Netflix’s ‘Unknown Number: The High School Catfish’ - A chilling and disturbing watch
Netflix’s “Unknown Number: The High School Catfish” is a chilling documentary that uncovers the disturbing cyberbullying of a young couple in the USA. Picture: Netflix
Image: Netflix
Netflix is a harrowing and disturbing story of cyberbullying, that also has a twist that would fit perfectly in a M. Night Shyamalan masterpiece.
*THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS AND THEMES OF SELF-HARM*
The story follows the anonymous text messages that were sent to a young American high school couple, Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny, for a period of two years.
The couple, from the small town of Beal City, Michigan, were just 13 years old when they started receiving texts which contained alarming, vulgar, insulting, and threatening messages.
The Persistent and Threatening Messages That Targeted Lauryn and Her Ex-Boyfriend
The main objective of the messages from the start seemed to be to break up the young couple. In numerous messages sent to Lauryn, the content was both sexual and unsettling and clearly should not have been sent to either minor.
The messages continued and soon saw the couple break up, which the viewer expects would be the end of it.
But the story goes on, and both children continued to receive up to 50 messages a day at times from the anonymous sender.
Ultimately, Lauryn’s messages grew more threatening - one even telling her to kill herself.
FBI’s Role in Solving the Cyberbullying Case
While all this was going on, the local police authorities went on a prolonged wild goose chase. The show details how between the local sheriff and the school principal, jump from suspect to suspect of the former couple’s classmates.
Each suspect, it’s shown, could have a motive for cyberbullying the pair.
However, just over the halfway point in the show, the FBI is looped in through liaison Bradley Peter.
He is credited with cracking the case, after referencing the origin of the number which used a cloaking app to disguise the sender. Finally, it settles on one number with a pretty high degree of certainty.
Exploring Kendra Licari’s Motives in the Documentary
It turned out to be none other than Lauryn’s own mother, Kendra Licari, in a stunning reveal.
The documentary shows when Kendra is first confronted by authorities, and while it was not a full confession as she said she did not send the initial few messages, Kendra breaks down and admits it was her.
Kendra would later be sentenced to 19 months for cyberstalking.
The real question one asks though, is why Kendra did this to her own daughter?
The documentary does its best to answer this, but Kendra herself remains vague in her motive. She claims to be suffering from a mental health disorder, as she claims she was raped at the age of 17. Kendra says she wanted to avoid something similar happening to her daughter as she approached the same age.
Kendra’s Manipulation Tactics: A Masterful Deception Over Two Years
One of the possible conditions Kendra was said to be suffering is Munchausen syndrome - where you pretend someone you care for is sick when they are not. In Kendra’s case, her daughter would be left reeling every day from the messages her phone was flooded with, and then her mother would be able to comfort her.
Whether that’s the real explanation might never be truly known, but the extent Kendra went to destroy her own daughter’s life is staggering, and leaves the viewer chilled to the core.