One unknown number. Thousands of unexpected texts. Unknown Number: The High School Catfish tells a story of what started with basic cyberbullying into a suspenseful search for a culprit.

In the newest Netflix documentary, Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, a teenage high-schooler, Lauryn, from Beal City, Michigan, faces constant internet bullying for years, targeted at both her and her boyfriend, Owen, who were only thirteen years old at the time that the bullying started.

The documentary begins with an explanation of a string of texts that both Lauryn and her boyfriend, Owen, were bombarded with for months. “Hi Lauryn, Owen is breaking up with you,” is just one of the many horrific texts Lauryn would receive from her cyberbully daily. These texts went further than just petty bullying. Many of the comments made by the cyberbully were pornographic and highly inappropriate, with direct references to Lauryn’s peers.

Throughout the film, the producers make it a point to go through the timeline and reveal all of the work that was put into finding the person who was continuously harassing both Lauryn and her boyfriend. Their parents, the school, and at one point, the FBI were involved.

Many suspects were brought in for investigation. For one, Khloe Wilson – a girl that Lauryn had issues with in the past was a big suspect in the investigation. Her devices were subpoenaed, she was questioned, and it was almost two months before they were able to come to a consensus that the culprit wasn’t Khloe. It was later revealed that the cyberbully was purposefully framing some of Lauryn’s peers to divert the attention of the investigators, as there was a location ping from Khloe’s phone during one of the spikes of cyberbullying.

The documentary featured several parties involved in the investigation. Lauryn’s mom, Kendra Licari, was one of the main people featured in the documentary. Throughout the documentary, Licari shared how she felt during the entire ordeal and her deep involvement in the investigation.

However, after a long year and a half, it was revealed that Kendra, the 45-year-old internet sleuth whose obsession with cyberbullying goes as far as bullying her own daughter, was the culprit.

Regardless of the predatory comments Licari constantly made towards her son’s teenage boyfriend, Owen, Licari was only charged with two counts of stalking a minor and two counts of communicating with another to commit a crime. She served around 19 months in prison, and since then, she has had no direct contact with her daughter, Lauryn. I think that Licari deserved more time in prison, considering the comments she made about Owen, her daughter’s boyfriend. Many of the text messages sent during the saga of cyberbullying included very explicit threats and claims about the things Licari was doing with Owen, so I believe that she deserved some charges in relation to that.

After the documentary revealed that Licari was the culprit all along, Licari came to her defense by saying things along the lines of, “everyone makes mistakes.” In my opinion, I find it outrageous that Licari’s excuse for her behavior made it seem like the things she did could be comparable to something small, like a parking ticket. 

Even after all of the horrible things her mother put her through, in the documentary, Lauryn says, “now that she’s out, I just want her to get the help she needs, so when we see each other, it doesn’t go back to the old ways and the way it was before.”

In Lauryn’s small town, Beal City, everyone was in uproar. Considering the small size of the city, most of the people who lived there all knew each other, causing Licari to be widely hated. However, there was only one person in the entire town who would be able to forgive Licari, and that was Lauryn, her daughter.

What was shocking to most was the fact that Licari agreed to participate in the documentary, making the big reveal much more surprising. I never expected that someone who committed such a horrible crime would be open to publicizing it and even be involved in a documentary about it.

For those reasons, I would give the documentary a 9/10. I believe that the way the filmmakers built up the suspense to the big reveal kept the viewers on the edge of their seats, making the situation much more interesting.