Her Own Mom Secretly Bullied Her Online, And The Motive Remains A Mystery
Home is supposed to be a safe place, protected from the cyberbullying that plagues our digital society today.
Yet, one Michigan mother named Kendra Gail Licari was sentenced to between 19 months and five years behind bars after harassing both her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend online for nearly two years.
Now, the shocking case has inspired “Mommy Dearest,” a Lifetime original movie set to premiere on Saturday, May 11.
Beginning in early 2021, Kendra’s teenage daughter began receiving mean text messages from an individual who was supposedly the same age as her. Soon afterward, the teen’s boyfriend started experiencing similar harassment.
Kendra’s daughter, who attended Mount Pleasant High School, informed her about the bullying, and Kendra actually reported the situation to the authorities herself. All the while, she was actually the bully hiding behind a screen.
Once the school district launched an investigation in December 2021, local law enforcement officers with the Isabella County Sheriff’s Department were called in about one month later. Then, following the exhaustion of local computer crime resources, the FBI was contacted.
At that point, Kendra’s cyberbullying came to light. The 43-year-old mother had been using a fake identity and a virtual private network (VPN) to hide her location.
Through the use of various phone numbers with different area codes, she made it seem like the messages were coming from her daughter’s friends.
Authorities only realized Kendra was responsible for the harassment after the FBI successfully locked down the IP addresses used to send the texts.
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Kendra was officially charged in 2022, and according to Isabella County Prosecutor David Barberi, there were 349 pages of evidence showing hundreds of “demeaning, demoralizing, and just mean texts.”
Kendra’s arrest warrant suggested the messages were “specific in nature,” most of which “contain hateful speech and contain language like, ‘Kill yourself…,’ A lot of the messages repeat this same language.”
“Someone else coined the term, but they called it a version of ‘cyber Munchausen’s syndrome’ in a sense that this seems to be the type of behavior where you’re making somebody feel bad or need you in their life because of this behavior,” Barberi stated.
Since Kendra confessed upon being confronted by the police, though, her case never resulted in a jury trial. Rather, she reached a plea deal, so her motive for the bullying remains a mystery, despite Barberi’s belief that Kendra wanted to feel needed by her daughter.
She pled guilty to two counts of stalking a minor, receiving a prison sentence of 19 months to five years in April 2023. The Michigan Department of Corrections website states that Kendra was paroled on August 8, 2024.
The case has been turned into a Lifetime original movie starring Lisa Rinna as a divorced high school chorus teacher named Madelyn, who’s supposed to be the fictional Kendra and feels like she’s being replaced by her daughter’s boyfriend.
Meanwhile, Briana Skye is portraying the fictional version of Kendra’s daughter, Mia, who’s being relentlessly cyberbullied as she gears up to leave for college.
In the film, Madelyn sparks an investigation into the harassment as she attempts to bring Mia closer to her again. But eventually, Madelyn is exposed as the real cyberbully.
On Saturday, May 11, “Mommy Dearest” will premiere at 8/7C and be available for streaming on MyLifetime.com the following day.
More About:True Crime
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