Erica Kelley is a native Tennessean exploring historical and contemporary true crime in the South. Everyone in Dallas has an accent and she did not. She was eventually identified as a native. They tried several times to have a child, but had trouble conceiving and suffered multiple miscarriages. After marrying, the couple moved away from the senior Ruffs, who lived in eastern Texas, settling in Leonard, Texas, in the southwestern region. Or, Becky Sue Turner? [6] The article was subsequently republished in numerous newspapers around the world. Investigation Discovery's ' Where Murder Lies: The Girl in the Lockbox' chronicles the story behind Lori Ruff's past. Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. [1] Velling approached a relative, who immediately identified the deceased Lori Ruff as Kimberly McLean.[1]. Years later, in the life she created with Ruff, tensions between the Verizon account manager and the wife he never really knew eventually reached a breaking point. I also want to get the Early Bird Books newsletter featuring great deals on ebooks. However, several weeks after getting the new identification, Becky legally changed her identity to Lori Erica Kennedy in Dallas. Sign up for The Lineup's newsletter, and receive our eeriest cases delivered straight to your inbox. A neighbor recalled that she and her daughter appeared to be very thin and that Lori would often ramble incoherently about her problems. Now, as he opened it, he understood why it was forbidden territory. She received a Texas driver license in 1989 and qualified for a GED[8] the following year. By the time she married Jon Blakely Blake Ruff, of Longview, Texas, in January 2004, her phony identification was as solid as her real past was distant. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. She and her young daughter had visibly lost weight. It had the instructions to open on her 18th birthday. She was eventually identified as a native of suburban Philadelphia who left home at age 17, in the fall of 1986, because she did not get along with her mother and stepfather. All rights reserved. [6], Ruff was "extremely protective" of her daughter, often refusing to let anyone else hold her and even taking the baby with her to use the bathroom. I find her case fascinating, especially in a post-9/11 world where there are so many avenues for identifying individuals. [1] She then traveled to Idaho, where she obtained a state ID card on June 16 using the girl's birth certificate.[2]. That created a lot of heartburn for the family.. She was sending unhinged, threatening emails to the Ruffs; she and her daughter were losing weight; she even possibly tried to break into the Ruffs' home. His recollection was that she was a dancer at a Dallas-area nightclub at the time [she was attending school], Velling said. Ruff gradually acquired more documents in her new name, including a Social Security number. The tall and slender brunette met Ruff at a bible study group and introduced herself as Lori Kennedy. The house belonged . [2] The writings on the paper found in the lockbox included the scribblings "North Hollywood police", "402 months", and "Ben Perkins", who turned out to be an attorney. After following numerous leads he was stumped, and sought the help of the general public to identify her through an article published June 22, 2013, in The Seattle Times. Lori's behavior caused immense tensions between Lori and the Ruffs, even keeping the new grandparents from visiting their granddaughter. Lori's husband, Blake Ruff, was devastated. Dismayed by having to move and attend a new school, she told Deanne shed be leaving for good. Prior to that, she was known as Becky Sue Turner, an identity forged with the birth certificate of a long-dead child. She arrived at this identity by way of a girl named Becky Sue Turner. Legal Statement. The woman used the birth certificate to obtain a valid Idaho identification card under the name Becky Sue Turner, issued on June 16, 1988, and bearing the photo of Jane Doe. Related: The Strange Case of the Isdal Woman. Whomever she was, the woman Blake knew as Lori Ruff was not who she claimed to be. Different cultures define matrimony in different ways and tie the knot for various reasons. Synopsis Four years filled with miscarriages and disappointments passed. Yes! Additionally, she displayed many asocial behaviors, such as leaving social gatherings to take naps. He noticed the car and called the police. When problems became too difficult for him to continue, Blake finally accepted that their marriage wasnt working and subsequently moved out of the home they shared. Where is the Body of the Legendary King Gorm of Denmark. