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Full spoilers ahead: Netflix’s Unknown Number: The High School Catfish investigates a real Michigan cyberstalking case in which anonymous messages targeting two teenagers were eventually traced to one victim’s mother, Kendra Licari. The documentary was released on August 29, 2025.
Spoiler and content warning: This article reveals the sender’s identity, the investigation, the criminal case, and the aftermath shown in the documentary. Unknown Number: The High School Catfish includes discussion of cyberbullying, emotional abuse, sexualized harassment involving minors, and suicide-related threats.
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Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is a 2025 Netflix documentary about a sustained anonymous harassment campaign aimed at two teenagers in Beal City, Michigan. What begins as a baffling stream of messages from apparently unconnected phone numbers eventually becomes a family revelation: the sender was Kendra Licari, the mother of one of the victims, Lauryn Licari.
Directed by Skye Borgman, the filmmaker behind Girl in the Picture, Abducted in Plain Sight, and Sins of Our Mother, the 94-minute documentary was released on Netflix on August 29, 2025. Although its marketing uses the word “catfish,” the underlying conduct is more precisely described as prolonged anonymous cyberstalking and cyberbullying, involving concealed identities and impersonation rather than a conventional online romance scam.
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What happened in the Unknown Number case?
Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny were teenagers dating in Beal City when anonymous texts began arriving in October 2020. The early messages challenged their relationship and suggested that Owen wanted to leave Lauryn. After an initial pause, the messages returned in September 2021 and continued for roughly 15 months.
The harassment escalated well beyond ordinary teenage gossip. The messages insulted Lauryn’s appearance, made sexual comments about Owen, attacked the couple’s relationship, and included private details that appeared to be known only by people close to them. Some messages urged Lauryn to kill herself. The documentary does not need to reproduce the most abusive language to show the campaign’s seriousness: the messages were persistent, personal, threatening, and designed to make the teenagers distrust one another and the people around them.
The apparent use of multiple numbers made the sender difficult to block. Families, school staff, and students struggled to determine whether the messages came from a classmate, a group of students, or someone with access to the teenagers’ private lives. Suspicion spread through the small community, placing classmates and acquaintances under scrutiny and creating tension among students, parents, and school personnel.
Timeline of the case
| Date or period | What happened |
|---|---|
| October 2020 | Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny begin receiving anonymous messages questioning their relationship. |
| September 2021 | After a pause, the harassment resumes and becomes more persistent and abusive. |
| Approximately 15 months | The messages continue, including personal attacks, sexualized comments, threats, and suicide-related language. |
| Investigation period | Local authorities investigate before technical assistance helps trace the messaging activity. |
| Late 2022 or early 2023 | Investigators identify the sender as Kendra Licari, Lauryn’s mother. |
| March 2023 | Licari pleads guilty to two counts of stalking a minor under a plea agreement. |
| April 26, 2023 | She is sentenced to 19 months to five years in prison, with credit for time already served. |
| August 2024 | Later reporting states that Licari is released on parole. |
| August 29, 2025 | Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is released on Netflix. |
How investigators identified the sender
At first, the investigation focused naturally on people in the teenagers’ social circle. The messages appeared to know too much to be random, while the different phone numbers made the sender seem more than one person. Local law enforcement worked on the case but could not initially resolve it.
Bradley Peter, a Bay City police officer and FBI liaison, became involved when investigators sought additional technical help. Digital evidence, including IP-related information connected with the messaging activity, ultimately redirected the investigation away from the suspected students and toward an adult directly connected to Lauryn.
That adult was Kendra Licari. The discovery was especially destabilizing because the investigation did not simply identify a distant online stranger. It revealed that the person allegedly creating the anonymous identities and sending the messages was Lauryn’s own mother.
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The body-camera footage and the documentary’s central reveal
Police body-camera footage of the confrontation at the Licari family home forms one of the documentary’s most consequential pieces of evidence. The film reconstructs the case using interviews, records of the messages, school-related material, investigative accounts, and footage from the police response.
The reveal is also an emotional turning point for Lauryn. The harassment had already damaged her relationship with Owen and fueled suspicion throughout the school community. Learning that her mother was responsible transformed the case from an anonymous attack into a profound family betrayal.
Borgman does not present the revelation as a simple mystery-solving twist. The documentary is concerned with what happens after the mystery is solved: whether Lauryn can trust her own memories, how the family responds, and how a community processes the fact that its assumptions about the perpetrator were wrong.
Why is it called a catfish case?
“Catfish” is the accessible label used by the documentary’s title and promotional discussion because the sender hid behind false or anonymous identities. However, the case does not fit the most familiar version of catfishing, in which someone constructs a fake persona to pursue a romantic or financial relationship.
