A mother is being charged in an absolutely mind-boggling crime — cyberbullying children, including her own daughter.
The woman from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, is Kendra Licari. She faces five charges for allegedly sending hateful and bullying messages under a fake name and number.
The charges, which come after a yearlong investigation, include stalking a minor and obstruction of justice.
The case is incredibly shocking. An investigation was kicked off after Licari's teenage daughter and her boyfriend started getting strange messages harassing them. They turned to their school for help.
But no one ever suspected it would be coming from one of the teenager's parents. "Even when we realized that it wasn't a kid, we weren't expecting that it would be a parent," William Chilman, the superintendent of Beal City Public Schools, told Good Morning America. "When they informed us later in the spring that they were suspecting that it possibly was her, it was a shock to all of us, I think everybody involved."
According to the complaint, the messages began in early 2021. In an even more shocking twist, while the mom in question was allegedly sending the harassing messages, she was also working at her daughter's school as a basketball coach. She disguised her identity by using a special software that hid her location, prosecutors say.
She also apparently used several different numbers and area codes, and she allegedly tried to pin the origin of the messages as coming from her daughter's classmates in an extreme attempt to cover her tracks. The plot appears so out there, it's hard to even believe.
David Barberi, an Isabella County prosecuting attorney, told Good Morning America that authorities were eventually able to link the messages to Licari's IP address. According to Barberi, the case is about not just a few messages but thousands.
"We had tens of thousands of text messages, whether they were messages that were just for her daughter or some of her daughter's friends. And the digital footprint was just insane," he said.
Licari admitted to sending the messages. She has been released on a $5,000 bond.