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. There were two other pieces of paper. [3], Ruff was incredibly overprotective of her daughter, often refusing to let anyone else hold her, which angered her husband's family. Before 1988, Lori Erica Kennedy simply did not exist. But this could have simply been a number picked for convenience purposes only. Kimberly Maria McLean, a.k.a. But to a dogged federal investigator, she is "Jane Doe," a Texas mother who killed herself three years ago in her family's driveway after spending decades using stolen identities to erase a past that remains mired in mystery. After she died, her ex-husband's family discovered a lockbox in a closet in her home. Sometime later, Blake's father left the house to pick up the paper. Last spring, we brought you 8 Mysterious People Without a Past, a list of individuals who seemed to have had much of their early existence wiped from history. She had ended her life with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. ", "Texas woman's true identity baffles ex-husband, authorities years after her suicide", "Live chat with investigator, reporter about Jane Doe case", "Mystery woman: After 30 years and a suicide, Lori Ruff's real identity emerges", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lori_Erica_Ruff&oldid=1125479355, Articles with minor POV problems from October 2022, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from October 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 4 December 2022, at 06:14. He filed for divorce a short time later. Although plenty of questions about the case still have not been answered, Lori Ruff's name was removed from the federal government's database of missing and unidentified persons. [5], From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core, "Three years after Texas woman's suicide, a question lingers: Who was she? If Lori was trying to escape her past, then it could explain her reluctance for publicity. Early on Christmas Eve, Lori drove over to the Ruff house. But nobody in the world knew Lori Erica Ruff. It outlined work that Lori had done for him until 1988. For several years, nobody suspected anything. Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff, was an American identity thief who remained unidentified for nearly six years after her death. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. 1,529 likes. Ruff's true origins remained a mystery until 2016, when her identity was confirmed using a combination of public records and direct-to-consumer autosomal SNP analysis of her husband's and daughter's DNA, leading back to the McLeanCassidy family on Philadelphia's Main Line. On the West Coast, we generally dont have a discernible accent, said Velling, a Seattle native. Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff (October 16, 1968 December 24, 2010), was an American identity thief[3] whose true identity remained unknown for nearly six years after her death. Review our. It's a big Universe full of wonders. She then moved to Idaho and procured a drivers license using the deceased girls birth certificate. Her student loan applications listed three references, one of whom was a former classmate she had briefly dated. The woman told doctors in 2005 that she was 35 a claim Velling doubts. In May 1988, McLean obtained the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner, a two-year-old girl who had died, along with two of her siblings, in a house fire in Fife, Washington in 1971. On Christmas Eve 2010, the body of 42-year-old Lori Erica Ruff was found in acar parked outside the Rufffamily home in Longview, Texas. She then moved to Idaho and obtained a driver's license using Becky's birth certificate, according to news.com.au. Lori Erica Ruff, a Texan who committed suicide in 2010 and left behind a series of puzzling documents hinting that she wasnt who her family thought she was, has now been identified. Her Idaho identification card listed her as 5 feet, 6 inches tall and her Dallas drivers license had her at 5 feet, 10 inches, but she was really somewhere in-between, Velling said. Kimberly Maria McLean, a.k.a. "My God, that's Kimberly!," one Pennsylvania relative exclaimed, the Seattle Times reported. Join us for a good mix of lesser known cases as well as our take on what we call the "Big Timers". Join Jim Clemente (former FBI profiler), Laura Richards (criminal behavioral analyst, former New Scotland Yard) and Lisa Zambetti (Casting director for CBS' Criminal Minds) as they profile behavior from real criminal cases. She wasn't Lori Erica Ruffshe was a Pennsylvania woman named Kimberly McLean. Lori Erica Ruff (2021 Podcast Episode) Plot Showing all 0 items Jump to: Summaries It looks like we don't have any Plot Summaries for this title yet. After four years of attempts, miscarriages, and disappointments, the couple had a daughter. Over time the pair grew closer and eventually, they eloped to Dallas. This led investigators to believe that Ruff was older than she claimed, although the difference turned out to be less than a year. Velling agreed to help identify her as a case of identify