Topics: Netflix, Documentaries, TV And Film, Real Life, True Life, Parenting, Crime, US News
Warning: this article contains spoilers for Unknown Number: The High School Catfish
Netflix has developed a bit of a rep for providing us with some truly stomach-churning documentaries, which last week's addition to the roster proved just that.
For those of you not yet in the know, the popular streaming platform released a brand-new docu-film on Friday (29 August) all about a real-life cyberbullying case that shocked the small community of Beal City, Michigan.
Back in 2020, 13-year-old Lauryn Licari and her then-boyfriend, Owen McKenny, began receiving suspicious texts from an unknown number.
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For a brief period, the creepy messages took a hiatus, but they then resumed in September 2021 with the teens finding themselves on the receiving end of a daily barrage of threats and insults over the next 15 months.
Eventually, officials soon turned to law enforcement for help when the messages began containing information that only someone close to Lauryn could have known with authorities wound up making the harrowing discovery that the perpetrator was in fact her own 'obsessed' mother, Kendra Licari.
But what happened to Kendra, who even featured in the doc herself, and why did she do what she did for all those years?
Well, in December 2022, Kendra was arrested and charged with multiple counts of stalking and using a computer to commit a crime.
She pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking a minor and was sentenced to 19 months to five years in prison. She was released on 8 August, 2024.
While the Netflix doc didn't ultimately get to the bottom of the exact reason why Kendra relentlessly tormented her own daughter, Isabella County prosecutor David Barberi believes that her behaviour could be a kind of cyber Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
Munchausen syndrome by proxy, also known as Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA), is a mental illness and a form of child abuse, where the caretaker of a child, most often a mother, exaggerates or deliberately causes symptoms of illness in the child.
However, in this case, of course, it was slightly different as it was cyberbullying rather than being illness-related, and as far as we know, Kendra has not actually been diagnosed.
"To give it any sort of medical foundation is a little bit problematic. … But I think that there are elements about Munchausen by proxy - about harming someone to keep them close - that definitely existed," director Skye Borgman said.
When Kendra's heinous crimes were unravelled, Lauryn's father, Shawn, divorced her and reportedly won full custody of his child.
"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."
While Kendra was released on parole in August 2024, she is set to remain under supervision until February 2026, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections.
She and Lauryn are currently not permitted to see each other.
"It's been about a year and a half since I've seen her," Kendra said in the Netflix doc. "We both know that we're with each other no matter what. I definitely think we can have a healthy relationship. I know we both hold that bond that we have close."
Lauryn said she wants to see her mum 'when the time is right' and hopes Kendra can 'get the help that she needs' now that she's out of prison.
"Being without that relationship is really hurting me. I think rebuilding our relationship will help both of us a lot. I love her more than anything," the teen added.
The doc ended by showing the disgraced mother out of prison after not seeing Lauryn for a year and a half.
Understandably, Lauryn, who is now 18, was not ready to see her mum yet.
And, as a barrage of screenshots of the cruel text messages that Kendra sent her daughter flashed across the screen, Lauryn told the camera: "Now that she’s out, I just want her to get the help she needs, so when we see each other, it doesn’t go back to the old ways and the way it was before."
She then concluded the doc with the tragic six-word statement: "I love her more than anything."
Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is currently available to stream on Netflix.
