The events outlined in the Netflix documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish are undoubtedly salacious. In October 2020, Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend Owen McKenny, two teenagers in the small town of Beale City, Mich., start receiving texts from a number neither recognizes. The mysterious texter seems set on driving a wedge between the young couple—“Owen is breaking up with you; it’s obvious he wants me”—and undermining the self-esteem of Lauryn, in particular. Before long, the texts become both more frequent and more threatening. They begin to include graphic sexual language, insults about Lauryn’s body, and messages encouraging her to commit suicide.
The texts also indicate the sender is someone who knows them well, referencing events at their school, outfits Lauryn was wearing, and on one occasion, including a picture taken at Owen’s home. Lauryn and Owen’s parents become understandably alarmed, and ask school officials to investigate. Eventually they alert the local police, but as the months go by, and the mysterious sender continues to belittle and bully Lauryn, paranoia and mistrust sets in. Various suspects are suggested, most of which appear on camera. School administrators aren’t helpful, local sheriff Mike Main conducts an investigation which amounts to bringing in a bunch of teens and asking to look at their phones, which leads nowhere. Finally, after more than a year of harassment, the FBI gets involved and they are able to match an IP address with a name. It turns out, the person sending the texts was someone the viewer has heard from already: Licari’s mother, Kendra, who appears in the documentary first as a distraught parent describing the impact the texts were having on her daughter and later, after the big reveal, as the perpetrator herself, eager to prove her remorse.
There was a crime here—Kendra Licari pled guilty to two counts of stalking a minor and was sentenced to a minimum of 19 months in prison—and director Skye Borgman hits all the notes of a true crime documentary: small, idyllic town; young, innocent victims; a parade of viable suspects; and finally, the shocking reveal that tears apart the once close-knit community. The problem is that in turning this whole thing into a whodunit, Borgman loses sight of other, equally fascinating questions. Why were the adults in this community so eager to accuse various children of being responsible? Why are the adults seemingly as obsessed with the gossip happening at the local high school as their teen children? What kind of investigation did they do for over a year before finally getting a subpoena for the app that let Licari spoof all the phone numbers? Was there not a single social worker available to accompany the sheriff while they told Lauryn her mother was the one constantly sending her messages telling her to kill herself? And most importantly, could anyone please ask Kendra Licari a single follow-up question while she justifies her behavior as the result of her own trauma?
I understand why they would have so much of Unknown Number turn on the big twist. It is a wild one. But in doing so, this documentary feels like so many others in the genre, albeit with some added shock value. It would have been far more interesting, and more valuable, to actually explore what drives a woman to do this. That's the fascinating thing about this story, once you get beyond the headline-grabbing details. But by allowing various participants to float their own theories—that she was sexually fixated on the teenaged Owen, or that she suffered from “digital Munchausen’s”—and by giving Licari so much room, without any pushback, to come up with her own exculpatory explanations, the show basically throws up its hands, allowing Licari to provide her version of events without any scrutiny. Throughout Unknown Number, we watch as one adult after another fails to act responsibly. By letting Licari off the hook, the filmmakers make the same mistake.
