The director of high school Catfish about why Kendra is guilty
Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for the documentary “Unknown number: the high school Catfish““Now streaming on Netflix.
Netflix’s documentary “Unknown number: The High School Catfish” – currently number 1 on the top 10 films of the streamer – tells the disturbing story of Lauryn Licari, a teenage girl, and her boyfriend, Owen McKenny, who, after just a few months of dating, started receiving text messages from an unknown beller.
“Hello Lauryn, Owen makes it a difference,” read a text. That was followed by: “He no longer loves you and has not liked you for a while. It is clear that he wants me.”
The teenage fare, which went to a small high school in Beal City, Mich., Became on and out of cyber bullies for almost two years. At one point, 40 to 50 aggressive and threatening texts were sent every day. Even after they separated, both Licari and McKenney continued to receive cruel SMS messages of their intimidation. At one point, De Stalker, who occurred as another classmate who liked McKenney, told Licari that she should kill suicide.
The local police that by the parents of Licari and McKenny were contacted, began to interrogate their fellow schoolmates, as well as the cousin of McKenny, who up their lives. Eventually the FBI became involved and soon discovered that the perpetrator did not go to high school in Beal City. The cyberbully was not even a teenager. The perpetrator behind the non -stop intimidation and physical threats was Lauryn’s own mother, Kendra Licari.
Kendra and Lauryn Licari
Thanks to Netflix
The documentary – based on Lauren Smiley’s New York Magazine Story from January “Who was the teenage daughter of Cyberbullying Kendra Licari?” – was set up as a mystery, with the revelation that it was Lauryn’s own mother who tortured her like a gut pot. Bodycam images shown in “Unknown number: The High School Catfish” catches Kendra to hear that she is being caught and seeing her world falling apart in real time is when looking at a car accident.
Variety Speaked with “unknown number: the high school Catfish” director Skye Borgman, who recently directed “Fit for TV: The Reality of the Grade Loser” by Netflix.
You had incredible access to a large pool of people involved in this case, including Lauryn and Owen, their classmates, Owen’s parents, the police, FBI agents who worked on the case, and even Kendra Licari, who was released from prison in August 2024 after a prison sentence of 16 months. Was it a challenge to convince them all to be part of this document, and why do you think they have agreed to be in?
Everyone we spoke had such great feelings about this story. It was very immediately for them and it was very raw. So, asking them to sit down and talk to us, was really a matter of me to get their confidence and to understand why it was that they wanted to tell their story. For the most part, people just wanted to be heard, and they thought this was an important story to tell because of cyberbullying. It was incredibly traumatizing for all involved.
Thanks to Netflix
You have shown some of the texts sent, but how much did you go through during pre-production?
There were 350 pages with multiple text messages on each page. Kendra and [Owen’s mom] Jill would print them and hand them over to law enforcement. So there were thousands and thousands of texts that we went through.
During your interview with Kendra, she seemed repentant, but did you ever feel that she was doing an act?
Kendra is a bit of a mystery. I think she had a lot of time to think about what she did. She was in therapy when she was locked up and I believe she still sees a therapist. She has thought about what she did. I don’t know she has fully realized or recognized what it was that she did or why she did it. I think only Kendra could really answer that.
I would never want to show my face again if I were her. Why do you think she sat down in front of your cameras?
She was nervous about going on the camera, because just sit and telling your story is sometimes a nerve -racking thing. But she was so great and in the end she really loved the experience. At the end she said it was pretty nice. She laughed at things, and I think it was really a chance for her to think about things a little more in -depth. Every time I asked a question, she should really think about some things, and I think that was really good for her.
You have set up the doctor so that at the start of the film, when Kendra is interviewed, the audience has no idea that she is the perpetrator. She seems like a mother who went through hell. And then about halfway through the film there is the turn. Was it always the plan to make her look innocent and then make the revelation?
It was really based on her interview. We sat down and talked to her, and because of the way she had behaved in the interview and because of what we knew and what we had come to the story, we thought it was pretty accurate to record her as we did before we revealed that it was the Cyberstalking.
The Bodycam images of Kendra who was told by the police that she had been caught, and then she had to tell her daughter and husband, was complicated. Did you know that images existed when you started making this document?
We worked with law enforcement and the public prosecutor to gain access to those images, which is so telling. When we cut the film for the first time, we just played the entire Body Cam images for the very expensive. We couldn’t stop watching. We were deeply invested in seeing playing. In the end we realized that we couldn’t play it for 20 minutes.
You also directed ‘kidnapped in normal vision’, which had a good part of turns. Did you make “unknown number” reminded you of “kidnapped in sight”?
In all these stories, from “kidnapped in sight” to “unknown number”, it is the way people behave and what drives them to such behavior is probably one of the more interesting aspects of each story. There are many amazing moments, but for me it is really the behavior of the people. That is what makes it so fascinating.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
