Teen Discovers Anonymous Internet Bully Who Harassed Her For A Year Was Her Own Mother

Teen Discovers Anonymous Internet Bully Who Harassed Her For A Year Was Her Own Mother iStock/RapidEye | Isabella County Jail

A teenager who was harassed incessantly by an internet bully for more than a year was shocked to discover that her own mother was behind the attacks. Kendra Gail Licari, 42, of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, was finally arrested on December 12 for the cruel crime, the New York Post reports.

  1. Licari’s daughter and her boyfriend at the time were incessantly cyberbullied. They had no idea that it was the girl’s mother who was targeting them. However, it had been going on for at least a year, as a complaint was filed with Beal City Schools back in December 2021.
  2. She tried to cover her tracks. When the harassment started, Licari reported the harassment to the school, where she just so happened to work as a girls’ basketball coach. She pretended to work with school officials to discover who was behind the bullying. In reality, she was covering her tracks.
  3. The bullying didn’t happen on school grounds. However, the district eventually approached law enforcement for help and the FBI got involved in April 2022. They eventually traced the messages to Licari’s IP address despite her using a VPN to hide their origin.
  4. Licari even tried to write like a teenager. Authorities say she used slang and abbreviations to make the messages seem more believable. In total, prosecutors noted 349 pages full of harassing text and social media messages, all from Licari. When confronted, she did confess her crimes but never revealed her motivation.
  5. It’s important to remember that cyberbullying is a serious offense. While it’s terrible that it took so long to catch her, Kendra Gail Licari is now facing two counts of stalking a minor, two counts of using a computer to commit a crime, and one count of obstruction of justice. Stalking carries up to five years in prison while using a computer for criminal reasons carries up to 10 years. Hopefully, she’ll see some time behind bars for her actions. Kendra Gail Licari will appear in court on December 29.
Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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