Annie Walton Doyle
A mother has been sent to prison after she admitted to being the anonymous internet bully who had been harassing her daughter for a year.
One of the downsides of using social media is you never really know who you’re talking to.
This veil of anonymity can lead some people to behave in ways they never would in the ‘real world’.
Cyber-stalking, trolling, and even online harassment are some of the risks we take every day when existing online.
But one girl’s story has gone viral after she made a particularly horrifying discovery about the identity of her own cyberbully.
In fact, it transpired that the two were rather close in real life…
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The anonymous internet bully who had been mercilessly trolling the US teen was shockingly discovered to be her own mother – Kendra Gail Licari.
The ordeal began when the teen, from Mount Pleasant, Michigan, complained of vicious online attacks to Beal City Public Schools.
The girl and her boyfriend had been the victims of ongoing harassment that began back in 2021.
The school district looked into the claims, but soon discovered that the messages were being sent from off-campus, meaning there was little they could do.
Isabella County Prosecutor David Barberi then began investigating the case, and by April, even the FBI got involved in trying to track down this online bully.
Using the FBI’s resources, the IP address of the anonymous perpetrator’s device was discovered – and shockingly, it was linked to the victim’s mother.
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Licari was actually working as the girl’s basketball coach at her daughter’s school and was helping the school investigate the online bullying claims at the time.
The 42-year-old was using VPNs to attempt to hide her location, plus adopting slang to make her messages sound like they were written by a teen.
The prosecutor’s office compiled over 300 pages of evidence of Licari’s online harassment of her daughter and daughter’s boyfriend.
After being presented with this evidence, Licari confessed to being the one behind the targeted hate campaign.
Licari was initially charged with two counts of stalking a minor, two counts of using a computer to commit a crime and one count of obstruction of justice – for attempting to frame her daughter’s classmates for sending her own hate messages.
The case went to trial, and Licari pled guilty to two counts of stalking a minor, a felony offence that carries a minimum sentence of five years.
In exchange for her guilty plea, Isabella County dropped the remaining three charges against her.
Find out more about the shocking case of Kendra Gail Licari here…
Licari was eventually sentenced to 19 months to five years behind bars for her crimes.
At her sentencing, Licari broke down in tears, apologising to everyone impacted by her actions, including her daughter, the boyfriend, the students she attempted to frame, and her own husband.
Judge Mark Duthie spoke out following the verdict, saying: “This is a truly horrible case. It’s the kind of case that makes me glad that at the end of my term, I’m retiring.”
“Sometimes, you see the worst in human nature,” Duthie went on. “I can’t imagine any parent saying such horrible things to her own daughter.”
Prosecutor Barberi agreed, adding: “It’s probably one of the most bizarre cases I’ve seen.”
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