Lauryn Licari: Age, Life Now, Mom and Owen Story

Lauryn Licari is a young woman from Michigan whose teenage years were shaped by a shocking cyberstalking case. For nearly two years, she received cruel anonymous texts that seemed to come from a classmate. The sender was her own mother, Kendra Licari. Skye Borgman’s documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish brought the story to a wide audience and left many people asking how old Lauryn is, where she is now, and whether she speaks to her mom.

Lauryn Licari Biography

Who Is Lauryn Licari?

Lauryn grew up in the Beal City and Mt. Pleasant area of Michigan as the only child of Shawn and Kendra Licari. Her father worked in IT and her mother had ties to Ferris State University. Kendra also coached girls’ basketball at Lauryn’s high school and coached Lauryn in softball, so the family was well known in the community.

Lauryn was an athlete first. Softball was the main thread through her school years, and she played travel ball as well as for her school team. Before the case became public, she looked like a typical high school student with a steady boyfriend, a busy sports calendar, and supportive parents.

What stands out to me is how ordinary her life looked from the outside. Nothing about it suggested that the person hurting her sat at her own dinner table, and that gap is a big reason the story hit so hard.

Lauryn Licari Age: How Old Is She Now?

Lauryn Licari is reported to be 18 years old. Her exact date of birth is not public, so any age you see is approximate. Because she was 13 when the first suspicious texts arrived in October 2020, she was still a minor for the whole period of the harassment.

If you are searching for her age in 2025, the timeline helps. She graduated from Beal City High School in May 2025, so she was finishing high school around her 18th birthday. By the time she joined the Mid Michigan College softball roster for 2025–26, she was legally an adult.

Treat the number as a rounded figure rather than an official record. She is a private young adult, and her birthday has not been shared in the film or in the coverage around it.

Lauryn Licari and Owen McKenny: Their Relationship

Lauryn and Owen dated for about two years. He was her boyfriend during the years when the texts arrived, and he received some of the messages himself. Friends and family called her “Lo,” a nickname the anonymous sender also used to sound like someone close to her. Spelling varies across coverage, with both McKenny and McKenney appearing for his surname.

The couple split before the case was solved. By the end of the documentary, they were not in contact. Owen, described as a homecoming king at their school, graduated in May 2025, the same month Lauryn did.

Owen and his mother also raised concerns in the film about Kendra’s motives. They described her as unusually attentive to Owen, including one-on-one check-ins, attending his sporting events, and continued contact after the breakup. These are their claims as presented in the film, and Kendra was not asked to respond to them on camera.

The Anonymous Texts That Targeted Lauryn

The messages started in October 2020 and were often sent from numbers Lauryn did not recognize. The sender posed as a peer and said Owen was breaking up with her. Other texts mocked her looks and pushed her toward self-doubt, and some urged her to harm herself. Some accounts date the start to early 2021, so sources differ slightly.

After a pause, the barrage returned in September 2021. Lauryn was receiving roughly 30 to 50 texts a day. Blocking one number was pointless because new ones kept appearing. The sender also knew private details that only someone close to her would know, which is why classmates and even friends came under suspicion.

The harassment lasted around 15 months in its heaviest form, though the full span reached close to two years. Sources also disagree on whether any messages continued after the arrest, so this is one of the details worth double-checking against newer reporting.

Lauryn Licari’s Mom: Who Is Kendra Licari?

Kendra Gail Licari is Lauryn’s mother, now 45. She was arrested on December 12, 2022, and charged with two counts of stalking a minor and two counts of communicating to commit a crime. She pleaded guilty to stalking a minor, and the other charges were dropped.

She was sentenced in April 2023 to a term of at least 19 months, with a maximum of five years. She received credit for 22 days already served. She was released on August 8, 2024, after about 16 months.

Her release did not restore normal family life. She was placed on supervised release and reportedly lives with relatives near Detroit, in the Pontiac area. Reports give different end dates for her parole in 2026, and it is unclear whether she is currently employed.

How Investigators Found the Sender

The first investigation focused on classmates. Beal City Public Schools and the Isabella County Sheriff’s Office worked the case, and Sheriff Mike Main led it. When that path stalled, the FBI became involved in early 2022 and a liaison worked with a Bay City police officer, Bradley Peter, who is described as a cybercrimes expert.

The break came from tracing the technology. The texts came from an app that generated fake phone numbers, and warrants to Verizon and other sources led investigators to an IP address in the Mt. Pleasant area. A second warrant tied the activity to a phone in Kendra’s home.

One detail that puzzled the sheriff was that Kendra had checked in on the investigation’s progress. When police arrived to arrest her and seize devices, she was cooperative. Bodycam footage of that moment appears in the documentary, and Lauryn’s stunned silence is one of its most talked-about scenes.

