By: Gabe Woods 

<spoilers ahead>

The Netflix Documentary Unknown Numbers: The High School Catfish follows Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny as they begin to receive disturbing text messages beginning in October 2020.

By September 2021, the harassment had escalated, with each receiving 40 to 50 messages a day. Many of them were threatening, taunting, and specific to their lives. 

Local police, and eventually the FBI, joined the case, using methods such as cyber forensics to trace the messages. In December 2022, it was revealed that Kendra Licari, Lauryn’s own mother, was behind the texts.

Kendra Licari claimed that she was not the one that started the texts. She joined in to try and figure out who was behind them originally. Bellbrook students who watched the documentary share their own thoughts about the mother’s defense.

“I don’t feel like her reasoning for why she continued the messages made sense,” senior Erin Secody said. “I feel like it was a way to take less blame for the situation by placing the beginning of it on someone else.”

Licari also stated that she did it as a way to have her daughter need her. Yet, some speculate that it had to do more with her daughter’s boyfriend, Owen McKenny. “I believe that it was both a way to connect with her daughter, and a weird obsession with Owen,” Secody said. “I do think that both played a major role in her activities.”

Kendra was released from jail in October of 2024. Throughout her time, she stayed in contact with her daughter, through messages and calls.  Since then, they are no longer in contact. 

“I’m not surprised that Mom is still reaching out because she clearly has not dealt with whatever mental health issues she’s experiencing,” BHS film teacher Ms. Valinda Buedel-Herrman said. “I sympathize with Lauryn’s desire to have a relationship with her mom. She’s very young and is probably still processing everything that happened to her.”

Theories have circulated that this is a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. This is when a parent exaggerates or fabricates health problems of their children, often to gain sympathy from others. 

“I believe it was the principal who suggested that perhaps Kendra has a form of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and I found that to be a pretty interesting theory,” Buedel-Herrman said.