Credit: Netflix
Mom Who Catfished Her Own Daughter Using Vile Messages Reveals Why She Did It
A mom who sent her daughter thousands of abusive messages reveals exactly why she did it.
Lauryn Licari began receiving numerous threatening messages online in 2021, with no identity attached to them.
But she wasn’t the only one receiving them; her then-boyfriend, Owen McKenny, was also being subjected to the vile abuse.
Over the course of a year, the two continued to receive multiple threatening text messages from an unknown number, from someone claiming to be the same age as them.
The couple was receiving upwards of 12 texts and online messages each day, as per Cosmopolitan.
In an attempt to identify the anonymous culprit, Lauryn’s mom, Kendra Licari, and Owen’s mom collaborated with their school and law enforcement in Michigan to discover exactly who the perpetrator was.
But after the FBI was brought in to crack the case, they ultimately discovered it had been Lauyrn’s mom, Kendra, who was sending the messages all along.
Having gone unknown for so long, it was found that the mom had been using a VPN (virtual private network) to hide her location.
Subsequently, she was arrested and initially claimed that one of the teenagers had sent the messages; however, she later confessed.
Licari pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking a minor in 2023, and received a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
In August 2024, she was released, and according to Today, she isn’t allowed to see her daughter.
And Netflix‘s latest documentary series, Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, reveals the whole story.
In the documentary, the mom insisted that she didn’t send the initial messages that the two received, and that she only sent those that followed in an attempt to get to the bottom of who exactly it was.
She said: “I really wanted to get to the bottom of who it was.
“And that’s when I started sending the text messages to Lauryn and Owen.”
But things clearly took a turn.
Licari explained: “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.
“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.”
She admitted in the Netflix documentary that she was ‘disappointed’ in herself for her prior actions, and noted that she had let her family down.
Yearning to rebuild a relationship with her daughter, she added: “Being without that relationship, I think, is really hurting me, and I think rebuilding our relationship will help both of us a lot.
“I love her more than anything.”
Watch the trailer of Unknown Number: The High School Catfish here…
Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is available to stream now on Netflix.
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