RedHanded the podcast jumps head first into all manner of macabre madness. She wanted to live in her little cocoon.. Then, in September 2016, the case of Lori Erica Ruff was finally solved: her real name wasKimberly McLean. In 2010, after she took her own life, secrets were revealed and the truth about her past began to unravel. Prior to that, she was known as Becky Sue Turner, an identity forged with the birth certificate of a long-dead child. [4] She also said her father was a failed stockbroker. Prior to marrying Blake, Loriwas known as Lori Erica Kennedy. 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. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices. Fitzpatrick found matching DNA records using saliva samples of Blake and Loris daughter. 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. Velling, a seasoned government sleuth, has been stumped in figuring out the true name and background of this Jane Doe, who took on aliases with spy-like sophistication. There was a successful application for a new social security number. Becky was born in one state and died in another, making it much less likely that a fraudulent use of her identity would be noticed. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Legal Statement. [1] He flew to Pennsylvania to meet the potential family. Lori didnt take this at all well. Lori Erica Ruff Kept Her Past Locked Up in a Secret Safe Blake Ruff thought he had found someone special. Image: Social Security Administration. 2021 Emash Digital & Mike Ferguson, Mike Morford. When asked about her background,Lori was guarded and evasive; she claimed her parents were dead and she had no siblings. In July 1988, she moved to Dallas, where, according to court documents, she legally changed her name to Lori Erica Kennedy. She had brown hair and hazel eyes. In a matter of months, Lori completely deteriorated. In 2010, he moved back across the state to live with his parents. Before she took her own life with a shotgun, Lori placed a pair of letters inside the car. Blake, who was close with his parents, couldn't take it anymore. After four years of attempts, miscarriages, and disappointments, the couple had a daughter. Lori attended the University of Texas regularly and graduated with a business administration degree in 1997. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Lori Erica Ruff went by many names. When Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff took her own life on Christmas Eve, 2010 in Longview, Texas, she took with her all of the secrets of her true identity. At some point in the past, Lori had been a dancer at an exclusive gentlemans club, and a post-mortem examination revealed that Lori, not Becky, had received breast implants. Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff (October 16, 1968 - December 24, 2010), was an identity thief who remained unidentified for nearly six ye Lori Erica Ruff - Top podcast episodes 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. Photo Credit: Alchetron. After she died, her ex-husband's family discovered a lockbox in a closet in her home. Blake admitted knowledge of the box. Related: Jeffrey Alan Lash: His Remarkable Mystery. [6], On December 24, 2010, Ruff's body was discovered in her car in the Ruffs' driveway, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. 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. Want more real-life mysteries? 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. Lori Erica Ruff was a secretive person. Blake had enough with her inability to get along with his family. She had ended her life with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Kimberly Maria McLean, a.k.a. 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. It was in 2010 when events finally took their toll on her. Blake Ruff has admitted that he isn't completely sure what drew him to Lori. Lori definitely was not who she portrayed herself to be, so who was she? Lori Erica Ruff. She was sending deranged emails to the Ruffs. In the days following her death, he began the grim task of sorting . Every day, stories unfold that have no resolution. During all of this, Blake continued in his efforts to pry more details from the mother of his baby. It was either she or his family, and he chose his family, Velling said. Within the next two years, she obtained the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner, a two-year-old girl who had died with her two sisters in a house fire in 1971. This has led investigators to believe that Ruff was much older than she claimed to be. McLean requested the birth certificate in Bakersfield, California, Becky Sue Turner's birthplace. According to the Seattle Times, a crowd-sourced investigation into Ruffs background began after the paper ran a story on her in 2013. Although questions about the case remain, Lori Ruff's name has now been removed from the federal government's database for missing and unidentified persons. It took hard work on the part of investigators and some unique forensic genealogy for the truth to come out. The news of Kimberlys death saddened her mother deeply. Lori Erica Ruff was a secretive person. It is one thing to suspect Lori Erica Ruff of being a simple identity thief, but it is another thing to understand why. The house belonged . 