#31: The Many Lives of Lori Erica Kennedy

On Christmas Eve morning, 2010, a family in East Texas makes a devastating discovery in their driveway. But the tragedy is only the beginning.

When relatives search the deceased woman's home days later, they find a locked strongbox hidden at the bottom of a craft supplies container. Inside are documents, photographs, and cryptic scraps of paper.

What follows is a years-long investigation involving a determined federal agent, cutting-edge forensic science, and thousands of amateur detectives on the internet, all trying to answer a seemingly simple question: Who was she?

The trail leads through stolen identities, falsified documents, and a woman who went to extraordinary lengths to erase every trace of her past. But the deeper question remains: Why would someone work so hard to become a ghost?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
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(00:26):
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(00:48):
Now let's get into today's case. Christmas Eve twenty ten, Longview,
East Texas. John Ruff stepped outside around sunrise to get
the newspaper. It was early, the air still cool. His son, Blake,
and two year old granddaughter were inside the house spending
the holiday with the family. As John raised the garage door,

(01:09):
he froze A black tahoe was idling in the driveway.
The motor was running inside the vehicle. Was his daughter
in law, Lorie Kennedy Roff. She was dead. John rushed
back inside and called the police. When officers arrived, they
found the tahoe still running, the driver's seat pushed back.
Inside the vehicle were practice targets and receipts for ammunition

(01:32):
dated a month earlier. There were two letters, one addressed
to my wonderful husband, the other to the couple's daughter,
to be opened on her eighteenth birthday. Laurie had taken
her own life with a self inflicted gunshot. For Blake Roff,
the death of his estranged wife was devastating. They had
separated just months earlier. The divorce had been contentious. Laurie

(01:54):
had been sending strange emails, some written to appear as
if they came from Blake himself. She had grown increasingly frantic, obsessive,
unable to focus. Now she was gone and Blake was inconsolable.
But for the Rough family, the shock of Laurie's death
was only the beginning. A few days later, Blake's brother
in law, Miles Darby, and several other family members drove

(02:17):
to Laurie and Blake's home in Leonard, Texas. They were
determined as Miles put it to scrub that house down
to see if they could find out who she was.
The family had never trusted Laurie from the moment Blake
introduced her. Something had felt off. Her stories didn't add up,
her behavior was strange. She claimed to have grown up

(02:38):
in a mansion in Scottsdale with a butler and a chauffeur,
yet her grammar and mannerisms didn't match. She said her
parents were dead, killed in a car wreck, and that
she had no living relatives. She refused to answer questions
about her past. She wore clothing that was completely out
of sink with anyone her age. At a family Thanksgiving dinner,

(02:58):
when asked what she wanted for Christmas, she requested an
easy bake oven. She was over thirty years old. The
family had urged Blake to slow down to reconsider, but
he was in love. He married her anyway less than
a year after they met. Now standing in Laurie's home,
the family began their search. They focused on areas Lorie

(03:19):
had deemed private off limits to Blake, specifically a closet
in a spare bedroom. There, they found a large banker's
box labeled crafts. Inside were some crafting materials. Tucked down
at the bottom was a fireproof strong box. Myles Darby
took a flathead screwdriver and broke it open. What they
found inside would launch an investigation that would span years,

(03:42):
cross state lines, and eventually require the cutting edge of
forensic science to solve. The Roughs were a well established

(04:19):
family in Longview, East Texas, a close knit group involved
in banking and real estate. Their roots planted during the
oil boom of the nineteen thirties. Blake Ruff, one of
identical twin brothers, had earned degrees in economics and telecom management,
and spent years working commercial accounts for Verizon. His family
described him as agreeable, honest to a fault, and notably

(04:42):
different in his mannerisms. His speech was stilted. He'd answer
questions in roundabout ways, not out of evasiveness, but because
that was simply how he communicated. Blake often followed the
lead of his twin brother, David. When David bought a
black tahoe, Blake bought one two. When David joined a
Bible study class at church and met his future wife,

(05:04):
those close to Blake knew where he was headed next.
In the early two thousands, Blake joined the singles group
at Northwest Bible Church in Dallas. It was there he
met Laurie Kennedy. Laurie was in her early thirties at
the time, tall and slim, with shoulder length dark hair.
A friend from the church, Candy, later recalled that Blake

