This is a true crime podcast that spares none of the details and delves into what makes these killers tick. Why had Lori begun behaving so erratically? This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Blake had enough with her inability to get along with his family. I find her case fascinating, especially in a post-9/11 world where there are so many avenues for identifying individuals. It was either she or his family, and he chose his family, Velling said. Both fingerprints and DNA testing turned up nothing to help get to the bottom of her true identity. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! All rights reserved. A 2013 Seattle Times feature article about the case was published in news outlets around the world and created enormous interest in the online "websleuth" community. In his spare time he enjoys astronomy and Xboxing. Ruff described her as being incredibly secretive, particularly regarding her past. And, why had she changed her identity and hid her past from those closest to her?You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminologyAn Emash Digital productionLearn more about your ad choices. Image: Social Security Administration. She was very private and didn't open to people about her past. "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. Prior to that, she was known as Becky Sue Turner, an identity forged with the birth certificate of a long-dead child. They married and had a daughter together. When asked about her background,Lori was guarded and evasive; she claimed her parents were dead and she had no siblings. So, join us, plug in, sit back and prepare for scares. And she did it all pre-InternetShe may have done this on her own, but its possible she sought out one of these identity brokers.. To her husband, she was Lori Kennedy. 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. The woman told doctors in 2005 that she was 35 a claim Velling doubts. In July 1988, she moved to Dallas, where, according to court documents, she legally changed her name to Lori Erica Kennedy. She was much older than that, he said. Although Blakes family was suspicious of Lori from the beginning, Blake himself was very much in love. [4] She also said her father was a failed stockbroker. Lori and Blake tried to have a child almost immediately after they were married, but found themselves experiencing fertility issues. [6] The article was subsequently republished in numerous newspapers around the world. Lori acquired Turner's birth certificate in 1988, a time when you could just send a letter requesting a birth certificate with little resistance. Eager to meet her, the family invited her to lunch. There were no dates and the letter itself was a little vague. 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. One of these had notes written and a collection of phone numbers and names. After several months living as Becky Sue Turner, she legally changed her name to Lori Kennedy. After several miscarriages, the couple finally had a daughter in 2008. Her student loan applications listed three references, one of whom was a former classmate she had briefly dated. One was for her daughter. Blake, who was close with his parents, couldn't take it anymore. [8], In the months between the separation and Lori's suicide, she behaved very erratically. Market data provided by Factset. Papers belonging to Ruff, who had been married with a child, surfaced after her suicide indicating she had once been known as Lori Kennedy, and prior to that, as Becky Sue Turner, the name of a young girl who had died in a Washington state fire in 1971. Perhaps because of these miscarriages, Lori was ultra-protective of her daughter. [2] She would also obsessively track the Ruffs' family history and try to find out their family recipes, but still refused to talk about her past. The writings on the paper found in the lock box included the scribblings "North Hollywood police," "402 months," and "Ben Perkins." Ruff did his best to find out as much about his new partner as he could. After her death, Lori's husband found a lockbox with papers inside that shed light on his wife's past. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. She created a false identity for the sole purpose of getting lost in America, Velling told FoxNews.com. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. [2], In the months between the separation and Lori's suicide, she behaved very erratically. These secrets Lori Ruff had kept from even her husband, Blake Ruff, and his family. According to Deannes brother, Tom, Kimberly grew irate after her mother and father separated in the 1980s. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Plot Summary submission guide. It's not exactly clear why Kimberly McLean fled (most family accounts suggest it was due to a dislike of her new stepfather), but extended family immediately recognized the woman in the investigator's photo. 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. With little to no clues about who shemight actually be, the woman once known as Lori Erica Ruffwas registered in the federal governments database of missing and unidentified persons as a Jane Doe. The local police department began a routine investigation and quickly found a safe at the bottom of a closet. | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | DMCA Notice, This website uses cookies to improve your experience. In the car were two suicide notes: One 11page note addressed to "my wonderful husband" and another addressed to her daughter, to be opened on her 18th birthday. In life, Lori hadwarnedhimto stay away from it. Anyone with credible tips on this case is urged to email this reporter at cristina.corbin@foxnews.com. She arrived at this identity by way of a girl named Becky Sue Turner. 