theft. Lori Erica Kennedy / Lori Ruff - Identified. (Perkins, who was black and who marketed his legal services to LA's African-American community, had never taken on a white client during his career.) In July 1988, she moved to Dallas, where, according to court documents, she legally changed her name to Lori Erica Kennedy. In the box a number of documents were discovered which revealed that Ruff had stolen the identity of Becky Sue Turner, a 2-year-old girl killed in a fire in 1971 in Fife, Washington, in 1988, and then changed her name to Lori Erica Kennedy. Ruffs apparent identity theft pulled in former Social Security Administration investigator Joe Velling, who hoped that publicity from the Times piece would urge amateur sleuths to provide some leads. By changing her name, she created a clean identity a person with no past.. She was never too keen to go into further detail. On Christmas Eve 2010, the body of 42-year-old Lori Erica Ruff was found in a car parked outside the Ruff family home in Longview, Texas. [6] The Ruffs opened and read the letter, but it contained only "ramblings from a clearly disturbed person" and no details about Lori's past. In 2010, a woman in Texas named Lori Ruff parked her Tahoe in the driveway of the house where her estranged husband Blake had been living since he had walked out on her after their relationship had soured. In 2010, after she took her own life, secrets were revealed and the truth about her past began to unravel. At the time, a request of this nature was hardly unusual. Such things have happened in other cases, and are often traumatic events. The response? Lori Erica Ruff. She was much older than that, he said. Blake and Lori married in 2004the only witness to their marriage was the priest. But, it didn't happen easily and it took the hard work of a number of people and a little bit of luck to learn the truth. On Christmas Eve in 2010, Lori Erica Ruff sat in her car outside her in-laws' Longview, Texas home, and ended her life with a gunshot to the head. Blake Ruff has admitted that he isn't completely sure what drew him to Lori. After some failed marriage therapy sessions, Blake Ruff moved back to his parents' house in Longview and filed for divorce, leaving Lori with their daughter in Leonard. She created a false identity for the sole purpose of getting lost in America, Velling told FoxNews.com. [3], In 2003, she met Blake Ruff, the son of a well-established family in East Texas,[2][3] in a Bible study class. Henceforth, Lori would be known as Lori Erica Ruff. She was very private and didn't open to people about her past. Signup to sync subscriptions across devices. Apparently, after Becky Sue Turner perished, a woman turned up and requested a copy of the birth certificate. In May of 2016, several commentators on the internet noticed similarities to Ruff's story and to the plot of a 1987 crime drama called Positive I.D., which was directed by a professor of film at UT Arlington. She wanted to live in her little cocoon.. Was she Lori Erica Ruff? Lori Erica Ruff was a secretive person. She would regularly be seen with her in some of her favorite tea shops. [8] Other papers included the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner and a judge's ruling granting a name change to Lori Erica Kennedy. She wasnt Lori Erica Ruffshe was a Pennsylvania woman named Kimberly McLean. There was a birth and death certificate in the box. Pic credit: Family pic. ", "Texas woman's true identity baffles ex-husband, authorities years after her suicide", "She stole another's identity, and took her secret to the grave. Southern charm is attempted but southern sass is bountiful. These secrets Lori Ruff had kept from even her husband, Blake Ruff, and his family. According to the Seattle Times, a crowd-sourced investigation into Ruffs background began after the paper ran a story on her in 2013. One was for her daughter. In 1989, her new identity was completed with a Texas drivers license. It was in 2010 when events finally took their toll on her. The truth of Ruff's deception only came to light after she committed suicide, and some determined investigators began looking into . The nature of these scribblings led some followers of the case to believe that Ruff was trying to avoid prison time, due to the references to police, a possible jail-term length, and the name of Ben Perkins, a Los Angeles attorney. Blake Ruff married the woman he had known asLori in2004. Blake admitted knowledge of the box. She enrolled at Dallas County Community College in the fall of 1990 and eventually graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with a business administration degree in 1997. "My God, thats Kimberly! The family member confirmed Ruff was actually Kimberly McLean, daughter of Deanne Cassidy and James McLean, who had run away from home in Pennsylvania at the age of 18. She began to lose weight and attended counseling sessions held at the local church. After she died, her ex-husband's family discovered a lockbox in a closet in her home. But all that he managed to discover was that Lori had something of a difficult upbringing. By continuing to browse, you accept the use of cookies and other technologies. Unresolved is an investigative and immersive look at those stories, as host Micheal Whelan tries to determine why these stories - unsolved crimes and other unexplained phenomena - have no ending. It's the best podcast app and works on Android, iPhone, and the web. This was very sophisticated, Velling said. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. So, it was granted without question. There were no dates and the letter itself was a little vague. Both fingerprints and DNA testing turned up nothing to help get to the bottom of her true identity. The house was discovered in disarray, with piles of dirty dishes, laundry, and trash stacked up around the house, as well as shredded documents and papers with incoherent scribblings on them. The investigation into her suicide hit dead end after dead end. As far as the police officers could tell, Lori never traveled abroad before 1990, as there is no passport with that name. According to Deannes brother, Tom, Kimberly grew irate after her mother and father separated in the 1980s. During all of this, Blake continued in his efforts to pry more details from the mother of his baby. Real Life is Horror. They tried several times to have a child, but she had trouble conceiving and suffered multiple miscarriages. Various identification cards of Lori Ruff (AKA: Kimberly McLean) retrieved from the Social Security Administration. [9][6], After Lori's funeral, some of the Ruffs drove to Leonard to see if they could find out more about her in her house. To her husband, she was Lori Kennedy. The news of Kimberlys death saddened her mother deeply. Interesting history topics are just a click away. After her death, her husband and his family found the evidence of her falsified identity in a lock box in her closet. [3] The fact that Ruff was able to cover up her identity so well in a time before the Internet has led to speculation that she had visited an "identity broker".[3]. It took hard work on the part of investigators and some unique forensic genealogy for the truth to come out. Or at least they should. And, why had she changed her identity and hid her past from those closest to her? After they married, Lori and Blake moved across the state from his parents, and they tried to have a child almost immediately. McLean, posing as Becky Sue Turner, then appeared before a judge in Dallas on July 5, 1988, and legally changed her name to Lori Erica Kennedy. The local police department began a routine investigation and quickly found a safe at the bottom of a closet. The pair set up a home together and tried to start a family. And she may have even attempted to break into the family's home, according to the Seattle Times. Ruff had a first cousin named Cassidy on her list of matches; however, the name was very common and the cousin was not responsive. Late in 2015, Velling received a call from a former nuclear physicist and forensic genealogist named Colleen Fitzpatrick, who had been following the case online. The Ruff family declined to comment on the story, which was first reported by the Seattle Times on Saturday. It did. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theywalkamongus. McLean used the child's birth certificate to obtain an Idaho state identification card, then moved to Texas and had her name legally changed to Lori Erica Kennedy. How had their marriage fallen apart? She told them her parents were dead and that she had no living siblings or extended family. Market data provided by Factset. About a month afterward, the certificate was used to obtain legal identification in Idaho. ", "Mystery of the woman with two names: Investigator tries to discover true identity of mother who committed suicide three years ago after husband finds evidence of a double life hidden in a lock box", List of unidentified decedents in the United States, List of unidentified decedents in California, List of unidentified murder victims in the United States, List of unidentified murder victims in California, List of unidentified murder victims in Texas, List of unidentified murder victims in New York, List of unidentified murder victims in Florida, List of unidentified murder victims in Michigan, List of unidentified murder victims in Pennsylvania, National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Lori_Erica_Ruff&oldid=718811075, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2016, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, About Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core.
How Much Of America Is Owned By China?,
Costa Rica Meditation Retreat 2022,
Ontario School Rankings Eqao,
Articles L