(05:25):
was a bit nerdy and that Laurie seemed drawn to him.
Blake was content to follow Laurie around, and he appeared
to appreciate her strong personality. Laurie could be frumpy and
strident at times, but also goofy and sweet, using pet
names for Blake. When asked what attracted him to her,
Blake's answer was characteristically vague. She was tall, you know,

(05:46):
an attractive person. The relationship moved quickly. Less than a
year after meeting, in January two thousand four, they married.
When Blake announced his intention to court Lourie, his parents,
John and Nancy Ruff were taken by surprise. They invited
themselves or were invited to meet the couple for lunch.
Laurie chose a Chinese restaurant. Nancy found Laurie attractive, noting

(06:09):
her pale skin, blue eyes, and black hair, but something
was off. Laurie's clothing was, as Nancy put it, totally
out of sync with anybody else her age. When Nancy
tried to get Lourie to open up about her background,
tell us your story, Laurie had little to say. Her
parents were dead, she stated flatly. She had no living brothers, sisters, aunts,

(06:30):
or uncles. She was entirely alone. When asked about high school,
Laurie skipped straight to college. Her answers were one word brief,
almost dismissive. Nancy felt it was rude. She later suggested
that Laurie might have been following advice from a Christian
dating book that recommended avoiding parents for the first six months. Eventually,

(06:52):
Laurie did open up, but the stories she told were
difficult to reconcile. She spoke of growing up in a
mansion in Scottsdale, Air, Arizona, complete with a butler and
a chauffeur. She claimed her father had been a successful stockbroker,
but that she believed his money was tainted, so when
he died, she gave her inheritance to the church. Nancy

(07:14):
found this hard to believe. Laurie's grammar and speech didn't
match someone from a wealthy, sophisticated background. When Nancy pressed
for more details about Laurie's deceased family, Laurie became snippy.
They died in a car wreck, she said, and that
was that. A few months into the courtship, the Roughs
hosted Laurie at a family Thanksgiving dinner. When asked what

(07:36):
she wanted for Christmas, Laurie requested an easy bake oven.
Blake's brother in law, Myles Darby, found this highly peculiar
coming from a woman over thirty. Despite the Rough's concerns
and their urging Blake to slow down, he was undeterred.
He was dead set on marrying her. Nancy believed Blake
had fallen in love, that he believed everything Laurie said,

(07:58):
and that he simply wanted to be married. When the
Roughs offered to help plan the wedding, Blake defied them.
He and Laurie drove an hour away to Farmersville, Texas,
and married at Bethlehem Baptist Church in January two thousand four.
The only witness was the preacher. Laurie wore a white suit.
Laurie refused to allow a wedding announcement in the local newspaper.

(08:19):
We don't do things like that. She told Nancy she
consented to a reception, but her church friend Candy, who attended,
believed she was the only guest Laurie had invited. After
marrying in Farmersville in January two thousand four, Laurie and
Blake bought a home in Leonard, Texas. It was a
nondescript community where homes typically sat on two acre lots,

(08:42):
offering both a sense of community and space. They shared
a comfortable home with a large yard. Blake commuted more
than an hour each way to his job at Verizon,
working on commercial accounts. Laurie worked from home as a
recruiter for mystery shoppers. The job involved posting ads for
people to try products, wrinkle creams, restaurants, or sometimes doing

(09:04):
the shopping herself and filing reports. Their life together was
simple and comfortable. They walked the dog, had lunch at
the country club, but the relationship functioned on a delicate balance.
Blake avoided asking questions, Laurie avoided confronting her underlying issues.
This arrangement allowed them to keep the bills paid and
dinner on the table, but it was a superficial stability.

(09:29):
Laurie was always a little different she had unusual preferences.
Blake recalled her desire to make jelly using special berries
shipped from Louisiana. She wanted a renewal wedding in Las
Vegas in Leonard. Laurie sought privacy, and both she and
Blake struggled to connect with their neighbors. Blake, whom one

(09:49):
neighbor described as an it nerd, was friendly but socially awkward.
He tried to communicate, sometimes discussing plans for a neighborhood barbecue. Laurie, however,
would walk the perimeter of their property in the evenings,
avoiding eye contact and backyard conversations. When their neighbor and pastor,
Reverend Denny Gerina, attempted to socialize with them, after an

(10:10):
initial outing, there was no response. Laurie developed one local
friendship with Vicki Creech, whom she met at church. Laurie
brought Vicki homemade jam, and they occasionally had lunch. During
these meetings, Laurie talked incessantly about her secret shopper business.
Vicki thought Laurie seemed happy enough, though a bit odd.

