Skye Borgman’s new documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish unpacks a real-life cyberbullying case that rocked the small community of Beal City, Michigan. In October 2020, 13-year-old Lauryn Licari and her then-boyfriend Owen began receiving suspicious texts from an unknown number. After a pause, the messages resumed in September 2021, devolving into a daily barrage of threats and vile insults over the next 15 months. What’s more, the messages contained information that only someone close to Lauryn could have known. That’s when concerned parents and school officials turned to law enforcement for help.
An investigation led by Isabella County Sheriff Mike Main initially focused on Lauryn and Owen’s classmates and friends, casting suspicion throughout their school and fracturing relationships. When those efforts stalled, Bradley Peter, a police officer from nearby Bay City, stepped in as liaison to the FBI, and eventually traced the masked messages to Lauryn’s mother, Kendra Licari. During a search of Kendra’s home, Main confronted her and informed Lauryn — an encounter captured on his body camera and shown in real time in the documentary — revealing that her mother was behind the messages. The revelation upended Lauryn’s family and sent shock waves through the wider community.
To unpack the case’s aftermath and lasting impact, director Skye Borgman (Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser, Girl in the Picture) sat down with Tudum to share insights and reflect on the questions viewers are left with after watching Unknown Number.
In Dec. 2022, Kendra Licari was arrested and charged with multiple counts of stalking and using a computer to commit a crime. She pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking a minor and was sentenced to 19 months to 5 years in prison. Licari was released from prison on Aug. 8, 2024, and, at the time filming on Unknown Number concluded, still wanted to be a part of her daughter’s life.
But Kendra’s participation in the documentary was never a certainty, according to Borgman. In fact, much of the film had already been completed before she agreed to be interviewed. “It was a long process with Kendra,” Borgman recalls of the efforts it took to get her on board, adding that she eventually agreed to the opportunity to directly speak to questions circling around the case. “That was appealing to her, [to] sit down and tell her story from her perspective and that Lauryn [could] see her do that. She wanted to do it, I think, for her daughter.”
Kendra’s release marked a new chapter for the Licari family, but the effects of her actions continue to linger. “She’s remorseful that she has severely altered her relationship with her daughter in most likely a negative way,” Borgman says. “I mean, will they have a relationship? Will they get through this? I don’t know. There will probably be some kind of relationship. Will it be the same? Absolutely not. There’s no way it can be the same.”
On the You Can’t Make This Up podcast, Borgman described Kendra’s experience as a gradual reckoning, rather than an immediate acceptance of responsibility — a process viewers witness firsthand through police bodycam footage featured in the documentary. “It was a slow realization for Kendra that she had been caught, and I think there was still some idea possibly in the back of her mind that she could get out of it,” Borgman told host Rebecca Lavoie.
In the interview, Borgman also described the uncanny experience of watching the emotional toll of the revelation gradually take hold over the entire family as reality set in. “The way that Kendra and Lauryn are interacting is really fascinating to watch,” she said. “You don't see [Lauryn] sort of break down with any real emotion until Sean is home and she can see the fracture happening in her family. And that is just so heartbreaking to me … That’s when you see Lauryn understand that her family's never going to be the same again.”
The question at the heart of Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is also the one that haunted its director. “I don’t know that she really knows why she did it,” Borgman says, and Kendra’s own explanation, as captured in the film, is complex, and also rooted in her personal trauma.
“She does mention in the documentary an assault that happened [to her] when she was right around Lauryn’s age,” Borgman says. “She talks about how scary that was for her to see her only child, her little girl, growing up, and that’s what she really relates to and that’s what she believes led her to sending these text messages and trying to keep Lauryn close.”
While some observers, including school officials and Isabella County prosecutor David Barberi, have pathologized Kendra’s behavior as a kind of Munchausen syndrome by proxy (now known as factitious disorder imposed on another) for the digital age, Borgman cautions that it likely isn’t a recognized diagnosis: “To give it any sort of medical foundation is a little bit problematic. … But I think that there are elements about Munchausen by proxy — about harming someone to keep them close — that definitely existed.”
The documentary’s emotional core is Lauryn, who endured relentless harassment and public suspicion before learning the unthinkable truth about her stalker. Her journey, as Borgman describes it, has been one of painful growth and self-discovery.
“The first time we sat down with Lauryn was in the spring of 2023 … and she at the time loved her mom. She just wanted her mom back in her life,” Borgman recalls. But when the filmmakers returned about a year later, after Kendra had been released from prison, they noticed Lauryn’s perspective had shifted. She was starting to process the complexity of her mother’s actions and, as Borgman notes, “wanted to approach the relationship with more caution in our second interview.”
Those intervening years have been transformative for Lauryn, according to the director, who observes, “She’s done a lot of pretty critical thinking, especially between that time and now … These years are such critical years for young people.” Borgman believes that, while all the families affected by the case have struggled, “she’s got the most complicated feelings to deal with. Everybody else can hate Kendra. I don’t think Lauryn can, right? It's your mom. I mean, how do you navigate that? It’s really uncharted waters.”
Now 18, Lauryn is entering a new chapter. “She is at the beginning of figuring out that she can be the one in charge, that she can make all the decisions for herself and for her relationship with her mother,” Borgman says. “I think that’s going to be a really interesting place for Lauryn to explore.”
As for Owen, the documentary reveals that he and Lauryn eventually broke up before the case was solved. By the time of the film’s conclusion, the two were no longer in contact.
The film also highlights Lauryn’s deepening relationship with her father, Shawn. “It’s so wonderful to see them together. … It’s just a great outcome of something so tragic and so terrible that you see this really loving, really respectful relationship that the two of them have,” Borgman says.
Before Kendra was identified, the Beal City cyberstalking case was rife with rumors and finger-pointing. For Borgman, sharing the perspectives of the young people under suspicion was essential — not just to tell their side of the story, but to highlight how the challenges they faced mirror the real-life pressures countless other students experience.
“There were so many victims in all of this and everybody felt that in such a big way, and especially Khloe [Wilson, a friend of Owen’s], who was the center of the investigation for a very long time,” Borgman recalls. “Not being believed by friends at school, losing friends at school because they’re taking sides. All these big things that are happening because of these text messages that are being bandied about are real things that happen to high school students today, to middle school students today.”
Borgman applauds students like Khloe for sharing their stories on camera: “They wanted to do their part to make the world a better place, and I just take off my hat to these kids because they’re willing to do hard stuff to put their story out there and to try to help other kids that might be dealing with something like this.”
Borgman hopes the film sparks important conversations between parents and kids about technology and trust. “This [case] is a crazy circumstance, but kids are getting terrible text messages every single day, and they’re dealing with cyberbullying every single day. The FBI might not be getting involved, but they’re dealing with it,” she says, noting the maturity and resilience shown by the teens at the center of Unknown Number: The High School Catfish. “Each and every one of them in the film was so mature about it and so willing to help and willing to try to find out what was happening, despite not being believed, despite having fingers pointed at them. So it’s a bigger message, I think, that all these kids wanted to put out there, and hopefully it’s what the documentary does.”
When asked about the film’s call to action, Borgman is clear: “Listen to your kids, understand the threats that are out there, and give them the ability to make good decisions.”
Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is now streaming on Netflix.
If you or someone you know, including young adults and children, is struggling with their mental health or thoughts of suicide, information and resources are available at wannatalkaboutit.com
