Trigger warning: This piece contains mention of suicide.

Netflix’s Unknown Number: The High School Catfish documentary begins with an ominous warning: “All of the text messages in this film are real.” The texts in question were cruel messages sent to small-town Michigan teens, Lauryn Licari and her then-boyfriend Owen McKenny, over a period of nearly two years.

The anonymous texts included sexual taunts and insults about Lauryn’s body, and even urged suicide. The barrage continued after Lauryn and Owen broke up, and it wasn’t until August 2022 that authorities identified the sender: Lauryn’s own mother, Kendra Licari.

A Shocking Discovery

During her interviews in Unknown Number , Licari denied responsibility for the initial messages, claiming that she only started sending the

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