(10:31):
Visits with Blake's family were tense when the other rough
women gathered in the kitchen to cook and talk. Laurie
would disappear for long naps. She refused to join them.
She argued with Blake's father, she had a falling out
with Blake's sister. Blake's brother, David, and his wife were
put off enough to stay away from her. These behaviors

(10:52):
led the Rough family to believe Laurie had some serious
emotional problems, that she was more than just odd. During
the first four years of their marriage, Laurie, who was
well into her thirties, yearned for a child. The couple
underwent a painful journey involving fertility treatments and miscarriages. In
the summer of two thousand eight, they had a daughter.

(11:15):
The birth followed years of documented fertility struggles in Laurie's
medical records. Laurie, as those who knew her described it,
loved that child, but she was very protective of the
baby and seemed awkward holding her. If the baby attempted
to chew on something, Laurie would immediately snatch it away.
Laurie had unique habits as a mother. She enjoyed driving

(11:38):
for miles on the week ends, bundling up the baby
to find a cafe that served high tea like an England.
She loved dressing up both herself and the baby for
these outings, and would pose for mother daughter photos. A
couple of days a week. She'd drop her daughter off
at day care while she worked from home. The introduction
of a child only intensified the tension within the Rough family.

(12:00):
Laurie actively prevented Blake's mother, Nancy, from engaging with the baby.
She wouldn't allow Nancy to babysit or be alone with
the child. Nancy, who was experienced she had nine grandchildren,
was confounded by this refusal. It appeared that Laurie held
on to every perceived slight and grew increasingly reluctant to
allow her daughter to spend time with the Ruffs. Laurie

(12:24):
had always huddled inside a smaller and smaller circle of community,
and now even the superficial balance that had kept their
household functioning began to fail. By summer twenty ten, Blake
left Laurie, moved back in with his parents, and filed
for divorce. The separation was volatile, divorce records paint a
troubling picture. In September twenty ten, Blake was charged with

(12:47):
a misdemeanor assault, indicating just how contentious the breakdown had become.
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(13:09):
for just three bucks a month links in the show
notes and we're back. Thanks for sticking through that. Let's
get back to it. By November twenty ten, Laurie began
sending strange emails and texts to the Roffs. Some of

(13:31):
these communications were written to look like they came from Blake.
She used these messages to make accusations that Blake's father,
John Ruff, was on an ego and power trip, that
he was threatening to cut Blake off from the family,
that he was instigating the divorce as a way to
control Blake. During this period, Laurie's emotional state deteriorated rapidly.

(13:52):
Reverend Denny Gorenna, her neighbor and pastor, described her as
frantic to the point of incoherence. Both Laurie and her
daughter appeared very thin, which Gerina viewed as a sign
that Laurie was falling apart from the stress. From that
point on, he never saw her focus again. Laurie obsessed
about the divorce, about the roughs about how unfairly she

(14:13):
was being treated. Her friend Vicki Creech recalled that Laurie
needed to talk, and talk, covering the same ground again
and again and again. Laurie told Creech that the bank
accounts were frozen and she was unable to cover household expenses.
Laurie sought counseling from Reverend Gerina at his church. She
brought notebooks filled with ramblings about what was wrong with

(14:36):
her and how she could get Blake back. Garina found
her writings very fragmented. He couldn't even understand half of
what she'd written. During their talks, Laurie often spoke in circles,
repeating variations of this is what's going on with Blake
and me? For an hour when she had a particular thought,
her mind was stuck on it. Blake came in for

(14:57):
counseling sessions too, and brought along his brother, David. It
was strange, Griina said. David did most of the talking
as if he was translating for Blake. Garina did not
believe Laurie was capable of getting the help she needed.
She was too obsessed about whatever she was obsessed about.
Around mid December, the Ruffs discovered that one of their

