Even more shocking details Unknown Number: The High School Catfish missed out

Right now, everyone is talking about a certain catfishing documentary on Netflix. Yep, you know exactly what I mean. The case covered in Unknown Number: The High School Catfish was originally a huge investigation published by The Cut, and that will show you how much the Netflix film missed out.

The documentary film told the story of Lauryn Licari and her then boyfriend Owen. When Lauryn was just 13, she started receiving messages from an unknown number. It turned into a daily barrage of hate and threats, for the next 15 months. Sometimes Lauryn would be getting up to 50 messages a day, commenting on her appearance, telling her to end her life, and making grotesque sexual comments about her and Owen – who were both underage at the time.

In the twist nobody saw coming, the texts had been sent by Lauryn’s own mother, Kendra Licari. Here are some shocking details from the case that were missed out of Unknown Number: The High School Catfish on Netflix.

Kendra seemed to have a big interest in Owen from the very start

via Netflix

One of the theories behind why Kendra did what she did was that she was “obsessed” with Owen. The Cut’s article played into this theory, and shared interesting insight into how Kendra was with Owen.

“After Lauryn started dating Owen, her mother came along, too. At every opportunity, Kendra would ask them to wrap their arms around each other,” it stated. Owen’s mother Jill recalled Kendra would talk about Lauryn and Owen “like they were going to be together forever”.

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Lauryn’s family and Owen’s family were really, really close. During Covid they joined each other’s social “bubbles” (remember those?!). They would travel together, and shortly after the children started dating, Kendra signed up to be Owen’s track coach and called herself his “second mom”. Once, Kendra even suggested turning one of Owen’s tournaments into a Licari family vacation, to which his mother Jill had to gently say “no.”

Kendra texted Owen ‘I love you’ off Lauryn’s phone

In one instance, Kendra even took her daughter’s phone to text Owen. A student recalled a moment when they saw Kendra take Lauryn’s phone and read her daughter’s texts with Owen. Then, speaking as Lauryn, Kendra typed out a reply: “I love you.”

Owen’s mum noted Kendra had an interest in Owen’s love life

Jill noted that Kendra had an interest in Owen’s love life, even after he had broken up with Lauryn. Months after the breakup, Kendra was described as “prying into Owen’s love interests — asking if he was dating Khloe [Wilson, who was at one point suspected of sending the messages].”

via Netflix

Kendra was worried Lauryn could might harm herself

In the documentary, Kendra was asked why she did what she did, and if she had thought of the possibility that was she was doing might cause her daughter to want to harm herself. On Netflix, Kendra dismissed this. She said she was certain her daughter would never harm herself because of the texts.

But, The Cut’s article detailed meetings Kendra and Owen’s mother had with the school. Owen’s mother believed Owen would not self-harm, but when Kendra was asked she “didn’t speak.” Jill answered for her, and said: “The answer is ‘yes,’ Kendra. We are afraid Lauryn could hurt herself.”

Kendra bragged about Lauryn at the school

Kendra would often “brag” about Lauryn whilst at the school, to the point where it was branded annoying by other students and parents. As per The Cut: “To onlookers, it was clear that Ashley and Kendra were at the centre of each other’s lives, but by junior high, people observed that Kendra would brag about her daughter to the point of annoying other parents.” One person told the publication: “Everything was ‘Ashley’s softball, Ashley’s school, Ashley’s this, Ashley’s that’.”

Lots of people suspected Kendra was behind the texts, even before the phone number data was tracked

During the Netflix documentary, it was presented to us that nobody ever even suspected the family members of Lauryn and Owen. It was this big shock moment when officer Brad Peter, who worked on the Mid-Michigan Computer Crimes Task Force, tracked the texts to Kendra’s number.

But, people had previously suspected Kendra. Craig Wilson, a police sergeant, and his wife Tami were described as having “had a hunch” it was Kendra.

In early February, Craig texted the sheriff: “Honestly Mike I don’t know if you know Kendra or not but you really need to be cautious. There is a pretty good part of me that thinks that she may very well be doing this.”

Tami and Craig Wilson weren’t alone. As per The Cut: “Little by little, people around town had started whispering about her, about the attention she seemed to continually seek. Another parent, flipping through the pages of texts with the Wilsons, concluded, ‘This is an adult. I wouldn’t put it past Kendra’.”

via Netflix

Even Lauryn thought the texts might have been coming from her own mother

After Kendra was found guilty for the crimes, a lot of people questioned how Lauryn didn’t know, given her bully was so close to her. A student at the school said they spoke to Lauryn about people questioning how much she knew and Lauryn admitted she “had started to consider that her mother could be the bully.”

The school extended its WiFi network to cover the parking lot, and then Kendra was sighted in her car more

via Netflix

At the time the texts were being sent, the school Lauryn and Owen attended extended its WiFi network. The parking lot then got better signal. Following this, Kendra Licari was noted to have been in her car, on her phone a lot more. A number of people are quoted to have confronted Kendra in her car, and every time she had a strange excuse as to why she was there.

The article shared more about Shawn’s knowledge of what was going on

As the texts were happening, there was a lot going on in the family’s life. The show revealed how Kendra had be lying to her entire family, and didn’t have the jobs she claimed she did. The family was in a lot of financial trouble. It’s clear from the doc that Shawn, Lauryn’s father, was completely in the dark about all of this. But, The Cut’s article goes into a lot more detail about Kendra’s lies.

It explained that at work, “Shawn would unquestioningly pass along tidbits from Kendra — say, that the family had missed house payments because someone in New Mexico had stolen their identity or that his pickup truck had been repossessed because of a scammer in Saginaw. After Kendra’s check bounced for her portion of a spring-break condo, she explained that she had gotten hacked.”

The sheriff was said to be “struck by how little Shawn seemed to know about the cyberbullying”.

via Netflix

Kendra lost one of her jobs after excessive texting

Just to make matters worse, we’re told in the Netflix documentary that Kendra was in fact unemployed because she’d been let go by all of her employers. What it missed out was that she had previously worked at Ferris State University, and there, had been placed on a performance-improvement plan, citing “excessive time” on non-work texting and calls. She later quit.

For the full article, its on The Cut here. Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.