The High School Catfish’ Netflix reveal shocks viewers

Netflix’s latest true-crime documentary, “Unknown Number: The High School Catfish,” has viewers floored – thanks to a jaw-dropping reveal that no one saw coming.

The new documentary centers on Beal City, Michigan, teen Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend, Owen McKenny, who suddenly began receiving a flood of vulgar and threatening texts in 2020 and again in the fall of 2021.

The messages, sometimes 50 a day, targeted not only the young couple but also spread chaos through their small high school and wider community.

“Hi Lauryn, Owen is breaking up with you,” one text read. “He no longer likes you and hasn’t liked you for a while. It’s obvious he wants me.”

Other messages were even more obscene and sexually explicit.

“We’re both DTF [down to f–k],” read another. “He will be with me while your lonely ugly ass is alone.”

“He wants sex, bjs [blowjobs] n making out, he don’t want ur sry ass,” followed another, while one more referred to Lauryn’s teenage boyfriend’s “d–k n fingers n my p—y n mouth.”

Lauryn and Owen, who had dated for two years before the mysterious texts began, ultimately broke up in the hopes that the messages would stop.

But the messages continued, and the unknown bully started to get even more aggressive despite the high school couple no longer being together.

“Kill yourself now bitch,” the person told Lauryn, then 13. “His life would be better if you were dead.”

“DEAD #bangbang #suicide,” they added.

At first, everyone was a suspect. Classmates and even school officials fell under scrutiny as the harassment escalated.

The case grew so intense that the FBI got involved in April 2022, using cyber-forensics to track down the culprit.

That’s when the shocking twist dropped: the anonymous texter was Lauryn’s own mother, Kendra Licari.

FBI liaison Bradley Peter discovered that the former basketball coach and PTA mom had been hiding behind spoofing apps to torment her daughter for 22 months.

Body cam footage included in the documentary captures the moment police showed up at the Licari family’s home to arrest Kendra and seize her devices in December 2022.

Following her arrest on two counts of stalking a minor and two counts of communicating with another to commit a crime, Kendra pleaded guilty to the two stalking counts, per NBC News.

She was sentenced to up to five years in prison in 2023 before being released on parole last summer. Shawn Licari, Lauryn’s dad, divorced Kendra in the aftermath of her crime and won full custody of Lauryn, according to People.

“Realistically, a lot of us have probably broken the law at some point or another and not gotten caught,” Kendra says in the documentary, which was filmed following her release. “I’m sure people drove drunk, haven’t been caught.”

Additionally, Kendra argued that her behavior stemmed from being raped at 17 and never processing that trauma.

“As my daughter was hitting those teenage years, I got scared,” she explained. “I was afraid of letting her grow up, wanted to protect her and keep her safe.”

“I was not scared of her hurting herself,” she added as to why she told her daughter to kill herself several different times.

As for Lauryn, she didn’t believe at first that her own mother was the person on the other side of the phone.

“Shock feeling turned into sad, which turned into mad, which turned into crazy,” she said in the doc. “I don’t even know how to describe the feeling. Why would my mom do this? But like, did she really, actually do this? I can’t believe it, honestly. I was just really confused.”

“She told me to kill myself. It makes me feel a little bit sad,” Lauryn added. “Why is my own mom telling me to do that?”

“Unknown Caller” has exploded on social media since its release on Aug. 29, and clips of the “wild” and “disgusting” reveal have so far racked up millions of views across TikTok and Instagram.

“The fact that no one suspected [Kendra] in the beginning of this documentary should be an example of how manipulative she is,” one person wrote on TikTok.

“It’s the fact that even after she confessed, I didn’t believe it was her,” added another. “Because how can a mother do that to her own daughter?”

“It was insane! How in the world could you do that to your child?!” commented a third TikToker, while a fourth wrote, “I’m still processing this mess! My mind is blown & I’m angry!”

Now, three years after the startling case came to a close, Lauryn is preparing to graduate from high school and attend college to study criminology, per the documentary.

“She is at the beginning of figuring out that she can be the one in charge, that she can make all the decisions for herself and for her relationship with her mother,” the doc’s director, Skye Borgman, told Netflix’s Tudum last month.

“I think that’s going to be a really interesting place for Lauryn to explore,” she added.

Lauryn, now 18, also admitted that she hopes she and her mom can reunite “when the time is right” now that Kendra is no longer in prison.

“I hope me and my mom can rebuild our relationship, because I feel like I’m definitely missing a part of me,” Lauryn said. “Now that she’s out, I just want her to get the help that she needs, so then, when we see each other, it doesn’t go back to the old ways and how it was before.”

“Being without that relationship I think is really hurting me, and I think rebuilding our relationship will help both of us a lot. I love her more than anything,” she added.

But as for Lauryn and Owen, the former couple have stopped speaking in the wake of the wild stalking scandal.

“I see him in the hallways and stuff, but we don’t really have interactions at all,” Lauryn shared.

“I was mad at Lauryn,” Owen added. “I don’t think I will talk to her in the future.”