(15:18):
house keys was missing. They had the locks changed. Nancy
Ruff recalled thinking she heard the squeak of their backyard
gate in the middle of the night. Around that same period,
the Ruffs were concerned enough to ask a judge to
order Laurie to cease and desist. A request was filed
against her in the Fannin County court House following a

(15:39):
contentious custody exchange. On Christmas Eve morning, Blake's father, John Ruff,
went out to get the newspaper around sunrise. As he
raised the garage door, he saw a black tahoe idling
in the driveway. Laurie Kennedy Ruff was inside, dead of
a self inflicted gunshot. John Ruff rushed back inside and

(15:59):
called the police. The police incident report documented what was
found at the scene. The motor of the Chevy Tahoe
had been left running. Inside the vehicle were practice targets
and receipts for ammunition dated a month earlier. There was
an eleven page letter addressed to my wonderful husband. There
was another letter specifically addressed to their daughter, to be

(16:21):
opened on her eighteenth birthday. The letters were never made public,
but according to the police incident report, they were ramblings
from a clearly disturbed person. It was believed that sometime
early on the morning of Christmas Eve, Laurie drove her
Chevy Tahoe to her in law's house in Longview, where
her husband and their two year old daughter were spending

(16:43):
the holiday. Unaware of her arrival, she parked the vehicle
in the driveway and took her own life. Blake Ruff
was inconsolable. A few days later, Blake Ruff's brother in law,
Myles Darby, and a few other family members drove to
Laurie and Blake's home. Roman Leonard determined to scrub that
house down to see if they could find out who

(17:04):
she was. The family focused their search on areas Lori
had deemed private and off limits to Blake, specifically a
closet in a spare bedroom. There they found a large
banker's box labeled Crafts. Inside were some crafting materials. Tucked
down at the bottom was a fireproof strongbox. Myles Darby
took a flathead screwdriver and broke it open. The contents

(17:27):
revealed an even greater shock to the family. Lorie Kennedy
Roff was not who she'd claim to be. Inside the
strong box were documents, puzzling, scraps of paper, and personal items.
There was a birth certificate from California for a child
named Becky Sue Turner born in nineteen sixty nine, an
Idaho ID card in Becky Sue Turner's name, dated June

(17:50):
nineteen eighty eight, featuring Lourie's photograph, a court document from
July nineteen eighty eight showing that a Becky Sue Turner
had legally changed her name to Lourie Erica Kennedy. A
certificate for a ged from Texas issued in nineteen ninety
to Lorie Kennedy pay stubs, an application for a Social
Security Card signed by Laurie Erica Kennedy. A Texas ID

(18:11):
card with a photograph for lour Erica Kennedy issued July thirteenth,
nineteen eighty eight, a passport application, though she never used
it to leave the country, a letter of reference. There
were pages torn from a Phoenix phone book listing public
schools in Arizona, scraps of paper with scribbled notes, names
and phone numbers, the name of a California attorney, Ben

(18:32):
Perkins Junior Law office, along with a Los Angeles phone number,
the phrase four hundred two months, the phrase n Hollywood
Police misspelled as hollowyud, the word library along with a
seven digit number, the phrase these eyes, and the words shoot,
the name Kathleen Jung, a list of years and what

(18:53):
seemed like ages. There was a note written on letterhead
from a hotel in Bangkok, signed by a Roger Steinbeck,
claimed king Laurie had worked for him after high school.
There were certificates showing that a Laurie Kennedy had flown
a powered parachute in nineteen ninety six, certificates showing she
had gone skydiving twice somewhere in Texas in nineteen ninety six.

(19:14):
In nineteen ninety eight, after the strong box was opened, Miles,
Darby and the others showed the contents to Terence Burnside,
a neighbor and part time deputy who was present at
the house. Burnside conducted thirty minutes of research on the
name Becky Sue Turner and delivered the news the real
Becky Sue Turner had died almost forty years earlier in

(19:35):
a house fire when she was two years old. Laurie
not only wasn't Lourie Kennedy, but she was not Becky
Sue Turner either. In September twenty eleven, Special Agent Joe
Velling was summoned from his regional office in Seattle to Washington,

(19:57):
d C. To meet with the Inspector General of the
Soul Social Security Administration. The Rough family, shaken by the
suicide and discovery of the Strongbox, had called a friend
who was a congressman. This congressman had once served on
the House Intelligence Committee. He called the nation's chief social
security investigator, who turned the matter over to Velling. While