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, As far as the authorities were concerned, once Blake called them in, she was an identity thief now given the name "Jane Doe.". She had ended her life with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. 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. Blake's parents were suspicious of Lori right from the beginning. 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. She was above average height at 5feet 10inches (1.78m) tall, and weighed 160 pounds (73kg). In the car were two suicide notes: an 11-page one addressed to "my wonderful husband" and another addressed to her daughter, to be opened on her 18th birthday. About a month afterward, the certificate was used to obtain legal identification in Idaho. 2009-2021 Historic Mysteries. She had ended her life with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. [1] She eventually gave birth to a baby girl via in-vitro fertilization in 2008. Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff (October 16, 1968 - December 24, 2010), was an American identity thief who remained unidentified for nearly six years after her death. She was never too keen to go into further detail. After she died, her ex-husband's family discovered a lockbox in a closet in her home. The nature of these scribblings has led some 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 an attorney. Sometime later, Blake's father left the house to pick up the paper. The woman received breast implants in 1991 and claimed to have suffered from bulimia in 1990. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Everyone in Dallas has an accent and she did not. She was very private and didn't open to people about her past. Different cultures define matrimony in different ways and tie the knot for various reasons. But Blake was in love. Lori acquired Becky Turners birth certificate in 1988. All of that work by the investigators traced several links back in the history of Lori Ruff's false identities, but they still didn't know who she really was. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious Lori Erica Ruff. Lori Erica Ruff - identity SOLVED? It did. The grieving husbandrecognized the box. The only person in attendance at their wedding ceremony, held in a church outside Dallas, was the officiating preacher. 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. ", "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. Lori didnt take this at all well. [5], From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core, "Three years after Texas woman's suicide, a question lingers: Who was she? Within the next two years, she obtained the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner, a 2-year-old girl who had died with her two sisters in a house fire in 1971. For two years, Social Security investigator Joseph Velling has been working to uncover the real identity of Lori Erica Ruff, who was Lori Erica Kennedy before marrying into an East Texas family in 2004. Days later, she applied for and received a Social Security number - a. Lori kept to herself, rarely speaking Finally, in 2008, the pair had a daughter, conceived with in vitro fertilization. It wasnt until the Ruffs found a safebox hidden inside their daughter-in-laws bedroom closet that showed the woman wasnt who she had claimed to be. Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff, was an American identity thief who remained unidentified for nearly six years after her death. Copyright 2023 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. On the West Coast, we generally dont have a discernible accent, said Velling, a Seattle native. Using DNA analysis from Ruff's daughter, investigators were able to trace Ruff's identity back to a family in Pennsylvania, whose teenage daughter had disappeared in 1986, per Mental Floss. [6], On December 24, 2010, Ruff's body was discovered in her car in the Ruffs' driveway, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. She told them her parents were dead and that she had no living siblings or extended family. The trail leading backwards was in the forbidden lockbox. When Lori Erica Kennedy took her own life, she left behind evidence that she'd stolen another's identity. Loris husband, Blake Ruff, was devastated. After they married, Lori and Blake moved across the state from his parents, and they tried to have a child almost immediately. Upon opening the container, Blakediscovered why: Inside was a birth certificate and IDs belonging to several different people. As Blake began the daunting task of sorting through his wife's possessions, he knew that he would have to deal with one thing that Lori had always told him he was to never touch. It took hard work on the part of investigators and some unique forensic genealogy for the truth to come out. According to the Seattle Times, a crowd-sourced investigation into Ruffs background began after the paper ran a story on her in 2013. They looked for signs of gambling addiction and sex trafficking. After she died, her ex-husband's family discovered a lockbox in a closet in her home. 2021 Emash Digital & Mike Ferguson, Mike Morford. 