Kendra Licari, the mum who has become the focus of media attention after her role in the Netflix doc Unknown Number: High School Catfish, sent her daughter’s boyfriend a bizarre message from her phone.
The Netflix documentary sees a young girl, Lauryn Licari, who is plagued by anonymous abusive messages, which go as far as telling her to kill herself.
Lauryn’s boyfriend at the time, Owen, also received text messages non-stop for a 22 month period, in which the pair were bombarded by abusive texts, as covered in the Netflix documentary.
Many of them used Lauryn’s close family nickname ‘Lo’ for a bizarre reason, making it seem like it was someone close to her, however, she never considered who the true culprit was, her mother.
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Kendra had been sending as many as 40-50 texts a day to the pair and using an app to hide her phone number when doing so.
Whilst she claims in the Netflix doc that she did it to try and find out who had sent the initial messages to her daughter (she claims this was not her), many have questioned her possible motive for it.
An expert psychologist has weighed in on the possibility proposed in the doc that she had a form of ‘Cyber Munchausen-by-proxy’, whilst other viewers suggested she had some sort of bizarre infatuation with Owen McKenny, Lauren’s at the time boyfriend.
Speaking in an interview with New York Magazine, a student who attended the same school as Owen and Lauryn, who were 13, and described the bizarre dynamic between the pair and Lauryn’s mother Kendra.
Paige Antcliff, who was friends with Lauryn, said in the interview she had noticed that when the pair started dating, Kendra would often come along.
She went on to say that at ‘every opportunity, Kendra would ask them to wrap their arms around each other for a photo’.
She finally added that, at one point, Kendra noticed that Lauryn had gotten a text from Owen.
Antcliff stated she had seen Kendra take Lauryn’s phone and respond saying: “I Love you.”
Lauryn got numerous messages from an anonymous source saying Owen wanted to be with them instead of her.
These included ones saying: “It is obvious he wants me, his attention is constantly on me … Not sure what he told you but he is coming to the Halloween party and we are both DTF.”
Kendra claims these messages weren’t from her but even the ones she did send included some bizarre explicit content about Owen.
Viewers of the Netflix doc have noted that it fails to ask her about this and its possibly part of her motivations for sending the messages.
Specifically, many viewers noted that the messages continued after Lauryn and Owen broke up and included her harassing Owen’s new girlfriend.
One viewer said: “That isolated single detail proves this had absolutely nothing to do with protecting her daughter and everything to do with her own predatory obsession with Owen.
“It feels like the real story was 'Predatory Mom Coach' but decided 'Highschool Catfish Story' was way more marketable.
“It's like they are deliberately downplaying the darkest part of this story and perpetuating Kendra's misdirection/manipulation.”
Topics: Documentaries, Netflix, TV, TV and Film, True Crime, Parenting
Michael Slavin