A Michigan teenager and her boyfriend endured nearly two years of relentless cyberbullying—only to discover the tormentor was her own mother.

Lauryn Licari and boyfriend Owen McKenny were just 13 when anonymous texts began. The cruel messages claimed Owen was cheating, mocked Lauryn’s looks, and even urged her to kill herself. “I was in a bad mental state,” Lauryn admitted.

The harassment grew so severe that police and even the FBI joined the case. After months of searching, investigators traced the texts back to Lauryn’s mother, Kendra Licari. Shockingly, she confessed to sending thousands of messages, sometimes spending up to eight hours a day harassing her daughter. “I let it consume me,” Kendra later said.

Kendra was sentenced to up to five years in prison. Owen described the betrayal: “How could a mom do such a thing?” Despite the trauma, Lauryn—now in college—says she still hopes to rebuild a relationship with her mother someday.

This disturbing case raises a painful question: how far can betrayal go within a family?