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. True identity of Lori Ruff revealed six years after she committed And, as he flipped through multiple IDs with pictures of his wife at different ages, he realized they all had different names printed on them, according to the Daily Mail. However, over time he began to get the impression that he was the only one trying to make their marriage work. Lori's behavior caused immense tensions between Lori and the Ruffs, even keeping the new grandparents from visiting their granddaughter. [7] The couple eloped in January 2004 after Nancy Ruff, Blake's mother, inquired about placing a wedding announcement in the local newspaper. On December 24, 2010, the body of Lori Erica Ruff was found in her car parked in the driveway of the Ruff family's Texas home. However, it was written on hotel stationery from Bangkok, Thailand. The pair set up a home together and tried to start a family. Lori Erica Ruff - identity SOLVED? 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. [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. Ruff gradually acquired more documents in her new name, including a Social Security number. [5], From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core, "Three years after Texas woman's suicide, a question lingers: Who was she? The harassment was so severe that the Ruffs were planning to file a cease and desist order just before Lori's death. Many of these sessions tended to feature increasingly strange behavior on her part. Although she left notes for her husband and her daughter, they didn't provide any clues. She must now fight to clear her name and figure out who betrayed her husband. Copyright 2023 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Who was she? Market data provided by Factset. Related: The Strange Case of the Isdal Woman. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious Lori Erica Ruff. 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. Eager to meet her, the family invited her to lunch. 1,529 likes. Historic Mysteries is an Amazon Associate and earns from qualifying purchases. She left behind an 11-page suicide note but apparently no clue that she had lived a secret life. The grieving husbandrecognized the box. She began to lose weight and attended counseling sessions held at the local church. [3], In 2003, she met Blake Ruff, the son of a well-established family in East Texas,[2][3] in a Bible study class. Due to her off-putting[opinion][clarification needed], secretive[citation needed] behavior, she clashed with her husband's family, and her marriage eventually collapsed. They believed she fled because she did not like her mothers new husband. After she died, her ex-husband's family discovered a lockbox in a closet in her home. For several years, nobody suspected anything. He filed for divorce a short time later. 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. Accept Read More, Jeffrey Alan Lash: His Remarkable Mystery. Lori Erica Ruff was a secretive person. According to the Seattle Times , a crowd-sourced investigation into Ruff's background began after the paper ran . Interesting history topics are just a click away. Before 1988, Lori Erica Kennedy simply did not exist. [3], Ruff was incredibly overprotective of her daughter, often refusing to let anyone else hold her, which angered her husband's family. I find her case fascinating, especially in a post-9/11 world where there are so many avenues for identifying individuals. By continuing to browse, you accept the use of cookies and other technologies. Ordinary people who do unthinkable thingsThe Minds of Madness is a True Crime Podcast that examines the most disturbing criminal minds and the impact violent crimes have on survivors of homicide. Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff, was an American identity thief who remained unidentified for nearly six years after her death. The truth of Ruff's deception only came to light after she committed suicide, and some determined investigators began looking into . The trail leading backwards was in the forbidden lockbox. "True identity of Lori Ruff revealed six years after she committed suicide", "After 30 Years, Lori Ruff's True Identity Finally Revealed", "5 Creepy-As-Hell Stories Of Real People With No Identity", "She stole another's identity, and took her secret to the grave. That created a lot of heartburn for the family.. And, why had she changed her identity and hid her past from those closest to her? Shortly after marrying Ruff, Jane Doe tried repeatedly to conceive a child of her own with much difficulty, according to Velling. Who Was Lori Ruff: DNA Evidence Sheds Light on Texas Mystery Woman Also found in the lock box was a paper with several seemingly random scribblings.[6]. 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. But it wasn't until Lori ended her life on Christmas Eve that the Ruffs would get answers. 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. Or, Becky Sue Turner? Investigation Discovery's ' Where Murder Lies: The Girl in the Lockbox' chronicles the story behind Lori Ruff's past. 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. 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. They tried several times to have a child, but had trouble conceiving and suffered multiple miscarriages. She arrived at this identity by way of a girl named Becky Sue Turner. After they married, Lori and Blake moved across the state from his parents, and they tried to have a child almost immediately. Trophy Wife: Dirigido por Christian Sesma. [3], The suicide notes were quickly determined to be incoherent ramblings that offered no clues to Ruff's identity. 2010 42- , . 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. In 2010, after she took her own life, secrets were revealed and the truth about her past began to unravel. In July 1988, she moved to Dallas, where, according to court documents, she legally changed her name to Lori Erica Kennedy. When contacted, however, Perkins stated that he had never heard of Becky Sue Turner or Lori Kennedy. The mystery surrounding Jane Does identity begins in May 1988, when the unknown woman requested the Bakersfield, Calif., birth certificate of a 2-year-old girl, Becky Sue Turner, who died in a 1971 house fire in Fife, Wash., Velling said. 