Here, the defining behavior was the concealment of identity, apparent impersonation of an unknown peer, and repeated harassment of minors. “Anonymous cyberstalking campaign” or “anonymous cyberbullying campaign” is more precise. The title’s use of “catfish” reflects the deception, but it should not obscure the seriousness or nature of the alleged conduct.
What happened to Kendra Licari?
Licari faced two counts of stalking a minor, two computer-crime counts, and obstruction-related allegations. In March 2023, she entered a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to two stalking counts. The other charges were dismissed under that agreement; they should not be described as convictions.
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On April 26, 2023, an Isabella County judge sentenced Licari to 19 months to five years in prison and credited her with time already served. Contemporary reporting said the judge rejected a county-jail-and-probation alternative because of the length of the harassment and its effect on the victims.
Later reports stated that Licari was released on parole in August 2024. Those reports also said her former husband, Shawn Licari, divorced her and received full custody of Lauryn, while Licari remained restricted from contacting her daughter under the terms described at the time.
Public information about Licari’s current personal circumstances is limited. Claims about her present relationship with Lauryn should therefore be attributed to documentary-era reporting or the filmmakers rather than presented as a newly confirmed court update.
Lauryn’s life after the revelation
The emotional aftermath is central to Unknown Number. The filmmakers interviewed Lauryn in spring 2023 and later spoke with her after her mother’s release from prison. Netflix’s description of the film indicates that Lauryn’s attitude toward her mother changed between those interviews.
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The film also shows how the case affected Owen, Lauryn’s family, and the wider Beal City community. The damage was not limited to the messages themselves. The campaign undermined trust between the teenagers, encouraged suspicion of innocent people, and forced those close to Lauryn to reconsider what they thought they knew about her home life.
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Does the documentary diagnose Kendra Licari?
No confirmed psychiatric diagnosis should be inferred from the documentary or from public reporting about the case. Borgman has discussed possible ideas resembling “Munchausen by proxy,” including the possibility that harm could be used to maintain closeness or attention. That is an interpretive framework raised by the filmmaker, not an established clinical diagnosis in the public record.
Likewise, readers should not treat terms such as factitious disorder imposed on another, narcissistic personality disorder, or any other psychiatric label as a proven explanation for Licari’s conduct. The documentary presents Licari as an unreliable narrator whose account must be weighed against the victims’ experiences, the digital evidence, police footage, investigative findings, and the criminal case.
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The documentary is available to watch and download offline through Netflix’s U.S. title listing. Netflix classifies it as a 2025 TV-MA documentary. The listing includes English original audio, audio description, additional audio options, and subtitles.
A U.S. availability check dated July 27, 2026 reported the film on Netflix and Netflix Standard with Ads, with no free streaming option identified at that time. Streaming catalogs and plan availability vary by country and can change, so readers outside the United States should check their local Netflix catalog before relying on that information.
There was no verified physical DVD or Blu-ray release, official tie-in book, or official merchandise identified in the available research. Unofficial search-result speculation about a future disc release is not evidence of an announced release and should not be treated as one.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What is fact, and what is interpretation?
The core facts are unusually clear: teenagers in Beal City received anonymous and increasingly abusive messages; the campaign lasted about 15 months after resuming in September 2021; investigators used digital evidence to identify Kendra Licari; Licari pleaded guilty to two stalking-of-a-minor counts; and she was sentenced to 19 months to five years in prison.
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The documentary’s interpretation concerns motive, family dynamics, and the psychological meaning of the conduct. Borgman’s comments about possible Munchausen-by-proxy-like elements help explain the questions the film raises, but they do not establish a diagnosis. Similarly, Licari’s own explanations are part of the documentary’s perspective, not a substitute for the evidence or the court outcome.
That distinction is what makes Unknown Number: The High School Catfish more than a story about uncovering an anonymous texter. It is a documentary about how digital abuse can exploit intimate knowledge, how suspicion can spread when evidence is incomplete, and how identifying the perpetrator does not end the consequences for the people who were targeted.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Unknown Number: The High School Catfish based on a true story?
Yes. Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is a documentary about the real case involving Beal City teenagers Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny. It is not a dramatized fictional catfish story.
Who sent the messages in the Unknown Number case?
Investigators identified Kendra Licari, Lauryn’s mother, using digital evidence that included IP-related information connected with the messaging activity.
What sentence did Kendra Licari receive?
Licari pleaded guilty to two stalking-of-a-minor counts in March 2023. On April 26, 2023, she was sentenced to 19 months to five years in prison, with credit for time already served. Other charges were dismissed under the plea agreement.
The Bottom Line
Unknown Number: The High School Catfish tells the real Beal City, Michigan, case in which Kendra Licari pleaded guilty to stalking her daughter Lauryn and Lauryn’s boyfriend through a prolonged anonymous messaging campaign. The documentary is available on Netflix, but its most important subject is the lasting damage caused when online harassment comes from inside a family.
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