Former FBI agent reveals biggest mistake in Unknown Number: The High School Catfish case

Michael Greer, a retired FBI special agent and cybersecurity expert, has shared his professional opinion on the Unknown Number: The High School Catfish case, explaining the single biggest mistake made during the investigation into Kendra Licari. 

The new documentary has sparked a busy discussion since landing on Netflix last month, centering on the stranger-than-fiction cyberbullying case that unfolded in October 2020 in Beal City, Michigan. 

The small town was rocked when then-13-year-old Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend at the time, Owen McKenney, began receiving vile messages taunting them and their relationship. Over time, the threats escalated, ranging from sexually explicit harassment to urges to commit suicide. 

This continued on-and-off for 22 months, until eventually the FBI were able to track the IP address to an unexpected perpetrator: Lauryn’s own mother, Kendra Licari. Arguably, the case may have been solved sooner if the investigation had changed one tactic. 

The biggest mistake in Kendra Licari investigation

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The investigation initially focused on Lauryn’s peers at school, which Greer believes was a misstep. Speaking on the Reality Life with Kate Casey podcast, the retired Deputy Homeland Security Chief said Lauryn’s parents should have been ruled out first. 

While Shawn Licari wasn’t involved in the crimes, Kendra was found to be the perpetrator, but not before numerous classmates, including Khloe Wilson, were suspected and questioned. 

When asked if any aspect of the investigation stood out to him, Greer replied, “As always, when it involves teenage kids, they don’t even think about adults doing this. They just assume it’s friends and enemies that you made in school for whatever reason that are doing this activity back and forth. 

“The fact that they were able to get back to the mom’s device means that she’s not a very savvy online threat, because once the law enforcement got involved and they were able to do the legal process, they identified exactly where these were coming from. 

“And it wasn’t a very difficult case once they actually focused their attention and got legal process on the actual communications and the IP addresses.”

“I think it’s bias on the law enforcement and the parents’ part to just always assume that the teenager is wrong, and I’m probably guilty of that same bias on occasion as well,” he continued. 

“But it strikes me that they didn’t even consider just to rule the mom and dad out. The first thing you can do is rule them out real quickly by searching their IPs and making sure that’s not coming from someone within the home.”

Greer did acknowledge that “hindsight is always 20/20,” but investigators could have “easily eliminated some of the low hanging fruit by just eliminating people in the home.” 

“If you go to a crime scene where a spouse has been killed or abused or whatever, the first suspect is always the spouse, right?” he said. “You always start in the home because those are the most likely people that are going to do things like that.”

Unknown Number: The High School Catfish case could change future investigations

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Greer believes that cases such as these may set a precedent for how they’re handled in the future.

“I think as this progresses like this and you see cases more like the one you’re talking about, law enforcement might make that a standard practice, just to eliminate the family first, instead of going through hundreds and hundreds of other kids to try to figure this out,” he added. 

Finally, Greer explained how others can protect themselves from a similar situation. Firstly, he recommends heading to the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency website where there are tutorials, videos, and documents on how to keep your personal devices safe. 

“A lot of these things will prevent a lot of the online scams and a lot of the harassing and things like that if you just take a few minutes to harden up your environment,” he said. 

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If you or your child starts receiving similar texts to the messages Lauryn received, Greer said to first save every text and then take them to your school resource officer if there is one available. 

“You’ve got to start somewhere and if this isn’t resolved easily by an SRO going to another student and saying, ‘Cease and desist this behavior,’ then at least you have it on the radar and the local law enforcement can get involved,” he added.

“Once they’re involved, you can jump up again to the FBI if you need to. It opens up a lot of doors. You just got to do the official channels, which to me would be the SRO and the parents first and foremost.”

Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is streaming on Netflix now. You can also read more about Kendra Licari’s motives and the most shocking documentaries to watch on Netflix.