Netflix's newest true-crime documentary, “Unknown Quantity: The Excessive College Catfish,” has viewers floored – because of a jaw-dropping reveal that nobody noticed coming.
The new documentary facilities on Beal Metropolis, Michigan, teen Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend, Owen McKenny, who out of the blue started receiving a flood of vulgar and threatening texts in 2020 and once more within the fall of 2021.
The messages, generally 50 a day, focused not solely the younger couple but additionally unfold chaos by means of their small highschool and wider neighborhood.
“Hello Lauryn, Owen is breaking apart with you,” one textual content learn. “He not likes you and hasn't preferred you for some time. It's apparent he desires me.”
Different messages have been much more obscene and sexually specific.
“We're each DTF [down to f–k],” learn one other. “He will likely be with me whereas your lonely ugly ass is alone.”
“He desires intercourse, bjs [blowjobs] n making out, he don't need ur sry ass,” adopted one other, whereas yet one more referred to Lauryn's teenage boyfriend's “d–okay n fingers n my p—y n mouth.”
Lauryn and Owen, who had dated for 2 years earlier than the mysterious texts started, in the end broke up within the hopes that the messages would cease.
However the messages continued, and the unknown bully began to get much more aggressive regardless of the highschool couple not being collectively.
“Kill your self now bitch,” the individual informed Lauryn, then 13. “His life could be higher in case you have been useless.”
“DEAD #bangbang #suicide,” they added.
At first, everybody was a suspect. Classmates and even faculty officers fell below scrutiny because the harassment escalated.
The case grew so intense that the FBI bought concerned in April 2022, utilizing cyber-forensics to trace down the offender.
That's when the surprising twist dropped: the nameless texter was Lauryn's own mother, Kendra Licari.
FBI liaison Bradley Peter found that the previous basketball coach and PTA mother had been hiding behind spoofing apps to torment her daughter for 22 months.
Physique cam footage included within the documentary captures the second police confirmed up on the Licari household's dwelling to arrest Kendra and seize her gadgets in December 2022.
Following her arrest on two counts of stalking a minor and two counts of speaking with one other to commit against the law, Kendra pleaded responsible to the 2 stalking counts, per NBC News.
She was sentenced to as much as 5 years in jail in 2023 earlier than being launched on parole final summer time. Shawn Licari, Lauryn's dad, divorced Kendra within the aftermath of her crime and gained full custody of Lauryn, in response to People.
“Realistically, a number of us have in all probability damaged the legislation in some unspecified time in the future or one other and never gotten caught,” Kendra says within the documentary, which was filmed following her launch. “I'm positive individuals drove drunk, haven't been caught.”
Moreover, Kendra argued that her conduct stemmed from being raped at 17 and by no means processing that trauma.
“As my daughter was hitting these teenage years, I bought scared,” she defined. “I used to be afraid of letting her develop up, wished to guard her and preserve her secure.”
“I used to be not fearful of her hurting herself,” she added as to why she informed her daughter to kill herself a number of completely different occasions.
As for Lauryn, she didn't imagine at first that her personal mom was the individual on the opposite aspect of the cellphone.
“Shock feeling became unhappy, which became mad, which became loopy,” she stated within the doc. “I don't even know the way to describe the sensation. Why would my mother do that? However like, did she actually, really do that? I can't imagine it, truthfully. I used to be simply actually confused.”
“She informed me to kill myself. It makes me really feel somewhat bit unhappy,” Lauryn added. “Why is my very own mother telling me to do this?”
“Unknown Caller” has exploded on social media since its launch on Aug. 29, and clips of the “wild” and “disgusting” reveal have thus far racked up hundreds of thousands of views throughout TikTok and Instagram.
“The truth that nobody suspected [Kendra] at first of this documentary needs to be an instance of how manipulative she is,” one individual wrote on TikTok.
“It's the truth that even after she confessed, I didn't imagine it was her,” added one other. “As a result of how can a mom try this to her personal daughter?”
“It was insane! How on the planet may you try this to your baby?!” commented a 3rd TikToker, whereas a fourth wrote, “I'm nonetheless processing this mess! My thoughts is blown & I'm indignant!”
Now, three years after the startling case got here to an in depth, Lauryn is getting ready to graduate from highschool and attend school to check criminology, per the documentary.
“She is originally of determining that she could be the one in cost, that she will make all the choices for herself and for her relationship along with her mom,” the doc's director, Skye Borgman, told Netflix's Tudum final month.
“I feel that's going to be a extremely fascinating place for Lauryn to discover,” she added.
Lauryn, now 18, additionally admitted that she hopes she and her mother can reunite “when the time is true” now that Kendra is not in jail.
“I hope me and my mother can rebuild our relationship, as a result of I really feel like I'm positively lacking part of me,” Lauryn stated. “Now that she's out, I simply need her to get the assistance that she wants, so then, after we see one another, it doesn't return to the previous methods and the way it was earlier than.”
“Being with out that relationship I feel is actually hurting me, and I feel rebuilding our relationship will assist each of us lots. I like her greater than something,” she added.
However as for Lauryn and Owen, the previous couple have stopped talking within the wake of the wild stalking scandal.
“I see him within the hallways and stuff, however we don't actually have interactions in any respect,” Lauryn shared.
“I used to be mad at Lauryn,” Owen added. “I don't assume I'll speak to her sooner or later.”
