Real story behind Unknown Number The High School Catfish: Director explains Kendra’s shocking confession about harassing daughter; said, ‘she had fun’

Also read: Unknown Number – The High School Catfish movie review: An outrageous true crime story gets peak Netflix treatment

Disturbing bodycam reveal in Netflix Doc

During the interview, the director revealed they went through over 350 pages of text, thousands in total. Despite it being such a personal and sensitive matter, Lauryn, Owen, their classmates, parents, local police, and even FBI agents agreed to share their side. Borgman said most people felt it was important to speak because of the lasting trauma of cyberbullying. But the most shocking part was Kendra herself sitting down for an interview after committing such a brutal crime against her own daughter.

When pressed on how a mother could even show her face after wrecking her daughter’s life, and whether she was truly remorseful, the director revealed that Kendra seemed nervous at first but eventually opened up. “I think that she had a lot of time to think about what she did. She was in therapy when she was incarcerated, and I believe that she’s still seeing a therapist,” Borgman said. What unsettled even the director was how, at times, Kendra laughed. She later admitted the interview felt “kind of fun,” a reaction only Kendra herself could explain. Borgman added,  “She laughed about things, and I think it was really an opportunity for her to think about things a little bit more in depth. Every time I would ask a question, she would really have to think about some things, and I think that was really good for her.”

The way the documentary is filmed feels no less than a feature thriller. It makes viewers believe Kendra is a victim, a mother frustrated with events traumatising her daughter, until the reveal. Borgman said that was intentional, given how Kendra presented herself in the interview. “We felt that it was pretty accurate to include her the way we did before we revealed that it was her who committed the cyberstalking.”

However, the most disturbing part of the documentary is when Kendra gets caught and has to confront her family. The interviewer asked the director if the team even knew such footage existed. Borgman revealed they worked closely with prosecutors and cops to get access. And once the bodycam footage played with  Kendra being told by police she’s been caught, then forced to break the news to her own daughter,  it’s impossible to look away. Borgman said that during editing, they played the entire bodycam sequence straight through. “We couldn’t stop watching it. We were deeply invested in watching it play out. But in the end, we knew we couldn’t run 20 minutes of it.”

The documentary is set in the year 2020, when Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend, Owen McKenney, started getting harassed by an unknown number. Texts such as, “Hi Lauryn, Owen is breaking up with you,” and “He hasn’t liked you for a while. It’s obvious he wants me,” kept popping up on their mobile phones. Even after they broke up, the messages didn’t stop, and some sent by Kendra to her daughter even told her she should die. For nearly two years, the couple were bombarded with dozens of such messages. Parents went to the police, who started interrogating classmates and even Owen’s cousins, but in the end, the revelations left everyone stunned.

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