of the documentary “Unknown Number: The High School Catfish” has expressed her views on the mother who harassed her own daughter.
The documentary premiered on Netflix on August 29 and quickly gained global interest, accumulating 13,600,000 views on the platform according to FlixPatrol.
This documentary delves into the story of Lauryn Licari and her former boyfriend, who were targets of online harassment for a year by a mysterious number.
Law enforcement intervened and identified the perpetrator behind the abuse Lauryn experienced online—her own mother, Kendra Licari.
Despite using virtual private networks (VPNs) to mask her location, the FBI was able to trace the IP addresses of the messages back to Kendra.
Kendra was ultimately apprehended and faced multiple charges, including stalking and using a computer to commit a crime.
Skye Borgman, the director of the documentary, has now shared her perspective on Kendra and the honesty of her statements in the film.
Kendra participated in a five-hour interview as part of the documentary’s production.
In a conversation with PEOPLE, Borgman stated: “I think it was important to me to get Kendra’s perspective out there, and it was more important to get the kids’ perspective out there, but to hear from her and to hear what her answers are was something that I felt was really beneficial to the documentary.”
She added, “Weighing whether or not those things are true or not, I can’t really judge that 100 per cent.”
You can watch the Unknown Number trailer here:
During the lengthy interview process, Kendra often repeated herself, and not all her statements were included in the final version of the documentary.
Borgman explained, “I felt like the clearest answers that she gave to things were what eventually made it into the documentary,” referring to the selections made from Kendra’s interview.
Borgman believes that Kendra herself may not fully understand her motivations for her actions.
On the You Can’t Make This Up podcast as noted by TUDUM, Borgman remarked, “I don’t know that she really knows why she did it.”
She further shared: “[Kendra] does mention in the documentary an assault that happened [to her] when she was right around Lauryn’s age.”
Kendra discusses the fear she felt watching her only child, her daughter, grow up, which she believes contributed to her sending the messages to keep Lauryn close.
“Unknown Number: The High School Catfish” is currently available for streaming on Netflix.