Teenager Gets Cyber-Bullied For Over a Year, Turns Out It Was Her Mom

A teenage girl in the US and her boyfriend had been receiving hundreds of derogatory and abusive texts on social media from an unknown sender. The intensity of the cyber-bullying reached an extent that the girl informed her mother, who then reported the matter to the US police.

The investigation by the police revealed that the cyber-bully was no one else but the girl’s 42-year-old mother, Kendra Gail Licari, who lives in the state of Michigan, according to a report.

The mother has been arrested and now faces multiple charges related to internet-based crimes.

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According to the report, Kendra had bullied her daughter and her boyfriend for over a year on the internet and on social media platforms. She had managed to conceal her identity by using virtual private networks that held keep a user’s coordinates incognito.

“The case reached the police in December 2021 and it was Kendra herself who lodged a report after the daughter told her about cyber-bullying, a move that she thought would not bring suspicion on herself. However, during the investigation, Kendra was exposed. Kendra even reportedly tried to frame another student for the crime while the investigation was underway, but ultimately gave in and confessed to the crime,” the report stated.

However, Kendra herself has yet to come up with an explanation for her bizarre actions. Kendra, who has been a basketball coach at her daughter’s school, faces up to 10 years in prison for the computer crimes charges, and five years for stalking and obstruction.

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Cyber-Munchausen syndrome

Isabella County prosecutor David Barberi called the case a version of ‘Cyber Munchausen’s Syndrome’.

“In a sense that this seems to be the type of behaviour where you’re making somebody feel bad or need you in their life because of this behaviour,” Barberi said.

A 2014 research by Siddhika Ayyer and Avinash De Sousa in India described ‘Cyber Munchausen syndrome ‘ is a  rare disorder where one fabricates and displays a picture of illness in the absence of a physical disorder to gain sympathy from playing the sick role. 

“In the digital era and with the advent of the internet,  anonymity online has encouraged people to  play such roles online as well,” their case study mentioned.

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