Police were eventually able to link the messages to Licari despite her use of a VPN and the use of slang that gave the impression that her posts had been written by a teenager.
Licari allegedly reported the bullying to authorities after her daughter came to her help.
Licari even went so far as to “help” find the cyberbully who was sending up to a dozen messages a day by teaming up with the mother of her daughter’s then-boyfriend.
At first, school administrators were powerless to intervene, and local law police lacked the resources necessary to find the offender.
David Barberi, Isabella County prosecutor said to local radio station WKRC: “When the case first came into our office, it was bizarre and almost hard to believe.”
It was an ongoing abuse campaign, he said.
“We’re talking about several hundreds of text messages, over 1,000 pages of discovery in the case,” he added.
The communications were “mostly just harassing-type text messages, demeaning, demoralising, and just mean texts,” according to Barberi.
Licari broke down during questioning and confessed to the bullying campaign against the child, her daughter after computer experts from the FBI positively verified the messages as having originated from her phone.
At the time of the offences, Licari was a basketball coach at her daughter’s school, according to Beal City school superintendent William Chilman.
Licari was charged on December 12 and was later released after paying a $5,000 bail.