Viewers have been gripped by the Netflix documentary, Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, which charts the twisted tale of cyberbullying directed at Lauryn Licari – an American teenager who, in October 2020, began receiving cruel messages about her appearance – and her then-boyfriend, Owen McKenny. But they're also pointing out how one major element is pretty much left out and goes unexplored in the doc.
Over the course of 20 months, numerous names were thrown into the ring as the potential culprit, from Khloe Wilson, who attended the same school as both Lauryn and Owen, to Sophie Weber, a childhood friend of Owen's. But ultimately, it transpired that Lauryn's own mother, Kendra, was the one behind the barrage of insults and messages trying to split her and Owen up, some of which even told Lauryn she was "worthless" and "means nothing" and suggested Owen could never find her attractive because of her body type.
The pressure, sadly, ultimately did cause Lauryn and Owen to break up, and later, while in another town, Owen met a new girl, who soon texted him saying, "My mom just got a random text from someone".
In the Netflix show, Owen then reflects on how the anon notes were ruining his life, even after his break-up with Lauryn. "[I thought] here we go again, it's the same format. Telling the girl to back off of me, because I'm 'theirs'. I felt like I couldn't date anyone, it was eating me alive."
Jill McKenny, Owen's mother, also adds, "It was terrifying, knowing someone was watching him that closely and had the ability to find phone numbers."
And it's this small section of the hour and a half long documentary, in which Kendra also confesses to her crimes, is something some viewers have honed in on, saying it hugely highlights a flaw in Kendra's excuses.
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A popular Reddit thread discussing the show queried why did Kendra went "after Owen's new girlfriend, a full year after he and Lauryn broke up?", receiving thousands of upvotes in response.
"That isolated single detail proves this had absolutely nothing to do with protecting her daughter and everything to do with her own predatory obsession with Owen," they added. "Owen's mom tried to point it out, but they barely gave her a voice."
After more than a year and a half of investigating, police found a link between Kendra's IP address and the messages sent to Owen and Lauryn. Kendra was then confronted by officers at home, who seized her phone and asked if she had an infatuation with Owen, or if he treated Lauryn badly. She denied both.
"The first ones [messages] didn't start with me," Kendra soon admits on camera to a police officer. It also emerged that Kendra had been lying to her husband, Shawn, about being let go from her previous workplaces.
Later in the documentary, Kendra is seen crying and saying, "You guys are gonna think I'm a crazy lady" before trying to justify her actions by saying nobody has lived a perfect life. "Realistically, a lot of us have probably broke the law at some point or another and not got caught. I feel that people lose sight of that."
She then claims people wouldn't view her as a villain if they knew her full story, and that she only started sending follow-up texts after Lauryn initially received cruel messages around October 2020, and kept going for over a year. "I was in an awful place mentally," Kendra says, claiming she only sent the texts in a bid to try and get more information out of the teenagers in Lauryn's circle about who sent the original messages.
Lauryn also appears, describing the myriad of emotions she felt after finding out her mother was the culprit, ranging from anger to sadness to confusion.
Pointing out that Kendra also sent messages to a random, new girl Owen who had met while out of town, and who had minimal connection to Lauryn, certainly seems to go against Kendra's excuse of sending the messages to her daughter and Owen in the hopes of helping to discover 'who else' sent the first messages... Maybe there'll be a part two on Netflix that explores that.
Jennifer Savin is Cosmopolitan UK's multiple award-winning Features Editor, who was crowned Digital Journalist of the Year for her work tackling the issues most important to young women. She regularly covers breaking news, cultural trends, health, the royals and more, using her esteemed connections to access the best experts along the way. She's grilled everyone from high-profile politicians to A-list celebrities, and has sensitively interviewed hundreds of people about their real life stories. In addition to this, Jennifer is widely known for her own undercover investigations and campaign work, which includes successfully petitioning the government for change around topics like abortion rights and image-based sexual abuse. Jennifer is also a published author, documentary consultant (helping to create BBC’s Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?) and a patron for Y.E.S. (a youth services charity). Alongside Cosmopolitan, Jennifer has written for The Times, Women’s Health, ELLE and numerous other publications, appeared on podcasts, and spoken on (and hosted) panels for the Women of the World Festival, the University of Manchester and more. In her spare time, Jennifer is a big fan of lipstick, leopard print and over-ordering at dinner. Follow Jennifer on Instagram, X or LinkedIn.