(20:18):
in Washington, Velling was asked to meet with the congressman.
He was handed a binder of documents containing the key evidence,
a birth certificate, a state photo, ID, pay stubbs, a
letter of reference, and scraps of paper covered with puzzling scribbles.
Velling was briefed that the dead woman, referred to as
Jane Doe, was Laurie Kennedy Ruff, the daughter in law

(20:41):
of a prominent East Texas family, and that she had
killed herself. The family's discovery of the strong Box revealed
she had been living under a stolen identity. Velling was
a confident, experienced investigator, he believed he would crack this
pretty quickly after receiving the documents. Velling's the first line
of inquiry involved investigating the identity Lourie had first assumed,

(21:04):
Becky Sue Turner. The investigation confirmed that the real Becky
Sue Turner had died in a house fire when she
was two years old. A nineteen seventy one headline read
Fife house fire kills three sisters. Velling noted that assuming
the identity of a dead child was an old scam.
Starting with a breeder document the birth certificate, Jane Doe

(21:27):
had obtained a copy of Becky Sue Turner's birth certificate
from Kerne County, California, on May twentieth, nineteen eighty eight.
This marked a new beginning for her. Becky Sue Turner
had been born in California, but had died in Washington State.
Velling wondered how Jane Doe had chosen the child. One
theory was that she may have seen the child's tombstone herself.

(21:49):
Another was that she possibly had known Becky Sue Turner's family.
To explore the possibility that Jane Doe had a prior
connection to the real victim, Velling undertook a specific trip.
In October twenty eleven, he traveled to Puyallup, Washington, where
the mother of the real Becky Sue Turner lived. Velling
met the woman in a tidy, double wide home. He

(22:11):
showed the elderly woman a picture of the grown woman
who had briefly called herself Becky Sue Jane Doe Laurie.
The goal was to determine if the mother recognized the
woman who had appropriated her deceased daughter's name. The mother
just shook her head, she did not recognize the person
in the photograph. Velling pursued the same line of inquiry

(22:31):
with the deceased child's father, who was living in Hawaii.
He asked a police officer to show the picture of
Jane Doe to the father at his home. This attempt
also led to a dead end. Throughout the remainder of
twenty eleven, Velling pursued multiple leads derived from the Strongbox documents,
only to find roadblocks. He sketched out a timeline showing

(22:53):
Jane Doe's life as Laurie as Becky Sue, starting with
May twentieth, nineteen eighty eight, the date she obtained Becky
Sioux Turner's birth certificate. He contacted the offices that issued
Laurie's fraudulent documents birth certificate IDAHO I D G E D.
He checked all the addresses she listed, including the address
in Boise associated with the IDAHO I D card. He

(23:16):
showed her photo to the house owners. He found nothing.
He followed the strong box scribbles. He called the Los
Angeles phone number next to the name of California attorney
Ben Perkins Junior. Perkins, who had been disbarred in nineteen
eighty nine, had no memory of a Becky Sue Turner
or a Lori Kennedy. He researched the phrase n hollowed

(23:37):
police and the number next to library, which connected to
a library in Strafford, Pennsylvania. He tried to track down
the phone number scribbled next to these eyes and the
words shoot. He tried to contact Kathleen Jung, a make
up artist who had no recollection of Lorie Kennedy. Velling
sent Jane Doe's finger prints to the FBI, the Department

(23:57):
of Homeland Security, and the military. He ran photos of
her through every facial recognition database he knew of. None
of these checks produced a match or a lead. Despite
Velling's expertise and access to extensive resources, all these attempts
led to dead ends. He was left with a body
looking for a family. In March twenty twelve, the case

(24:37):
was listed on NamUs dot gov, a searchable online database
for missing and unidentified persons created by the Department of Justice.
The specific listing read TX longview w fem up nine
eight six three forty one fifty suicide assumed identity. Someone
with the screen named Finn found the case listed on NamUs.
Finn posted a blurb about it on websleuths dot com

(24:59):
in March twenty twelve. At this point, the amateur online
detectives had little information to work with, little more than
a physical description, initial interest was limited. In November twenty twelve,
the phone rang at the desk of Maureen o'hagen at
the Seattle Times, where she covered crime and justice. On

