When Kaley Roberts joined Campfire Studios in early 2024, she worked on telling the astonishing case of Lauryn and her depraved mother Kendra Licari in “Unknown Number.” Roberts loved the idea of telling this story because it combined her two passions: social justice and telling the stories of young women.

“I read through at least a thousand pages of text. It was super depressing,” co-producer Roberts recalled. “But I wanted to help tell the full story.”

The story tracks 13-year-old Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend as they begin receiving text messages from an unknown number in October of 2020. These hateful messages, which stopped for a while, picked back up in September of 2021. The online harassment continued for 15 months. Concerned parents of the two children brought this to the school, involving the staff and police department. The anonymous sender was later revealed to be Kendra Licari, the mom of Lauryn Licari.

Soon after she was hired in January of 2024, Kaley, along with the director and co-executive producer, traveled to
Licari’s hometown of Beal City. She sat down with the families affected by this situation and listened to their vision for the documentary.

“We knew we wanted to be very compassionate towards everyone involved,” Roberts said. “Of course, in a small town, a lot of the people involved had differing opinions on what happened. We wanted to make a documentary that did justice to all those perspectives.”

Roberts created interview questions, dealt with logistics like time and location for interviews, and was present for the interviews – except for Kendra Licari. Sadly, Roberts had finalized her responsibilities on the production before the interview was to take place.

“There were several smaller moments that shifted the film, but the biggest singular moment was when Kendra agreed to an interview,” she said.

One of the main goals for the film was to portray the victims as human- especially Lauryn Licari, Kendra’s daughter.

“Lauryn is an amazing person. She’s very lovely, a little shy, quiet, talented at sports, and she just has a really nice upbeat presence,” said Roberts.

The town of Beal City is a small, close knit community. The students carried a lot of emotional weight as a result of this situation, like Lauryn’s peer, Chloe Lewis, whose reputation was heavily impacted by the judgement of her town and fellow peers. “She was really sensitive and sweet. Her true colors really came out when she talked to us, and I think that deep down she’s a really kind, forgiving person,” Roberts said.

Roberts thinks it’s important to get to know her sources as people, not only to do the full story justice, but also to tell it in a well rounded way. One scene included Lauryn and Sean hunting together – a quiet moment highlighting little characteristics contributing to Lauryn’s story. The documentary ends with comments from Lauryn about her mom. She reveals that she is still interested in having a relationship with her mom despite what had happened. Using the on-going strategy of coercive control to manipulate and dominate her daughter, Lauryn had become dependent on Kendra.

“If there’s one message I can get out, it’s that Lauryn is a victim, and victims don’t always behave logically,” Roberts said.

Kaley’s Credentials:

– Netflix’s –
Titan: The Oceangate Disaseter
Britney vs. Spears

– Nickelodeon’s –
Game Changers: Born to Dance

– HBO’s –
The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring