Netflix’s Unknown Number: High School Catfish documentary sparks outrage as internet rips into Kendra’s treatment

Skye Borgman’s new Netflix documentary, Unknown Number: High School Catfish, has stirred a wave of shock among viewers as a mother (Kendra Licari) herself was involved in catfishing her own daughter (Lauryn). This true story of a cyberbullying case from Beal City, Michigan, revolves around a 13-year-old Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend, Owen, who started receiving strange text messages from an unknown number. 

These messages turned into daily threats and insults for them, and the messages even included personal details only someone close to Lauryn would know. This incident worried their parents, and the case was then taken into consideration by the police. The people on the suspect list were some of their classmates, but a shocking truth was revealed towards the end of the documentary.

Some of the text messages read: “Hi Lauryn, Owen is breaking up with you.’’ The sender (Kendra) repeatedly messaged her to push her towards a breakup and often insisted to her that Owen preferred her over Lauryn.

Through texts, she humiliated her with messages like, “He will be with me while your lonely, ugly a** is alone.” Her mother even texted her and said that Owen could possibly break up with her, as she is not able to fulfill his sexual desires. The text read, “he wants sex, bjs n making out, he don’t want ur sry a**” and even included degrading texts like “his dick n fingers my pussy n mouth.”

Even after breaking up with Owen, Lauryn hoped that the messages would stop, but they didn’t. Kendra still texted her and forced her to commit suicide. 

This horrifying case has made people blow up on Reddit, and made them upset about how Kendra’s obsession with her daughter’s life led her to deal with a lifetime of trauma. Viewers were calling out how she was led out of jail after 19 months, and how the topic of sexual harassment in the documentary was barely addressed.

They feel that there were no clear charges about it, and everyone who watched the show agreed to the Reddit user’s comment, which read, '‘That woman belongs under the jail. For life.’’

No sympathy for Kendra. This is what people believe in after watching the Unknown Number: High School Catfish documentary

One Reddit comment that sparked outrage on the Internet left many questions for the show. It reads:

''How did the cops not immediately separate Kendra from her daughter/victim when they came to the house?? Instead, they let her creepily hold/pet her? Wtf? Why didn't they focus more on how Kendra went after the new girl that Owen was talking to and her mother, and what that means? I.e. that she did in fact have a fixation on him that went beyond her daughter.''

When Kendra was released in 2024, she even wanted to be a part of her daughter Lauryn’s life. The showrunner, Borgman, who interviewed Kendra for the documentary, said that she ‘’feels guilty for hurting her relationship with her daughter.’’ 

The question remains as to why a mother would harass her own daughter. Well, Kendra did share that she herself fully doesn’t understand why she did it. Skye told Tudum,

“She does mention in the documentary an assault that happened [to her] when she was right around Lauryn’s age. 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.”

Some people, including school officials and the county prosecutor, suggested her actions were similar to Munchausen syndrome by proxy (now called factitious disorder imposed on another), where a parent harms their child in order to control or keep them close. But Borgman says it’s not an official diagnosis in this case.

How did the case end?

FBI agent Bradley Peter explains in the documentary that some of the harassing text messages came from an app that hides phone numbers. After getting a search warrant, he traced the messages to Verizon and then discovered that many of them were linked to Kendra Licari’s phone number.

The local sheriff was surprised, since Kendra had often been asking the police for updates on the investigation, even though she was the one behind the texts.

The documentary shows bodycam footage of December 2022, when police went to Kendra’s house to arrest her and take her electronic devices. In the video, Kendra cooperates calmly, while her daughter, Lauryn, stays close to her, shocked and mostly silent.

When the show makers went to meet Lauryn for an interview in 2023, she was willing to see her mom again, but her perspective changed when they went again to meet her in 2024.

Lauryn is now graduated and is close to his father, Shawn. While people can hate on Kendra, Lauryn couldn’t as after all, she was her mom. After talking to Borgman, she puts out Lauryn's thoughts by saying, 

“She didn't hate her mother at all, but she was a little bit more measured in communications with her and a little bit more measured about how much she was willing to let Kendra into her life.”