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.
The Generation Why Podcast: Lori Erica Ruff on Apple Podcasts Everyone in Dallas has an accent and she did not. Related: A Killer Calls: The Unsolved Murder of Dorothy Jane Scott. Lori Erica Ruff - identity SOLVED? 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Lori Erica Ruff was a secretive person. Yes! In 2010, he moved back across the state to live with his parents.
Lori Erica Ruff (Podcast Episode 2021) - Plot Summary - IMDb Legal Statement. According to the Seattle Times, a crowd-sourced investigation into Ruffs background began after the paper ran a story on her in 2013. In the days following her death, he began the grim task of sorting . [1] He flew to Pennsylvania to meet the potential family. And why didn't she see any other option but to end her own life? 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. 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.
Lori Erica Ruff and Her Various Identities - Historic Mysteries She was very private and didn't open to people about her past. True Crime. 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. Then, in September 2016, the case of Lori Erica Ruff was finally solved: her real name wasKimberly McLean. 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. She was much older than that, he said. Sometime later, Blake's father left the house to pick up the paper. Lori began to complain to Blake about his parents whenever she was even mildly inconvenienced. A neighbor recalled that she and her daughter appeared to be undernourished and that Lori would often ramble incoherently to herself while pacing back and forth outside. [8] She would also obsessively track the Ruffs' family history and try to find out their family recipes, but she still refused to talk about her own past.
Who Was Lori Ruff: DNA Evidence Sheds Light on Texas Mystery Woman [8] Other papers included the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner and a judge's ruling granting a name change to Lori Erica Kennedy. If Lori was trying to escape her past, then it could explain her reluctance for publicity. But it wasn't until Lori ended her life on Christmas Eve that the Ruffs would get answers. Host Charlie brings in appropriate historic and cultural context to look beyond what happened and consider why it happened. 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. Included among theitems was a sealed lockbox buried deep in Loriscloset. And when asked about her days in high school, she said she skipped it and went straight to college. She didnt even allow the publication of the announcement of their nuptials in the local newspaper either. Fitzpatrick found matching DNA records using saliva samples of Blake and Loris daughter. 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. 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. But this could have simply been a number picked for convenience purposes only. On the West Coast, we generally dont have a discernible accent, said Velling, a Seattle native.
The pair set up a home together and tried to start a family. She and her young daughter had visibly lost weight. Legal Statement. 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. 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. 2021 Emash Digital & Mike Ferguson, Mike Morford. The Bat Bombs of WWII: Presidentially Approved, Totally Anna Anderson: Imposter of Duchess Anastasia, End of the World Predictions that Never Happened. She left behind an 11-page suicide note but apparently no clue that she had lived a secret life. It was in 2010 when events finally took their toll on her. She was sending deranged emails to the Ruffs. It had the instructions to open on her 18th birthday.
The Strange Life and Death of Lori Erica Ruff Shewas an accomplished identity thief. Mother and child spent a lot of time together, which is normal for such a doting mother. 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. In addition, there were no matches for the woman in any existing fingerprint and facial recognition databases.
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. 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.
Lori Erica Ruff: The Perplexing Mystery of the Woman - The Lineup After Lori Erica Ruff's death, Blake Ruff realized his wife was a complete stranger. 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 also took a birth date of July 18, 1969.
El Sorprendente Caso de Lori Erica Ruff -Documental - YouTube Investigation Discovery's ' Where Murder Lies: The Girl in the Lockbox' chronicles the story behind Lori Ruff's past. 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. The truth of Ruff's deception only came to light after she committed suicide, and some determined investigators began looking into . She told them her parents were dead and that she had no living siblings or extended family. Synopsis Market data provided by Factset. Lori Erica Ruff was the alias of an unidentified American woman and identity thief who committed suicide on December 24, 2010 in Longview, Texas. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. She died by suicide in the driveway of her former in-laws' home in Longview, Texas, on Christmas Eve 2010. Hosts Mike Ferguson and Mike Gibson guide you through the most interesting true crime stories. A week later, she obtained a Social Security number, removing traces of her true identity. Early on Christmas Eve, Lori drove over to the Ruff house. It was under this new assumed name that sheeventually moved to the Dallas area, where she met andmarried Blake Ruff. When he returned to his parents, he filed for a divorce. As far as the authorities were concerned, once Blake called them in, she was an identity thief now given the name "Jane Doe.". Blake Ruff married the woman he had known asLori in2004. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. She had brown hair and hazel eyes. Shortly after marrying Ruff, Jane Doe tried repeatedly to conceive a child of her own with much difficulty, according to Velling. She was above average height at 5feet 10inches (1.78m) tall, and weighed 160 pounds (73kg). IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. This page was last modified on 5 May 2016, at 17:33. 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.
Ruff described her as being incredibly secretive, particularly regarding her past. [1] She then traveled to Idaho, where she obtained a state ID card on June 16 using the girl's birth certificate.[2]. [1] After two years, Fitzpatrick finally identified Ruff when she discovered a third cousin match who was related to the Cassidys. Ruff did his best to find out as much about his new partner as he could. She was very private and didn't open to people about her past. Blake's parents were suspicious of Lori right from the beginning. The contents of this safe put into sharp focus everything that Blake thought he knew about Lori Kennedy.
"Criminology" Lori Erica Ruff (Podcast Episode 2021) - IMDb I also want to get the Early Bird Books newsletter featuring great deals on ebooks. ", "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. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. It's the best podcast app and works on Android, iPhone, and the web. For the next couple of years, Blake worked on all aspects of the marriage. Before she took her own life with a shotgun, Lori placed a pair of letters inside the car. Lori Erica Ruff. After marrying, the couple moved away from the senior Ruffs, who lived in eastern Texas, settling in Leonard, Texas, in the southwestern region. Prior to that, she was known as Becky Sue Turner, an identity forged with the birth certificate of a long-dead child. [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. [1] Velling approached a relative, who immediately identified the deceased Lori Ruff as Kimberly McLean.[1]. Con Erica Peeples, Tiffany Black, Sean Patrick Thomas, Chris Sakyi. All rights reserved. Apparently, after Becky Sue Turner perished, a woman turned up and requested a copy of the birth certificate.
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 the help of investigator Joe Velling, he traced the DNA to a family in Pennsylvania. They tried several times to have a child, but had trouble conceiving and suffered multiple miscarriages. But nobody in the world knew Lori Erica Ruff. It was signed by a man called Roger Steinbeck. She obtained this identity via a girl named Becky Sue Turner, who died in 1971 in a house fire near Seattle, Washington. 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. They then discovered the lock box in a closet, pried it open with a screwdriver, and discovered the documentation of Ruff's past. 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. When Blake met Lori, she went by the name of "Lori Erica Kennedy." Signup to sync subscriptions across devices. There were two other pieces of paper. NY Daily News Lori Erica Ruff's true identity was Kimberly McLean. 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.' Hosted on Acast. [3], In 2003, she met Blake Ruff, the son of a well-established family in East Texas,[2][3] in a Bible study class. The other had dates and the letters D and M on it. By the time Blake Ruff's wife died, he realized he didn't know her at all. She arrived at this identity by way of a girl named Becky Sue Turner. They married and had a daughter together. 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. Blake, who was close with his parents, couldn't take it anymore. After she died, her ex-husband's family discovered a lockbox in a closet in her home. But Blake was in love. The investigation into her suicide hit dead end after dead end. Many of these sessions tended to feature increasingly strange behavior on her part. Or, Lori Erika Kennedy? 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. 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.