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Netflix's latest true-crime documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish follows an intense case of cyberbullying with an unbelievable culprit. In October 2020, 13-year-old Lauryn Licari and her then-boyfriend Owen McKenny began receiving anonymous text messages. The sender seemed to be a fellow preteen who wanted Owen for themselves, but after months of harassment, authorities couldn't find the guilty party in the small town of Beal City, Michigan. It took the FBI getting involved to find the person behind the texts: Lauryn's own mother, Kendra Licari.
Since Unknown Number's premiere on August 29, viewers have flooded social media with their shocked reactions to Kendra's actions. The wildest part of the true-crime film is the inclusion of Kendra herself, first appearing as a concerned parent before it's revealed that she was the one sending the wildly inappropriate texts to children. For anyone still trying to pick their jaws up off the floor, here's a primer on the events of Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, including what we know about Kendra's life after the documentary wrapped.
A selfie of Kendra and Lauryn Licari.
What happened to Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny in 'Unknown Number'?
By October 2020 in Beal City, Michigan, Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny had been dating for about a year. The couple started receiving anonymous text messages; the sender claimed that Owen was in love with them and was going to break up with Lauryn.
The initial harassment only lasted a few weeks, but in September 2021, it restarted, with the pair receiving 30 to 50 texts a day. The sender called Lauryn by her nickname, "Lo," and mentioned knowledge that only someone close could be privy to, such as specific conversations in their classes. The messages were sent from multiple different numbers and area codes, so the teens could not stop receiving them without changing their numbers, which the families chose not to do.
Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny at a formal event.
In the documentary, Lauryn describes losing her confidence due to cruel messages which criticized her looks and her clothes. Many of the texts also included vulgar sexual innuendo toward Owen.
Lauryn began to lose trust in Owen, after receiving texts claiming that the sender was spending time with him. After two years of dating, the pair broke up due to the strain, but the messages worsened after the split. The sender began sending Lauryn threats like "kill yourself now b****" and "his life would be better if you were dead." Meanwhile, when Owen began dating a girl in another town, the sender started texting his new girlfriend's parents, leading to another break-up. Both Lauryn and Owen's parents were afraid for their kids' mental health and the emotional toll of the harassment.
Owen McKenny receives a text.
How was Kendra Licari caught in 'Unknown Number'?
Fifteen months after the messages started, school administration got the police involved. The cops investigated several students—including Owen's friend Khloe Wilson, who allegedly had a history of bullying—but no hard evidence came up. In April 2022, the cops brought in the FBI, who tracked down two IP addresses behind all of the anonymous numbers. None of Owen's friends' phone numbers matched with the IPs, but one adult's number did: Lauryn's mom.
Unknown Number shows the body cam footage from August 2022, when officers confronted Kendra at home, got a confession, and informed Lauryn that her mom was behind the texts. In the doc, law enforcement and the school's superintendent lay out all of Kendra's suspicious behavior over the 20-month period. She had allegedly tried to "interject herself in the investigation," checking in with police multiple times. She worked in IT. She helped coach Lauryn's basketball and baseball teams and could've been present at the school to hear details that were included in the messages.
It's also revealed that Kendra had been lying to her family for a long time about her career. Though she'd made it seem like she was still working, she had lost both her jobs over a year prior, which was how she had the time to send so many texts. The Licari family had been going through financial difficulties, even been evicted from one home, but Kendra was the one managing the household's money and had somehow covered up her lack of income. (At one point, Kendra's cousin accuses her of possible insurance fraud.)
From left: Shawn, Lauryn, and Kendra Licari at a baseball game.
Why did Kendra Licari catfish her daughter Lauryn in 'Unknown Number'?
After the doc's big reveal, Kendra gets a chance to defend herself in a talking-head interview. She claims that someone else sent the first messages in October 2020, and that she later continued the texts to help catch whoever it was. (None of the doc's subjects believe this.) Kendra claims that she was in an "awful place mentally" during that period, that everything spiraled, and she didn't know how to stop sending the texts. She also compares her "mistakes" to driving drunk, arguing, "Realistically, a lot of us have probably broken the law at some point or another and not gotten caught."
