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If you’re one of the millions of Netflix subscribers who have streamed the true crime doc Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, then you already know the strange story of Kendra Licari.
For the uninitiated, here’s the deal (spoilers lie ahead, obviously):
For nearly two years, Licari’s daughter, Lauryn, and her boyfriend, Owen McKenney, were terrorized by an anonymous bully who harassed them with an endless barrage of vile text messages.
In addition to hurling insults at Lauryn, the texter would frequently instruct her to take her own life.
And the doc’s shocking third-act twist is that the messages were sent by none other than Lauryn’s mother, who — to the shock of her husband and everyone else in her community — had long ago been fired from her job and had dedicated her days to verbally abusing her only child.
Needless to say, Kendra Licari is not exactly the hero of this story.
So why would she agree to appear on camera and discuss her crimes with the film’s producers?
‘Unknown Number’ producers say Kendra ‘loved the experience’ of telling her story
Unknown Number director Skye Borgman recently opened up about her experience with Kendra, and she offered a theory as to why she might have decided to open up.
“She was nervous about going on camera, because just sitting down and telling your story is a nerve-racking thing sometimes,” Borgman told Variety this week.
“But she was so great, and she actually ended up really loving the experience. At the end of it, she said it was kind of fun. She laughed about things, and I think it was really an opportunity for her to think about things a little bit more in depth.”
In order to understand how bonkers it is that Kendra enjoyed telling her story, you need to bear in mind that her texts consisted of some of those vile sentiments ever transmitted via iPhone.
“It is obvious he wants me, his attention is constantly on me … Not sure what he told you but he is coming to the Halloween party and we are both DTF,” Kendra told her daughter of her then-boyfriend, Owen.
“He wants nothing to do with you … He thinks you’re annoying and an ugly a-s b–ch and wishes you would leave him the f–k alone … Why do you think he is on his phone all the time texting me?” she continued, adding:
“You didn’t get invited to sleep with him, I did. I’m spending the night with him, I’m sharing a bed with him, not you.”
And then, of course, there were the many, many messages in which Kendra instructed Lauryn to kill herself.
Toward the end of the doc, Kendra — having served 18 months for felony harassment — attempted to explain her actions.
And while it makes sense that her past trauma might have inspired such horrific deeds, there’s really no explaining such appalling behavior.
Of course, we’re kind of glad she tried. Despite its many horrors, Unknown Number is a damned entertaining watch.
