A Michigan mom catfishing her own daughter for nearly two years sounds like something straight out of a Lifetime thriller. However sadly this wasn’t scripted TV. It was very real life for 13-year-old Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend, Owen McKenny, who suddenly found themselves at the center of a digital nightmare, only to later discover the culprit was none other than Lauryn’s mother, 44-year-old Kendra Licari.
What started off like any other small-town high school romance quickly spiraled into something sinister. Lauryn and Owen were your typical middle school couple in Michigan, bonding over sports and spending time with their families. Everyone, including Lauryn’s mom, seemed supportive. That is, until the anonymous messages began, harsh, threatening texts that accused Owen of cheating, ridiculed Lauryn’s body, and even pushed her toward self-harm, per Daily Mail.
At first, nobody suspected a parent. Who would? The families assumed it had to be another jealous classmate, and even the school got involved. Teachers and administrators were horrified, students whispered about it between classes, and parents stayed up all night monitoring their kids’ phones. The mystery texter was vicious sending up to 50 messages a day, sometimes even in the middle of the night.
Michigan Mother Who Catfished Her Teen Daughter Tells Her Story
But here’s the twist: the FBI eventually traced the messages back to Lauryn’s mom. That’s right, the woman offering comfort and pretending to be as confused as everyone else was actually behind the harassment. When investigators confronted her, Kendra admitted she had been sending the messages, sometimes for up to eight hours a day.
In Netflix’s new documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, Kendra tried to explain herself. She claimed it started as an attempt to “get to the bottom” of who was harassing her daughter, but things snowballed until she couldn’t stop. “I was somebody different in those moments. I was in an awful place mentally,” she confessed. She even admitted lying about her employment during that time, hiding the fact that she had lost both of her jobs while secretly living in this online double life.
Authorities and experts have called this case a form of “cyber Munchausen’s” where a parent manufactures crises to make themselves needed. Superintendent Bill Chillman, who dealt with the chaos at the school, described it as “wanting her daughter to need her in such a way that she was willing to hurt her.”
The fallout has been devastating. Lauryn and Owen’s young relationship ended under the weight of the harassment. Owen’s family, once close with Kendra, felt deeply betrayed. And Lauryn herself has had to process the shock of realizing her own mom wanted to break her down emotionally.
Lauryn Still Wants Her Mother In Her Life
Still, even after everything, Lauryn, now in college studying criminology, says she longs to rebuild her relationship with her mother someday. “Not having a relationship with my mom, I just don’t feel like myself. I really need her in my life,” she admitted.
“None of this really explains anything…apart from that she is a basket case, unhinged, crazy, delusional. Lock her up and throw away the key,” one person stated. “Her excuses and explanations make no sense whatsover. She’s a troll and a psycho and simply loves to victimise people, and her daughter would certainly not be her only victim,” said another.
Meanwhile, Kendra is serving a prison sentence of 19 months to five years for assaulting a minor, with her actions immortalized in the Netflix documentary that has everyone talking. It’s the kind of shocking Michigan scandal that feels impossible to wrap your head around: a mom who became her own daughter’s tormentor.
Kenna Raye 
