Maybe mother doesn’t always know best…
Last week an elaborate, years-long catfishing and cyberbullying scheme finally came to a close — but the answers police got were not what anyone was expecting. Isabella County Prosecutor David Barberi broke down the case for The Morning Sun on Monday. In early 2021 Kendra Gail Licari‘s teen daughter started experiencing online bullying directed toward her and her then-boyfriend. The harassment got so bad, by December the family reported it to Beal County Schools — which is not only where the young woman attended school but ALSO her mom’s employer. Kendra was a girls’ basketball coach there at the time.
The parents of both the girl and her boyfriend cooperated with the school during the initial investigation, but any search for the source of the bullying came up empty. In January of this year, the school opted to report the incident to the police. Most of the bullying didn’t take place on the district’s property, and school devices weren’t being used — so really this was a criminal matter, not a disciplinary one. But even the threat of law enforcement didn’t stop the harassment.
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Both teens continued to be horrifically bullied, receiving thousands of texts and threatening messages between the two of them. It’s estimated sometimes the teens received up to twelve messages per day each. Just awful.
It wasn’t until the FBI got involved and started tracking IP addresses did the most shocking bit of information get uncovered — the address from which the messages were coming matched… Kendra’s. They were able to trace all of the messages back to the girl’s mom! Now she was the prime suspect in the case she reported in the first place.
Licari allegedly used special software called a “cloaker” to hide her identity so she could send these messages without being caught. She used several phone numbers and area codes, she even allegedly tried to make it look like one of her daughter’s classmates was the source of the bullying!
Prosecutor Barberi says the FBI compiled 349 PAGES worth of messages Licari had sent to her daughter and the young boy, stating “tens of thousands” of threatening texts were received in all. The time she must have spent on this… It’s unfathomable.
The malicious mom was arrested and charged with two counts of stalking a minor, two counts of using a computer to commit a crime, and a single count of obstruction of justice for the cover-up.
We’re all wondering the same thing — why!? Well, Kendra apparently confessed to everything after being arrested, but one thing she still didn’t give was a motive. Chilling. We hope the poor girl gets a better answer than the police did…
The mother was released on a $5,000 bond last week and is due back in court on December 29 to see if there’s enough evidence to proceed with a trial. She could be facing some heavy jail time if convicted, too. Using a computer to commit a crime could get her a 10-year sentence, and her other two charges could rack up five years each.
Such a wild situation and we’re left with more questions than answers… Reactions, Perezcious readers?
[Image via Columbia Pictures/Isabella County Jail]
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