Why Did Lauryn Licari’s Mom Do It?

There is no single confirmed motive. In an interview with detectives on August 10, 2022, Kendra said she did not send the original October 2020 texts and got caught up in them. She later acknowledged sending all of them and described a snowball effect she felt unable to stop.

Borgman has pointed to unprocessed trauma. Kendra said she was raped at 17, and the film suggests that fear may have resurfaced as Lauryn grew into a teenager. Prosecutors and school officials described it as a possible need for control, or fear of letting her only child grow up.

Some commentators have used the term “cyber Munchausen” or “Munchausen by internet.” Dr. Andrea Giedinghagen of Washington University in St. Louis noted that this is not a recognized diagnosis, and that the pattern is atypical because it involves harming another person rather than oneself. Even Kendra may not fully know why it started, so treat every explanation as speculation.

Does Lauryn Licari Talk to Her Mom?

Contact is minimal. Lauryn told Borgman that she loves her mother more than anything and remains open to a relationship in the future. She also said things cannot go back to how they were, and that she is hesitant to trust her mom again.

Her feelings shifted over time. In her first interview in spring 2023, right after Kendra went to prison, Lauryn said she missed her mom and wanted her back. By 2024 she was more measured, and at one point she had not seen her mother in a year and a half.

Parole conditions have also limited contact, and reports say Kendra has had even less contact with Lauryn since release than she did while in prison. Lauryn has said she hopes Kendra gets help and that a healthy relationship could come later, when the time is right.

Where Is Lauryn Licari Now?

Lauryn is now a college athlete. After graduating in May 2025, she joined the Mid Michigan College softball roster for the 2025–26 season as a freshman. She plays catcher and middle infield. Profiles credit her with a .333 average, a .425 on-base percentage, 21 hits, 9 RBIs, 14 runs, and a .980 fielding percentage. Available profiles do not always separate high school and college totals, so treat the numbers as approximate.

Her father has been central to this chapter. Shawn divorced Kendra and gained full custody, and Lauryn has said she is closer to him than ever. Their bond grew through everyday routines like playing catch and practicing softball. Now that she is 18, she is free to set her own terms with her parents. Reporters describe her as reflective and resilient, still carrying complicated feelings about her mother.

Lauryn Licari Instagram: What Is Publicly Known

There is no verified public Instagram account for Lauryn Licari in the information available here. Searches for her Instagram often lead to fan pages or accounts that only claim to be her. Since she is a young adult who was a victim of harassment, it is safest to assume that any unverified profile is not hers.

Her digital privacy has good reason to matter. The whole case turned on strangers using fake numbers to reach her, so people who share her details or contact her through unofficial accounts can cause real harm.

If you want reliable updates on her softball, the official college athletics roster is the best place to look. It lists confirmed information without relying on rumors from social platforms.

Public Reaction and Lessons for Parents

Reviews of the 94-minute TV-MA film are mixed. Some viewers call it a cookie-cutter true-crime special that stays on the surface, while others say it is worth watching for the interviews with teens, parents, community members, and law enforcement. Debate has also spread across Reddit and TikTok, especially over whether Kendra’s sentence was long enough.

Borgman has said she hopes the film starts conversations about technology and trust between parents and kids. The case shows that abusers do not always come from outside the home, and that a teenager receiving terrible texts every day needs to be believed. Parents can act on that by listening first and taking online threats seriously, even when the sender is unknown.

For teens, the practical takeaway is to save every message, tell a trusted adult early, and avoid assuming the sender is a specific classmate. Several students in this case lost friendships because suspicion fell on the wrong people. Careful reporting to schools and police, rather than guessing, protects everyone.

FAQs

How Old Is Lauryn Licari Now?

Lauryn Licari is reported to be 18 years old. Her exact birthday has not been made public, so the figure is approximate. She turned into an adult around the time she graduated high school in 2025.

Is Lauryn Licari Still With Owen?

No. Lauryn and Owen broke up before the case was solved, and they were not in contact by the end of the documentary. Owen graduated in May 2025, and there is no confirmed report of them reconnecting.

How Many Texts Did Lauryn Receive Each Day?

At the peak, she received about 40 to 50 texts a day from many different numbers. Earlier accounts describe 30 to 50 messages daily. Because the numbers kept changing, blocking them had almost no effect.

Did Lauryn Licari’s Parents Stay Together?

No. Shawn divorced Kendra after the case came to light, and the marriage had already been strained by financial struggles and lies. He received full custody of Lauryn, who was still a minor at the time.

Is Cyber Munchausen a Real Diagnosis?

It is not a recognized medical diagnosis. The term is used informally to describe someone causing distress to another person online to gain attention or keep them close. Experts quoted in coverage of this case said it is hard to diagnose and that any explanation for Kendra’s behavior is speculation.

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