When asked about the suicide messages, Kendra says she was never worried about Lauryn killing herself, because of the bond they shared. At the end of the film, Kendra says that unresolved trauma from a sexual assault in her past may have led to the harassment.
Kendra Licari.
"As [Lauryn] started getting older, I had things that were suppressed come forward. A lot of it was previous trauma starting to resurface that I didn't know how to handle. When I was 17, I was raped, and as my daughter was hitting those teenage years, I got scared," Kendra says in the film. "I wanted to try to control the outcome of her journey. I was afraid of letting her grow up. I was scared of what could happen to her."
Though no mental health experts are interviewed in the documentary, the school's superintendent and Kendra's cousin do theorize that Kendra could have been suffering from a sort of "cyber Munchausen's" syndrome by proxy, where she was bullying Lauryn so that she would require her mom's love and support, and Kendra could "play the hero." Owen and his mother also allege that Kendra was inappropriately attracted to Owen to the point of obsession, mentioning that Kendra would attend all of Owen's sporting events, even after he and Lauryn broke up. (Kendra does not address the Owen allegations in the film.)
Lauryn Licari receives a text.
Where is Kendra Licari now after the events of 'Unknown Number'?
Kendra Licari was arrested in December 2022 and charged with five counts, including stalking of a minor and obstruction of justice. She took a deal and pled guilty to two counts of stalking a minor, one for Lauryn and one for Owen. On April 16, 2023, Kendra was sentenced to a minimum of 19 months and a maximum of five years in prison. She was released on parole on August 8, 2024, and will be a parolee until February 2026, per Today.
Kendra, who is now 45, is reportedly living in Michigan. Per The Cut, she is now divorced from Lauryn's father, Shawn Licari, who won full custody of Lauryn. Kendra has not spoken publicly since the documentary's release.
Speaking to Tudum, Unknown Number director Skye Borgman confirmed that Kendra still wants to be part of her daughter's life, but the filmmaker shared her doubts on whether that's possible. "She’s remorseful that she has severely altered her relationship with her daughter in most likely a negative way. I mean, will they have a relationship? Will they get through this? I don’t know," Borgman said. "There will probably be some kind of relationship. Will it be the same? Absolutely not. There’s no way it can be the same."
Lauryn at school.
Where is Lauryn Licari now after the events of 'Unknown Number'?
Lauryn Licari was 13 years old when the events of Unknown Number began; as of the documentary's release, she is now 18. She not spoken publicly about the film since its release. The documentary's ending title card reads, "Lauryn is planning to attend college and study criminology."
According to Borgman, Lauryn's thoughts on her mother's actions changed throughout the documentary's filming. When Lauryn's initial interview took place in the spring of 2023, the teen was adamant that she wanted to reconnect with her mother. Lauryn and Kendra's closeness had even become a concern during the trial, and the judge had banned Kendra from contacting her victims.
While Kendra was incarcerated, the mother and daughter communicated via email; by the time Kendra filmed her scenes following her release, it had been a year and a half since the pair had seen each other in person. In another interview following Kendra's release, Lauryn said that she would see her mother "when the time is right."
"I think I want to trust her now, but I don’t think I can," Lauryn says in the film. "Now that she’s out, I just want her to get the help she needs so then when we see each other, it doesn’t go back to the old ways and how it was before."
Lauryn and Shawn Licari.
Recalling the change in Lauryn's mindset, Borgman explained that by 2024, the teen had started to process her mother’s actions and "wanted to approach the relationship with more caution in our second interview."
The director added of the now 18-year-old, "She is at the beginning of figuring out that she can be the one in charge, that she can make all the decisions for herself and for her relationship with her mother,” Borgman says. “I think that’s going to be a really interesting place for Lauryn to explore."