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. Marriage is a sacred act between two people that care deeply for one another. He noticed the car and called the police. Criminology: Lori Erica Ruff on Apple Podcasts This was very sophisticated, Velling said. Investigators wondered if she had been a KGB agent, or if she had been in the military and gone AWOL. Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff, was an American identity thief who remained unidentified for nearly six years after her death. Why had Lori begun behaving so erratically? To give you the best possible experience, this site uses cookies. In September 2011 the Ruff family, with the help of a congressional aide, sought the help of Joe Velling, an investigator for the Social Security Administration (SSA). Also found in the lockbox was a paper with several seemingly random scribblings. Although Blakes family was suspicious of Lori from the beginning, Blake himself was very much in love. She then moved to Idaho and obtained a driver's license using Becky's birth certificate, according to news.com.au. Within the next two years, she . When given the chance for an extravagant and lavish wedding day to remember, Lori declined the offer. Police also found a curious letter within the safe. 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.Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious Lori Erica Ruff. Review our. How had their marriage fallen apart? Find a Grave Lori Erica Ruff The Generation Why Podcast. And, with the child, Lori's behavior became even more erratic. In 2010, after she took her own life, secrets were revealed and the truth about her past began to unravel. Investigators then began to search of hertrue identitya process that would take six years to complete. Jane Doe had a simple narrative and stuck to it: She was the only child of a failed stockbroker and his wife, who both died. McLean also asked them not to come after her. 2021 Wondery LLC. However, several weeks after getting the new identification, Becky legally changed her identity to Lori Erica Kennedy in Dallas. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. After several months living as Becky Sue Turner, she legally changed her name to Lori Kennedy. [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]. The only person in attendance at their wedding ceremony, held in a church outside Dallas, was the officiating preacher. And she had no accent, leading Velling to believe she originally came from the Pacific Northwest or West Coast. The woman received breast implants in 1991 and claimed to have suffered from bulimia in 1990. Unfortunately, it looks like Lori took all of her secrets to the grave. 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. Lori Ruffs handwritten notes. El Caso de Lori Erica Ruff -Documental Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/HypnosMorfeoPaginaoficial/?fref=ts Sigueme en Twitter: https://twitter.com/hypnosmo. The contents of this safe put into sharp focus everything that Blake thought he knew about Lori Kennedy. 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. 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 . Lori Erica Ruff - Top podcast episodes 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. [1] Despite the questions Blake's family had about Lori, the couple married in January 2004. Velling agreed to help identify her as a case of identify theft. Her student loan applications listed three references, one of whom was a former classmate she had briefly dated. We now need to revise that list to seven, since one of those mysteries has now been solved. And why didn't she see any other option but to end her own life? She refused to let other people hold the child and was overly protective, even for a first-time mother. She had told him she was from Arizona, that both her parents were dead, that she had had an unhappy childhood, and that she had no siblings; she also said her father had been a failed stockbroker. Follow along with 48 Hours every week as award-winning CBS News correspondents investigate the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience. They then discovered the lock box in a closet, pried it open with a screwdriver, and discovered the documentation of Ruff's past. The request was made in Bakersfield, California. She became distressed due to her parents divorce. Was she Lori Erica Ruff? Authorities believe she initially traveled to the home with the intent of harming the family.[6]. It's the best podcast app and works on Android, iPhone, and the web. 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. [8] Other papers included the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner and a judge's ruling granting a name change to Lori Erica Kennedy. By changing her name, she created a clean identity a person with no past.. 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. The tension between the Ruffs continued to grow as the new grandparents were rebuffed from visits. Lori Erica Ruff was the alias of an unidentified American woman and identity thief who committed suicide on December 24, 2010 in Longview, Texas.After she died, her ex-husband's family discovered a lockbox in a closet in her home. Hair pulled from the woman's head had skin on it that helped forensic investigators learn she had one of the genes associated with coronary artery disease. It is generally believed that a new identity was already being considered either for herself or others. 