#lori ruff

The peculiar case of Lori Ruff forever raises the chilling question---how well do you really know your loved ones? In 2003, Blake Ruff met Lori in a Bible study class. One of the things he noted about her was that she was extremely secretive about her past. Despite this, Blake and Lori married in early 2004 and had a baby together. Lori was described as being overly-protective of her daughter and still refused to open up about her past. After multiple failed marriage counselling sessions, Blake moved out of the family home and filed for divorce against Lori. She allegedly became erratic after this. On Christmas Eve of 2010, Lori parked in the Ruffs’ driveway and shot herself in the head. Inside the car, two suicide notes were found, but neither of them contained any details about Lori’s past, only ‘’ramblings from a clearly disturbed person’’.  After Lori’s funeral, some of the Ruffs drove over to Lori’s house to see if they could find any sort of clue about her true origins. After digging around, they discovered a lock box. Inside the lock box contained documentation papers of Lori’s past, including a birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner and a judge’s ruling allowing Becky Sue Turner to legally change her name to Lori Erica Kennedy. After investigating Becky Sue Turner, it was discovered that she was a toddler who was killed in a house fire in 1971. That’s when it dawned on them---Lori was a successful identity thief. But why? Who was she?

They hired an investigator from the Social Security Administration, but even he was unable to crack the case. But finally, six years later, the mystery was solved after a scientist found a possible cousin of Lori’s after matching records of DNA from Lori’s young daughter. The SSA investigator, who personally went to his house and showed him pictures of Lori. Immediately, the relative exclaimed, ‘’My God, that’s Kimberly!’’ According to relatives, Lori was born Kimberly McLean in 1968 in Philadelphia. When she was a teenager, her parents got a divorce and after her mother remarried, she was unable to adjust. When she was 18, she got up and left, telling her mother to never look for her. She was never seen or heard from again. 

Happy Birthday to Mike O'Neil, author "Rock the World with your Online Presence"! 2010 PODCAST INTERVIEW by Bob Andelman

MIKE O’NEIL podcast excerpt: “They don’t do a great profile before they get going. They jump in, putting in the minimal amount of information without realizing people are looking at their profile to see how worthy you are of their attention. Frankly, there’s a lot of competition for their attention. Your profile says, ‘I’m worthy of your time and attention’–or it doesn’t.”

Happy Birthday to Mike O'Neil, author "Rock the World with your Online Presence"! 2010 PODCAST INTERVIEW

MIKE O’NEIL podcast excerpt: “They don’t do a great profile before they get going. They jump in, putting in the minimal amount of information without realizing people are looking at their profile to see how worthy you are of their attention. Frankly, there’s a lot of competition for their attention. Your profile says, ‘I’m worthy of your time and attention’–or it doesn’t.”

Hey all. In my hiatus from this blog, there’s been a huge update to the Lori Ruff case, which is one of my favorite unsolved mysteries. 

For those who aren’t familiar, Lori Ruff killed herself, and the it was discovered after that she had stolen a two year old girl’s identity, who had died in a fire decades before. Since there was identity theft involved, Social Security investigator Joe Velling became interested in the case.

A woman named Colleen Fitzpatrick, who is a genealogist, was also interested in the case ]. The Ruff family had DNA samples taken from Lori’s daughter. Fitzpatick found a person who showed up as Lori’s first cousin, a man named Michael Cassidy, but with no other details. 

The trail went cold for years, but then a name of a third cousin came up, which provided clues of Lori’s family tree. Through making Lori’s family tree, Fitzpatrick came across Michael Cassidy’s name again. Through the family tree, Facebook, public records, and obituaries, Fitzpatrick put together most of the Cassidy family. By her accounts, Lori’s mom was one of Michael’s aunts. Fitzpatrick then got in contact with Velling, who believed she was onto something.

Velling went to Philadelphia in March 2016 to approach the Cassidy family. A nonspecified family member was talked to, and when shown Lori Ruff’s drivers license photo, the family member said “My God, that’s Kimberly!” The next day, Velling spoke to most of the Cassidy family and put the pieces together - it was definitely Kimberly. Her mother was Michael’s aunt, Deanne. Her father was James McLean. Through DNA testing on Deanne, Lori Ruff was confirmed to be Kimberly McLean.

Deanne refused to speak to reporters, but fielded all answers through her brother. Kimberly grew up in Philadelphia, in a secure, loving family. When Kimberly was a teenager, her parents divorced and her mother remarried. Trouble started during this time; Kimberly didn’t adjust to the divorce and the changes became overwhelming. In 1986, when Kimberly was 18, she told her mother she was leaving for good and for her not to follow her. She was never heard of from her family again. Nothing crazy or mysterious; just a normal runaway. Kimberly didn’t assume a new identity until 1988, but from the investigation, it’s been proven that she spent time in Idaho, California, and Las Vegas before moving to Texas. 

Imagine this. You get married to someone, you have a kid with them. Then your spouse dies and you found out they weren’t who you though. In fact, you have no idea who they are.

That’s what happened to Blake Ruff. He met a pretty brunette called Lori Kennedy and they fell in love. Lori seemed to have a tragic past she never wanted to talk about, and claimed she had no family. They got married in 2004 in a secret ceremony, after Lori refused to post their engagement in the newspaper as Blake’s family wanted.

After the wedding, things got complicated for the Bluffs. They tried and tried to get pregnant, suffered some miscarriages and finally managed to have a daughter through in vitro fertilization. But that made Blake’s family suspect Lori was older than she claimed.

She was very overprotective as a mother, and wouldn’t let her mother in law get close to the child. This started to cause rifts in the family relationship. Lori was also very antisocial, and she didn’t want to spend time with anyone. Blake finally had enough and by 2010 he had moved out of their house and filed for divorce.

A disturbed mind

Things only got worse after that. The Bluffs started to get threatening e-mails from Lori and one of their house keys disappeared.

On Christmas Eve of 2010, Lori drove her car to her ex parents in law’s place, parked in the driveway and shot herself. The Bluffs called the police when they saw her car, and they found her dead, with a 11 page letter for her husband and another one for her daughter, to be opened when she turned 18, in the passenger seat. According to the police report, “they were the ramblings of a clearly disturbed person.”

But that wasn’t the most shocking part of Lori’s story.

Stolen identity

After Lori’s funeral on January 2011, Blake and his family went to the woman’s house to try to find some clues that explained her behavior. Blake knew of some secret spots his wife had, and in one of them they found a box.

Inside, there was an ID with Lori’s picture, but the name Becky Sue Turner. Also, a copy of a birth certificate with the same name. Also, the name of a lawyer and a paper with the words “402 months”.

But Lori’s real name wasn’t Becky Sue Turner. Turns out that Becky was a little girl who died in a fire in 1971, at the age of 2. Somehow, Lori managed to steal her identity in 1988 and then use that to change her name to Lori Kennedy. Becky’s parents had never seen Lori before the police showed them her picture.

The attorney whose name was in Lori’s box didn’t know her either.

And that’s it. No one knows anything else. Several questions linger: Who was this woman? Why did she go that far to change her identity? Was she running from a crime or an abusive relationship? Those are the two theories investigators have, but without further clues and no one coming forward to identify her, it’s impossible to know.

Happy Birthday to LinkedIn rockstar Mike O'Neil, author of 'Rock the World with your Online Presence’!

MIKE O’NEIL AUDIO EXCERPT: “They don’t do a great profile before they get going. They jump in, putting in the minimal amount of information without realizing people are looking at their profile to see how worthy you are of their attention. Frankly, there’s a lot of competition for their attention. Your profile says, ‘I’m worthy of your time and attention’–or it doesn’t.”