Every parent has the same series of fears as their child grows up — that they'll become ill; that they'll get lost; that they'll struggle with bullies at school. That's why the story of Lauryn Licari and her mother Kendra is so unnerving.
Netflix's new true crime offering Unknown Number: The High School Catfish recounts that shocking tale of Lauryn, a high schooler from Michigan, who, along with her boyfriend, Owen, was cyberbullied for a year via texts from an unknown number.
Finally, it was discovered that the person behind the anonymous number was her own mother, Kendra. But where is Lauryn Licari now?
Here’s everything you’re probably asking yourself after finishing the streamer’s jaw-dropping documentary.
Netflix's new documentary is told through interviews with Lauren, Kendra and others who were involved in the case.
The antagonistic text messages began in October 2020. As time passed, the messages became more and more aggressive.
Lauryn tells the documentary producers that she “super frustrated” by the messages. At the time, her mother advised her to “just ignore them.” She added, “Like, she was just encouraging me to not read them."
A group of parents, school officials, local police and eventually the FBI took on the case and tried to uncover the identity of the cyberbully.
After 15 months, Bradley Peter, a police officer from nearby Bay City, managed to trace the messages to Kendra. Isabella County Sheriff Mike Main Main confronted Kendra during a search of the Licari home and told Lauryn it was her own mother sending the messages. Naturally, the revelation was a huge shock.
“I don’t know that she really knows why she did it,” Borgman says, and Kendra’s own explanation, as captured in the film, is complex, and also rooted in her personal trauma.
“She does mention in the documentary an assault that happened [to her] when she was right around Lauryn’s age,” Borgman says. “She talks about how scary that was for her to see her only child, her little girl, growing up, and that’s what she really relates to and that’s what she believes led her to sending these text messages and trying to keep Lauryn close.”
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In December 2022, Kendra was charged with two counts of stalking a minor, two counts of communicating with another to commit a crime and one count of obstruction of justice. She pleaded guilty to the first two counts, while the other charges were dismissed. She was sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison, with a minimum sentence of 15 months. She was released in 2024.
As for Lauryn, she slowly realised that her family was forever changed. “The way that Kendra and Lauryn are interacting is really fascinating to watch,” said the documentary's director Skye Borgman on the You Can’t Make This Up podcast. “You don't see [Lauryn] sort of break down with any real emotion until Sean is home and she can see the fracture happening in her family. And that is just so heartbreaking to me … That’s when you see Lauryn understand that her family's never going to be the same again.”
While we'll probably never really understand why Kendra cyberbullied her own daughter, Borgman believes it's complicated. “She does mention in the documentary an assault that happened [to her] when she was right around Lauryn’s age,” Borgman said. “She talks about how scary that was for her to see her only child, her little girl, growing up, and that’s what she really relates to and that’s what she believes led her to sending these text messages and trying to keep Lauryn close.”
In the three years since Kendra was charged, Lauryn has certainly been through a lot. At first, Lauryn still loved her mom, according to Borman. "She just wanted her mom back in her life,” Borgman said.
However, by the time Kendra was released in 2024, things had changed.
“She’s done a lot of pretty critical thinking, especially between that time and now… These years are such critical years for young people,” noted Borgman.
Lauryn is now 18 and, as the documentary concludes, seems to be ready to start forging her own path and creating healthier boundaries with her mother. Lauyrn is also closer to her dad, Shawn, than ever. “It’s so wonderful to see them together. … It’s just a great outcome of something so tragic and so terrible that you see this really loving, really respectful relationship that the two of them have,” Borgman said. Lauryn and her high school boyfriend, Owen, have broken up and are reportedly no longer in contact.
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