Kendra Licari prosecutor reveals missing details in Unknown Number: The High School Catfish

The conversation surrounding Netflix’s Unknown Number: The High School Catfish has largely focused on Kendra Licari, but there’s plenty more to this story, as revealed by David Barberi, a prosecutor in the case.

Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is a new documentary focusing on a story first told in-depth by The Cut earlier this year: in October 2020, the small town of Beal City, Michigan, was rocked by an unexpected cyberbullying campaign. 

The phones of then-13-year-old Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend at the time, Owen McKenney, began blowing up with vile messages. The perpetrator would bully and sexually harass them over the course of 22 months, even urging Lauryn to take her own life. 

Multiple classmates of the teens were considered suspects, until the FBI tracked down the number to the most unexpected individual: Lauryn’s own mother, Kendra Licari. All of this and more is explored in the Netflix documentary. 

What’s missing in Unknown Number: The High School Catfish

However, Barberi appeared on News Nation this week to reveal what wasn’t shown: the devastating impact Kendra’s actions had on the families of the children involved, as well as the wider Beal City community. 

Barberi experienced this first hand as the former Isabella County Prosecuting Attorney, having overseen the investigation into the true crime case that revealed the anonymous texter was Lauryn’s mother. 

“I think the documentary did a very good job of capturing a lot of the graphicness of the text messages,” he told the outlet. “But I think what it came short on is really showing the impact that this had on all of the families involved.”

“It’s really hard to capture that in an hour and a half when these families dealt with this for over a year. This trauma was going on, this harassment, this constant graphic text messages that were being received by all of these individuals.”

Not only did the Licaris go through this trauma, but also Owen’s family. His mother, Jill McKenney, explains in the documentary that she even defended Kendra at first, only to discover the horrifying truth. 

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“Owen’s family went through a lot throughout this entire process and you can only imagine what it would be like to be his mother and his family having to watch their son deal with this… in school and with friends,” adds Barberi.

“Every time that they did something to try and shut it down, whether it was ‘get rid of a cell phone, get rid of a cell phone number, change your social media contacts’, they were still able to figure out who this person was and continue to harass them.”

The prosecutor went on to say that the McKenneys did a good job of being strong throughout the ordeal. “We’re really proud of their family for how they handled it, but it was really difficult for them, no question,” he explained.

Prosecutor reveals “craziest part” of Kendra Licari case

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In a separate interview on the Reality Life with Kate Casey podcast, Barberi went into further detail and revealed the “craziest part” of the case: Kendra’s reaction when she was confronted by police. 

“I think the craziest part about this is that even when she’s confronted with it, from a prosecution standpoint, normally people come in, they fall on the sword… normally from there, it’s about mitigation. You know, what are you going to do to try to improve? 

“But she just really seemed cold and callous throughout the whole process. I wouldn’t say that she was totally apathetic, but she didn’t really have a lot of emotion.

“She didn’t seem to be affected by anything that was going on. It was like she just thought she should continue to be living her life, having a relationship with her daughter and her family. And it was almost like we were just interfering with the status quo.

“Even at the end, there wasn’t any major psychological finding or any kind of intense counseling that she went through. It was like she just was going through the motions.”

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Casey raises the excuse Kendra gave in Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, where she said that part of the reason was due to a trauma response to being sexually assaulted as a teenager. 

When asked whether this appeared to be a factor, Barberi replied, “Trauma manifests in a lot of different ways. I think from my experience, this didn’t seem like an ordinary response. It certainly didn’t make sense…

“Personally, no, I didn’t really buy that as a valid reason for what happened. It seemed far more like there was something else as a motivating factor, whether it was this kind of munchausen by proxy that had been discussed, whether it was causing harm with intent to draw her daughter closer. 

“I think there was some of that for sure. I don’t think that it was a trauma-based thing. I don’t want to downplay the effects of trauma on people, but I don’t think this is a normal manifestation of how people respond to trauma, especially later in life. 

“From my perspective, it seemed a lot more like she was trying to create harm to her daughter emotionally so that she could be there as the source for comfort. And that’s kind of how we analyze it.”

Since Barberi was on the legal case, his office didn’t apply any psychological evaluation, but this was the leading theory among the prosecution team. 

He went on to emphasize the lies Kendra told about her work, and her involvement in Lauryn and Owen’s sports and school life, which indicates this idea of her obsession, deception, and need for control. 

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Barberi also revealed a detail that wasn’t shared in the Netflix documentary: when the police showed up, they found a phone hidden in a woodpile. “When she [Kendra] saw the police show up, she kind of took off and hid the phone in the woods,” he said.

He now questions why Kendra wanted to take part in Unknown Number. “I don’t know what she thought positively was going to come out of participating in this documentary… I think it just goes to show you how she likes attention.”

Barberi, who now works in criminal defense and personal injury, concluded by saying the case is “a cautionary tale of paying special attention to the people in our orbit”.

“We can’t always control what happens in the lives of other families, but we can certainly try to pay attention and open conversations where something like this could never happen again.”

Unknown Number: The High School Catfish is streaming on Netflix now. Find out if Kendra is still married to Shawn Licari, and for more true crime news, read about if the Jussie Smollett case was a hoax, Amanda Knox’s ordeal in prison, and where the Tinder Swindler is now.