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. The new Mrs. Ruff was an unusually private person, particularly around her in-laws, according to Velling, special agent in charge of the Social Security Office of the Inspector General in Seattle, Wash. When people made small talk with her like asking where she went to high school she would say, 'Its none of your business.' Others, including a private detective, tasked with finding out more about her, consider that an incident in her past concerned her sufficiently to create an entirely new identity. He found a birth certificate for one person that wasn't her. A week later, she obtained a Social Security number, removing traces of her true identity. Such things have happened in other cases, and are often traumatic events. When a woman known as Lori Erica Ruff died in Texas three years ago, she left behind a mystery that has investigators baffled. There was a successful application for a new social security number. She was eventually identified as a native of suburban Philadelphia who left home at age 18, in the fall of 1986, because she did not get along with her mother and stepfather. Where Murder Lies is investigating the mysterious case of identity thief Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff, aka Kimberly Maria McLean, who, unbeknown to her husband, led a secret life for decades. She also took a birth date of July 18, 1969. In 2010, he moved back in with his parents and filed for divorce. Various identification cards of Lori Ruff (AKA: Kimberly McLean) retrieved from the Social Security Administration. The following people have been ruled out as possible identities for Ruff:[5], Ruff was a white female, who was approximately 41 to 50 years old when she committed suicide. 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. 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. 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. [1] After two years, Fitzpatrick finally identified Ruff when she discovered a third cousin match who was related to the Cassidys. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices. Image: http://reallifeishorror.blogspot.co.uk/. Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher. And, why had she changed her identity and hid her past from those closest to her? Although she left notes for her husband and her daughter, they didn't provide any clues. Synopsis Henceforth, Lori would be known as Lori Erica Ruff. Lori Erica Ruff was as evasive as she had always been but did reveal that both of her parents had passed away and that she had no living relatives. [1] He flew to Pennsylvania to meet the potential family. She received a Texas driver license in 1989 and qualified for a GED[8] the following year. The tall and slender brunette met Ruff at a bible study group and introduced herself as Lori Kennedy. Shortly after marrying Ruff, Jane Doe tried repeatedly to conceive a child of her own with much difficulty, according to Velling. In the days that followed, Blake tried to make sense of how things had gone so wrong. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theywalkamongus. 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. For several years, nobody suspected anything. Lori definitely was not who she portrayed herself to be, so who was she? Nancy said it was like that all afternoon she asked questions, and Lori provided evasive answers. She parked her car, left it running, and shot herself. Investigators then began to search of hertrue identitya process that would take six years to complete. She was overly protective, and she refused to let other people hold their daughter. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Lori left behind two suicide notes, one of which was addressed to her husband and the other to her young daughter. But to a dogged federal investigator, she is "Jane Doe," a Texas mother who killed herself three years ago in her famil. After several months living as Becky Sue Turner, she legally changed her name to Lori Kennedy and moved to the Dallas area, where she met Blake Ruff. According to the man, whom Velling did not name, Jane Doe had more problems than he could deal with.. She also began sending harassing emails to the Ruffs, created a scene at a custody exchange, and stole a set of house keys from them. Velling traveled to the city and approached a member of the Cassidy family, who saw Loris drivers license photo. We now need to revise that list to seven, since one of those mysteries has now been solved. The request was made in Bakersfield, California. 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. Lori Erica Ruff. In the box, which she told her husband never to touch, were all the documents exposing her elaborate ruse the paperwork showing the name change and the application for a Social Security number, among other receipts. Ruff's earliest known activity dates back to May 1988, when she requested the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner, a two-year-old girl who was killed, along with two of her siblings, in a house fire in Fife, Washington in 1971. Lori refused to allow anyone else to babysit her child. Based on her own research, and a DNA sample the Ruff family submitted that indicated Lori had a first cousin named Michael Cassidy, Fitzpatrick suggested Velling contact the Cassidy family in Philadelphia. Using a DNA analysis from Ruffs daughter, investigators were able to trace Ruffs identity back to a family in Pennsylvania, whose daughter had disappeared in 1986, when she was 17. It's clear that even at this time, Lori knew what she was doingBecky had been born in one state and died in another, making it far less likely that the fraudulent use of her identity would be discovered. A Net Inceptions project. Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff, was an American identity thief who remained unidentified for nearly six years after her death. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC.
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