Kendra Licari was arrested on five felony counts after police say she harassed her own daughter, and her boyfriend, for more than a year with hateful text messages.
Police say Licari would hide her identity and location with fake IP addresses and tried to make it seem like a fellow student was sending the messages.
She was charged last week with two counts of stalking, two counts of using a computer to commit a crime and one count of obstruction of justice.
“We’re talking about several hundreds of text messages,” said David Barberi, Isabella County prosecutor. “Over 1,000 pages of discovery in the case.”
Bullies have moved from the schoolyard to the cell phone and thus following victims anywhere they go. It can be embarrassing and scary, but mental health experts say it is crucial to report any abuse early to save your own mental anguish.
“You would hope that you know the parent would be in a position where the child would feel comfortable going to the parent,” said Carla Lewis-Moore, a behavioral therapist with Prophetic Solutions Professional Counseling. “Because literally that’s what parents are there for.”
That’s what a Beal City student did after months of harassing anonymous messages. She went to her mom, who then went to the police. That mom was Licari, who is facing charges for the harassing messages.
“It’s that level of harassment, that level of consistent contact against the wishes and desires of these victims,” said Barberi, “That’s what brought it to the stalking level.”
Licari later admitted to police she sent the messages but not why. Lewis-Moore says these kinds of acts are more personal than malicious.
“On one hand, it’s a void, on another hand I think it’s some attention-seeking going on,” she said.
The unique case of a mother harassing her daughter may be a sign of trouble between them.
“Maybe it was the mom’s ploy to get her daughter to be closer to her,” said Lewis-Moore.
“They called it a version of cyber Munchausen syndrome,” said Barberi.
Lewis-Moore says another reason to report early is to break the cycle. Past trauma leads to future trauma, especially when left unchecked.
“There’s a lot of things that can happen in a person’s life, like trauma,” said Lewis-Moore. “That can alter their sense of reality and their perception of life to where they are doing things that are not rational.”
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