Why Kendra Licari Determined to Take part in Netflix’s Unknown Amount Documentary
In Unknown Amount: The Excessive College Catfish, Kendra Licari addresses cyber stalking her daughter Lauryn Licari and Lauryn’s boyfriend Owen McKenney. Right here’s why the director thinks Kendra participated.
Unknown Amount: The Excessive College Catfish gave Kendra Licari the chance to focus on for herself.
The case explored in the documentary has captured the attention of viewers: it’s no longer daily a mother is discovered guilty of catfishing and cyber stalking her delight in daughter and her daughter’s then-boyfriend.
So why would Kendra willingly and publicly focus on to the actions she took against then-13-year-olds Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenney? Documentary director Skye Borgman has a opinion.
“She used to be apprehensive about going on digicam, because factual sitting down and telling your legend is a tense component infrequently,” Skye told Diversity in an interview published Sept. 5. “Nonetheless she used to be so mountainous, and she in actuality ended up if truth be told loving the experience. On the discontinuance of it, she mentioned it used to be more or much less relaxing. She laughed about issues, and I deem it used to be if truth be told an opportunity for her to imagine issues fair a little bit more in depth.”
Taking a maintain a study her conversations with Kendra, the filmmaker continued, “Whenever I could request a interrogate, she would in actuality need to imagine some issues, and I deem that used to be if truth be told right for her.”
And on whether or no longer Kendra—who pled guilty to 2 counts of stalking a minor and used to be sentenced to 19 months in penitentiary—in actuality feels remorseful over her actions, Skye admitted Kendra is “fair a little little bit of an enigma.”
“I deem that she had alternative time to imagine what she did,” she continued. “She used to be in therapy when she used to be incarcerated, and I mediate that she’s aloof seeing a therapist. She has accept thought into what she did. I don’t know that she’s fully realized or identified what it used to be that she did or why she did it.”
As she accept it, “I speak simplest Kendra could if truth be told acknowledge that.”
The harassment of Lauren and Owen began in the fall of 2020 but took a flip in September 2021, growing more stressful and numbering up to 40 to 50 a day. It used to be these latter texts that Kendra used to be in the reduction of.
“Most messages have hateful speech and have language esteem, 'execute your self,'” a 2022 Isabella County Sheriff's characterize mentioned, per NBC News. “Many of the messages repeat this identical language.”
Kendra denied being in the reduction of the traditional messages, but admitted to detectives, per the characterize, she “factual fed off from it” and, once she began, she “got caught up” and saved going.
For more on the magnificent case, preserve discovering out.
(E! and NBC News are each section of the NBCUniversal family.)
What took place to Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny?
Sweethearts since junior excessive, Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny began getting nameless texts from an unknown amount in October 2020, the sender reputedly wanting to drive a wedge between the couple.
The principle message learn, “Hey Lauryn, Owen is breaking apart with you.” Subsequent texts learn, “He no longer likes you and hasn't loved you for a whereas” and “It's obtrusive he wants me.”
Finally the messages stopped and months passed by. Nonetheless on Sept. 13, 2021, the texts began up all any other time—simplest this time, the pair began receiving dozens a day and they were some distance more upsetting.
“The messages are explicit in nature indicating that they could also very successfully be from somebody who they know,” Isabella County Sheriff Michael Foremost wrote in a December 2022 characterize, per NBC News. “Most messages have hateful speech and have language esteem, 'execute your self …' Many of the messages repeat this identical language.”
Owen and Lauryn broke up whereas this used to be unfolding, as recounted in the 2025 Netflix docuseries Unknown Amount: The Excessive College Catfish, however the messages saved coming.
Who’s Lauryn Licari's mother, Kendra Licari?
When the cyberbullying began, Lauryn used to be living with her of us Shawn Licari and Kendra Licari in Mt. Stress-free, Mich.
Kendra worked in IT at Ferris Divulge University and coached girls' basketball at Lauryn's excessive faculty.
How did authorities resolve out Kendra Licari used to be harassing her delight in daughter?
