I Know How "The High School Catfish" Could Happen, Because It Happened to Me
The Netflix documentary, “Unknown Number: The High School Catfish," has absolutely captured the internet this fall.
The film follows Lauryn Licari, a teenager in Beal City, Michigan, and her then-boyfriend Owen McKenny, who began receiving harassing and threatening text messages from an unknown number in October 2020.
Author’s Note: This article contains spoilers for the Netflix documentary, “Unknown Number: The High School Catfish,” and mentions of self-harm and suicide.
“Hi Lauryn, Owen is breaking up with you,” the first message said.
Lauryn was just 13 years old.
After a brief lull, the messages resumed in September 2021 and escalated in both frequency and severity. Lauryn would receive anywhere from 30 to 50 messages a day for almost two years from this unknown number. The content of the messages got increasingly more personal and disturbing.
The sender would make fun of Lauryn’s appearance, make suggestive comments about Lauryn and Owen’s sexual relationship, and encourage self-harm, saying things like, “kill yourself now, #bangbang #suicide.”
The sender would frequently change the incoming number and conceal it behind spoofing apps, making it difficult to block and to track.
A Modern Day “Who Done It?”
Lauryn and Owen’s families both went to their school’s administration to attempt to figure out who was behind the harassing messages, but as time went on, the messages only got more aggressive. Soon, suspicion began to fall on their classmates and family friends.
The school system collaborated with local authorities and, over time, sought out additional help from the Isabella County Sheriff’s Office, the Michigan State Police, and finally, the FBI.
Through forensic tracking methods, investigators were able to trace the texts back to one source, and the results were shocking: they came from Lauryn’s own mother, Kendra Licari.
In April 2023, she pleaded guilty to stalking charges and was sentenced to 19 months in prison. She was released on parole in August 2024.
The film frames the story as a mystery and builds suspense around the “who done it” narrative, until the heartbreaking reveal that the antagonist was Lauryn’s mother the whole time.
Videos of social media users who filmed their reactions to the news all imply the same question: How does a betrayal like that happen? Moreover, how can a community recover from such a severe fallout in the digital age?
I know exactly how the “high school catfish” could happen... because it happened to me.
A Decade of Anonymous Cyberbullying
Like most people, I’ve had my fair share of cyberbullies. But unlike most people, my worst cyberbullies have been people I had considered close friends or, worse, family.
I was in high school when Facebook first became widely popular. This was before most people had smartphones so, after school, I’d run to the family computer (remember those?) and log in to Facebook to “poke” people back, message with friends from church camp, and watch videos.
You can imagine my horror when I logged in one day and saw that my “best friend” had posted images of her and me together from her bulletin board that were either ripped to shreds, or my face had been marked out like what you’d see in a physical yearbook. Hurt and confused, I called her and was met with a nasty message.
“I know you broke up with your boyfriend last week, and he called me and asked me to your school’s prom. I really want to go, but he said I can’t be friends with you anymore, so I guess I’m sorry. I can talk to you later about it if you want, if you’re still upset,” she said.
It could have been a plot for a teenage drama series, but it pained me to realize that my former boyfriend was mad at me, so he was using my friend as a pawn to “get even.” And what was even more bizarre was that my “friend” knew that I was upset, yet wanted me to turn to her for comfort, even though she was the one causing me the mental and emotional distress.
Like most people, I’ve had my fair share of cyberbullies. But unlike most people, my worst cyberbullies have been people I had considered close friends or, worse, family.
I did the best a 17-year-old could do in that situation and dropped her from my university dorm assignment. If she was going to go out of her way to publicly betray me like that in front of my high school, there was no way I was going to live with her my freshman year of college.
Prom came and went, and my ex-boyfriend and former friend continued to flaunt their relationship every chance they got—in real life, but especially online.
Around that same time, I started getting random Facebook message requests from people I didn’t know. The messages were similar to what Lauryn received.
“You’re such an ugly b*tch.”
“Hey slut.”
“What an uppity b*tch, no one wants you here.”
It didn’t take me long to realize that my ex and former friend were up to their old shenanigans. Unlike Lauryn, these messages became few and far between as summer came to a close.
I put it behind me and was excited to make new friends when I moved to college in the fall. My ex went to a university almost four hours away, and my former friend ended up attending the same university as me, but was placed in a different dorm. With nearly 22,000 students and different majors, I figured we’d never see each other again.
A few weeks into university life, I came back to my dorm to find a cruel message written on my outer bulletin board. It contained details only my ex and former friend would know. They weren’t the smartest bullies because the dorm surveillance camera caught them red-handed. Thankfully, that was the end of their toxicity.
Coming Into the Mainstream
By the time my sophomore year rolled around, anonymous cyberbullying had become mainstream. Apps like Yik Yak targeted college campuses by letting users post anonymous messages in forums within a 5-mile radius.
Messages on my campus got increasingly cruel as people called out specific sororities as the “ugly sorority,” and even named individual students. Some campuses faced even bigger problems, with students getting arrested for making bomb threats. Yik Yak was accused of facilitating cyberbullying in 2017 and eventually was shut down. Since then however, it’s made a resurgence with “anti-bullying guardrails.”
I thought that issues like teenage drama and cyberbullying would cease once I graduated, but I found that life only gets more complicated. The methods used to bully people anonymously have also become more complex.
High School Never Ends
Over the last year, I discovered that I was the subject of an anonymous Reddit conversation that contained my personal information. It didn’t take long for me to realize an estranged family member was behind it.
Cyberbullying rarely appears out of thin air—it usually escalates existing conflict. That’s why Kendra’s case is so chilling: she began harassing her own daughter, lied during the investigation, and kept it up for nearly two years.
Logistically, it was disturbingly simple. Kendra Licari had decades of tech experience, knew how to mask a phone number, and even bought burner phones to “catfish” her daughter, Lauryn, and Lauryn’s friends.
Bill Chilman, the superintendent of Beal City, Michigan, said it best in the documentary. Kendra likely had a form of “emotional Munchausen syndrome” and took pleasure in hurting Lauryn just to keep her close. Some creators have also suggested traits of covert narcissism.
I’m not a psychologist, but I noticed an unsettling parallel between my former friend and Kendra: both wanted their victims to seek comfort from the very person causing the harm, and both only showed emotion when talking about themselves. On a second watch of the documentary, the subtle signs of abuse in Kendra’s family become hard to miss.
Recognize the Signs
Abuse can take many forms—emotional, verbal, physical, financial, or psychological—and it often escalates over time.
Common warning signs include a partner or friend who isolates you from others, constantly criticizes or belittles you, tries to control your decisions, invades your privacy, makes you feel unsafe, manipulates you, or tries to maintain control.
You might notice that you’re walking on eggshells to avoid conflict or that your confidence and independence have been chipped away.
Abuse isn’t always visible, but if the relationship consistently leaves you feeling powerless, fearful, or unworthy, it’s important to trust your instincts and get help, whether it’s a friend, significant other, or family member.
Finding Peace
I hope Lauryn Licari finds the strength to write a new chapter after such a brutal and public betrayal. Hurt people hurt people—but survivors don’t owe their peace to anyone, least of all the ones who broke it.