\u201cIt\u2019s obvious he likes me. He laughs, smiles, touches my hair. Not sure what he told you, but he is coming to the Halloween party and we\u2019re both down to f***.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re a sweet girl but I can give him what he wants. Sorry not sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pair, confused, tried to find out who sent the texts. Before they were able to do so, the texts stopped for 11 months.<\/p>\n
Netflix documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, which hit the streaming platform on August 29, explores the disgusting text message abuse endured by the high school students and the damage cyber-bullying can cause.<\/p>\n
Almost a year after the first messages, the couple began to receive new strings of anonymous texts.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow\u2019s the happy couple? Preparing for the end of the \u2018golden relationship\u2019,\u201d a new set of texts began.<\/p>\n
\u201cOwen loves me, and I will always be the girl he loves. He will be with me while your lonely, ugly a** is alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The texts stopped for 11 months, before suddenly starting back up again. Photo \/ Netflix<\/p>\n
Over the course of 22 months, the messages progressed. They became more sexual in nature, discussing sex acts that McKenny and the sender were allegedly doing behind Licari\u2019s back, and eventually threatening. They encouraged Licari to take her own life.<\/p>\n
\u201cU are worthless n mean nothing,\u201d one text message read.<\/p>\n
Another said: \u201cKill yourself now b***h.\u201d<\/p>\n
Appearing in the documentary, McKenny said he and Licari were fine at first, but the text messages made his girlfriend question herself and the relationship.<\/p>\n
Eventually, McKenny FaceTimed his girlfriend and said maybe if they gave the culprit what they wanted \u2013 a break-up \u2013 then they would both be left alone.<\/p>\n
However, it had the opposite effect.<\/p>\n
Eventually, McKenny confided in his parents about what was happening. They were disturbed and, with Licari\u2019s parents, went down to the school to demand not only answers but help catching the person harassing their children.<\/p>\n
The investigation<\/p>\n
At first there were concerns that Licari herself was sending the messages in a bid to get attention, but that was quickly dismissed.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Mike Main questioned fellow students such as Khloe Wilson, as clues in the messages indicated it could be her.<\/p>\n
Despite a search of her phone ultimately revealing she had nothing to do with the cyber-bullying, this didn\u2019t stop people in the small town believing she was behind it.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Mike Main investigated the case. Photo \/ Netflix<\/p>\n
The texter also began to use Wilson as a scapegoat, which prompted concerns that someone was doing it all to get back at her.<\/p>\n
That, plus photos sent from the McKennys\u2019 Christmas Day activities, made police look at McKenny\u2019s cousin Adrianna. She claimed to have been bullied by Wilson and her friends.<\/p>\n
Adrianna was also cleared by police.<\/p>\n
Then, McKenny began to date someone new from a town he had visited for a sporting tournament. Soon, that young woman\u2019s mum also began to receive similar text messages.<\/p>\n
FBI involvement<\/p>\n
His mother, Jill, noticed a change in her son and begged police to put more time and energy into finding out who was responsible for harassing him. Eventually, Sheriff Main shared everything he knew with the FBI. Bradley Peters sent out search warrants in a bid to get closer to the truth. An IP address turned up a phone number that was connected to Licari\u2019s mother Kendra, who had an IT background.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Main and a detective issued a search warrant for the Licari home to seize the mum\u2019s phones and laptop. At first, she denied any involvement. However, when probed further, she eventually confessed.<\/p>\n
Lauryn Licari and her mother Kendra. Photo \/ Netflix<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t start that way,\u201d she said, according to bodycam footage used in the documentary.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Main then told Licari everything.<\/p>\n
The teenager sat there, stunned at the news her mother had been psychologically targeting her. Her mother tried to hug and comfort her daughter as she began to cry.<\/p>\n
The fall out<\/p>\n
Kendra Licari eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking a minor and was sentenced to 19 months in prison. In court she sobbed as she apologised.<\/p>\n
McKenny\u2019s mother Jill said she felt \u201cdisgusted and betrayed\u201d. She and Kendra had worked tirelessly together to find the person responsible for terrorising their children \u2013 only to find out that she was behind it all along.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Bill Chillman, the school district\u2019s superintendent, weighed in with his thoughts about the shocking situation.<\/p>\n
The couple broke up as a result of the bullying. Photo \/ Netflix<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was a cyber Munchausen\u2019s case,\u201d he said in the documentary.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe wanted her daughter to need her in such a way that she was willing to hurt her, and this is the way that she chose to do that vs physically trying to make her ill, which is typical Munchausen\u2019s behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Licari\u2019s defence<\/p>\n
Kendra Licari was released on parole on August 8, 2024. In the documentary, she denied that she was the one who began the text messages, although her daughter expressed doubts about this. She said she began to send them in the hopes that the children would reveal who they thought the culprit was, so she could help.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery single one of us makes mistakes. Not a single one of us has lived a perfectly life. And, realistically, a lot of us have probably broke the law at some point or another and not get caught,\u201d Kendra said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure people have drove drunk and not got caught. But again, if you get caught, you\u2019re in the same situation I\u2019m in but for a different thing. I do feel people lose sight of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know to some I am a headline. I am a villain. I am a bad mum, whatever. But that\u2019s because they know one little piece of my story. They don\u2019t know the whole story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kendra Licari was behind the texts. Photo \/ Netflix<\/p>\n
Eventually, Kendra claimed in the documentary that seeing her daughter with a boyfriend \u2013 and growing up \u2013 made her want to protect her daughter. She said as her daughter became a teenager, it brought up a lot of her own trauma that she hadn\u2019t dealt with.<\/p>\n
McKenny and Licari no longer speak as a result of what her mother did. Licari isn\u2019t currently allowed to see her mother. However, she said she hoped that they could one day rebuild their relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I wanna trust her now but I don\u2019t think I can,\u201d Licari, who has hopes of studying criminology at university, said in the documentary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love her more than anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Documentary-maker weighs in<\/p>\n
Skye Borgman, who directed the doco, said the film was intended to highlight the impact that cyber-bullying can have on families. Borgman added that Kendra Licari\u2019s answers seemed rehearsed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she\u2019s got a little bit of revisionist history. I think some of what she says is the truth. I think some of what she says isn\u2019t truthful, where those two intersect is constantly changing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s obvious he likes me. He laughs, smiles, touches my hair. Not sure what he told you, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[95,1763,4057,4063,4058,4055,859,156,4053,2082,2959,702,1094,111,139,4061,69,1118,4056,4062,4059,427,4054,223,1961,4060,1455,1530],"class_list":["post-2816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-and","tag-article","tag-behind","tag-catfish","tag-contains","tag-cyberbullied","tag-documentary","tag-entertainment","tag-exposes","tag-for","tag-high","tag-it","tag-netflix","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-number","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-person","tag-school","tag-spoilers","tag-story","tag-teenager","tag-the","tag-this","tag-unknown","tag-warning","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}