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 Wiki & Bio - everipedia.org Pic credit: Family pic. Lori Erica Ruff was the alias of an unidentified American woman and identity thief who committed suicide on December 24, 2010 in Longview, Texas. She was overly protective, and she refused to let other people hold their daughter. So, it was granted without question. ", "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. Whomever she was, the woman Blake knew as Lori Ruff was not who she claimed to be. Market data provided by Factset. Whatever the motivation behind one man entering wedlock to one woman, both parties usually do know each other intimately. 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. She was very private and didn't open to people about her past. The harassment was so severe that the Ruffs filed a cease and desist order just before Lori's death. They separated, but on Christmas Eve, 2010, the woman everyone knew as Lori Erica Ruff pulled into the driveway of the Ruff family home and shot herself. They tried several times to have a child, but she had trouble conceiving and suffered multiple miscarriages. ", "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. She was above average height at 5feet 10inches (1.78m) tall, and weighed 160 pounds (73kg). Lori Erica Ruff - Wikipedia Kimberly Maria McLean, a.k.a. Where is the Body of the Legendary King Gorm of Denmark. Lori and Blake tried to have a child almost immediately after they were married, but found themselves experiencing fertility issues. IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. Host Charlie brings in appropriate historic and cultural context to look beyond what happened and consider why it happened. The family members identified the picture of the mystery woman as Kimberly Mclean. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. If you can never get enough true crime Congratulations, youve found your people. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Included among theitems was a sealed lockbox buried deep in Loriscloset. The Bat Bombs of WWII: Presidentially Approved, Totally Anna Anderson: Imposter of Duchess Anastasia, End of the World Predictions that Never Happened. Blake's parents were suspicious of Lori right from the beginning. A friend of the family verified that Becky Sue Turner had died in a house fire at the age of 2. Henceforth, Lori would be known as Lori Erica Ruff. When a woman known as Lori Erica Ruff died in Texas three years ago, she left behind a mystery that has investigators baffled. She was never too keen to go into further detail. 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. Blake did learn that Lori was born somewhere in Arizona. (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.) 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.' Dismayed by having to move and attend a new school, she told Deanne shed be leaving for good. His letter contained pages of incoherent rambling. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. This led investigators to believe that Ruff was older than she claimed, although the difference turned out to be less than a year. Be the first to contribute! Lori would also spend time fidgeting and stare at the palms and back of her hands. [1] She eventually graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1997, with a degree in Business Administration. She wasnt Lori Erica Ruffshe was a Pennsylvania woman named Kimberly McLean. 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. In life, Lori hadwarnedhimto stay away from it. Lori Ruff & The Dark Secret She Hid From Everyone - YouTube 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. They looked for signs of gambling addiction and sex trafficking. Hosts Mike Ferguson and Mike Gibson guide you through the most interesting true crime stories. The tall and slender brunette met Ruff at a bible study group and introduced herself as Lori Kennedy. The response? The letter failed to mention crucial details such what was her role and responsibilities. "My God, that's Kimberly!," one Pennsylvania relative exclaimed, the Seattle Times reported. Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher. The woman told doctors in 2005 that she was 35 a claim Velling doubts. All rights reserved. 2009-2021 Historic Mysteries. And when he asked her to marry him in 2004, she said yes, but insisted on no announcement in the newspaper, and wanted a wedding where only the minister was present. 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. After some failed marriage therapy meetings, Blake Ruff moved back to his parents' house in Longview and filed for divorce, leaving Lori with their daughter in Leonard. It had the instructions to open on her 18th birthday. Days later, she applied for and received a Social Security number - a. 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.Join Mike and . He found a birth certificate for one person that wasn't her. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! Apparently, after Becky Sue Turner perished, a woman turned up and requested a copy of the birth certificate. I think she was born sometime between 1960 and 1968., Records gathered by Velling provide tantalizing clues. NY Daily News With each question she asked, Lori deflected, the Seattle Times reported. After her death, Lori's husband found a lockbox with papers inside that shed light on his wife's past. [1][10] Fitzpatrick had Ruff's husband and daughter tested by a direct-to-consumer testing company, through which she was able to obtain Ruff's DNA results using genetic genealogy phasing techniques, which essentially subtracted Blake Ruff's DNA from Lori's.
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