Lauryn and Owen's households first reported the messages to the youngsters' faculty, assuming it wanted to be other students who were to blame for the harassment. Beal Metropolis Public Colleges referred the case to native regulations enforcement.
The Isabella County Sheriff's Site of industrial called in the FBI for aid. In step with Sheriff Foremost's characterize, a cybercrimes skilled linked the texts to “an IP address from a Spectrum host from the Mt Stress-free build” and a user who used to be opening a amount-generating app from an iPhone.
The FBI skilled, per the characterize, “discovered that [Kendra's] mobile phone amount used to be linked to the IP address at any time when a text message used to be despatched to the victims.”
What did Kendra Licari divulge in regards to the texts she despatched to Lauryn and Owen?
Kendra told detectives Aug. 10, 2022, per Foremost's characterize, that she did no longer send the traditional batch of messages that her daughter and Owen got in October 2020, but relatively “she factual fed off from it and began to send them” in September 2021. She “got caught up in sending the messages,” the characterize mentioned, “and it factual continued.”
In Unknown Amount: The Excessive College Catfish, Kendra mentioned she began her delight in texting marketing campaign to match out to to find who used to be allegedly harassing her daughter in the first build.
“I was sending messages in the hopes that they could send reduction asking, 'Is that this so-and-so?'” she mentioned in the series. “I began with the idea, 'We would prefer some answers.' And then it factual saved going.”
Kendra then mentioned that trauma she herself experienced as a teen fueled her want to guard her daughter from harm the least bit costs.
“As [Lauryn] began growing old, I had issues that were suppressed attain forward,” Kendra mentioned in Unknown Amount. She outlined, “I desired to match out to manipulate the consequence of her high-tail. I was jumpy of letting her grow up. I was nervous of what could occur to her.”
When used to be Kendra Licari arrested?
Kendra used to be arrested Dec. 12, 2022, and charged with two counts of stalking a minor and two counts of communicating with but any other to commit a criminal offense, essentially based on NBC News.
“We had tens of hundreds of text messages, whether or no longer they were messages that were factual for her daughter or some of her daughter's chums,” Isabella County prosecutor David Barberi told Graceful Morning The United States on the time. “And the digital footprint used to be factual insane.”
Beal Metropolis Public Colleges Superintendent William Chilman told GMA that, even after they realized they weren't going thru a student prank, “we weren't ready for that it is some distance also a guardian. After they told us later in the spring that they were suspecting that it presumably used to be her, it used to be a shock to all of us.”
Kendra in the discontinuance decrease a deal and pleaded guilty to 2 counts of stalking a minor in exchange for the choice costs being dropped. She used to be sentenced in April 2023 to on the least 19 months in penitentiary, minus 22 days for time served.
The build is Kendra Licari now?
After Kendra used to be published to be their daughter's harasser, Shawn divorced her and used to be granted tubby custody of Lauryn.
“I factual can't mediate she would arrangement one thing esteem that to her daughter that supposedly she loved dearly,” Shawn mentioned in the Netflix series. “Graceful makes me sick. She stabbed me in the center—shot me in the center—and threw it away.”
Kendra, now Forty five, used to be paroled on Aug. 8, 2024, and is on supervised launch till Feb. 8, 2026, essentially based on the Michigan Division of Corrections.
She mentioned in Unknown Amount that she hadn't considered Lauryn in “about a year and a half,” and per the terms of her launch they're no longer allowed to reunite for the time being.
“We each know that we're with every other or no longer it is no longer linked what,” Kendra mentioned. “I positively deem we can maintain a healthy relationship. I do know we each again that bond that we have shut.”
The build is Lauryn Licari now?
Lauryn, now 18, is no longer against reconciling with her mother and expressed hope Kendra would earn “the reduction that she needs” now that she's out of penitentiary.
“Being without that relationship is mainly hurting me,” Lauryn mentioned in the series. “I deem rebuilding our relationship will reduction each of us so much. I esteem her bigger than the rest.”
The series also licensed that Lauryn is no longer eager with Owen.
Source credit : eonline.com