(25:19):
the other end of the line was federal agent Joe Velling.
I might have a story for you, he said. Velling
set up a meeting with the reporter on a drizzly
gray afternoon. The reporter walked fifteen minutes to a downtown
high rise where the social Security Administration Seattle Field Division
was located. Velling, a tall, courteous man in a business suit,

(25:42):
ushered the reporter into a conference room on a large
wooden table, Several slips of paper from the strong box
were carefully arranged for inspection. Velling showed her the key documents,
the birth certificate for Becky Sue Turner, the Idaho ID
card in that name, the ged for Lori Kennedy, and
the intriguing items like the pages torn from an Arizona

(26:03):
phone book and scraps with scribbles like four hundred two
months and Ben Perkins Junior law office. Vellin called the
woman Jane Doe. After more than a year, he still
had no idea who she was. He picked up the
nineteen eighty eight Idaho I D Card, the first known
government photo I D she obtained after changing her identity.

(26:24):
He told the reporter he wanted to get that photo
on the front page of the Seattle Times, hoping the
circulation would lead some one from her past, a relative, friend,
or co worker to recognize her. The Rough family, specifically
Blake's mother Nancy and brother in law Myles Darby, had
requested that the reporter wait to call Blake. It was
not until The Seattle Times was about to publish the

(26:46):
first story, more than two years after Laurie's death, that
the family finally informed Blake about the secret Lorry had
locked in the strong box. In mid twenty thirteen, the
reporter joined Velling in his com diference room, and they
called Blake rough on speakerphone. Blake, who struggled to communicate
and often called Laurie my wife rather than using her name,

(27:09):
provided details about their relationship. Drawing on the limited information
Laurie had shared. He stated he was attracted to her
because she was tall, you know, an attractive person. Blake
recalled Laurie telling him she grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona.
He thought she mentioned a mansion, a butler, and a nanny.

(27:30):
He remembered her saying her father was in the derivative
business and got into financial trouble before passing away. Blake
said Laurie showed him a color picture one time, but
when he asked to see it years later, she said,
I don't have it anymore. He understood that she burned
them all up. He called it strange. He thought she
played basketball, but didn't go through the normal protocol nine

(27:53):
through twelve. Blake remembered Laurie saying she was a hand
model and that she wanted to make jelly using special
bits shipped from Louisiana. He thought she was taking medication,
possibly for ADHD or Tourette syndrome. Laurie wanted to go
to Las Vegas for a renewal wedding, which was confusing
to Blake. He thought she seemed nervous and it might

(28:15):
have been her first time flying in an airplane. Blake
expressed a strange sense of relief upon learning about Laurie's
false identity. He said it helped to heal his mind
and provided a reason for why she acted the way
she did and why she wouldn't get along with his family.
He speculated that something really tragic must have happened. On

(28:36):
June twenty second, twenty thirteen, the Seattle Times published The
Reporter's story about Lorie Kennedy Rough. The story ran on
the front page and online with the headline she stole
another's identity and took her secret to the grave. Who
was she? The online version included links to material from
the Strongbox. The story went viral, circulating immediately to newspapers

(28:59):
and website sites globally. It was translated into languages including
Russian and Indonesian. Velling and the reporter fielded questions during
a live blog event, documentary filmmakers and radio producers called
The Reporter's email inbox was swamped. Despite the widespread attention,
nobody claimed to know Jane Doe. The greatest response came

(29:20):
from web slouths. Prior to this, they had only limited information,
but the article provided details that transformed their involvement. The
websluths dot com comment thread dedicated to the Lori roughcase
quickly amassed tens of thousands of posts and garnered more
than two million page views. The Reporter initially dismissed the

(29:40):
armchair slouths. If special agent Joe Velling, with all his
resources couldn't crack the case, internet gumshoes sitting at home
couldn't either, But as the months ticked by with no answers,
the reporter got pulled into their world. The online detectives,
who often spent their free time, tracking, debating, and trying
to solve real life mysteries, utilized the newly revealed information.

(30:04):
Some web sleuths, like Carl were considered experts in facial recognition.
Kodiak created infrared images of Lorie's scribbles found in the
strong box to search for hidden messages. Claire en Ce
acted as a club secretary, maintaining logs of what the
group had discovered. The web sleuth community engaged in intense
and sometimes frustrating speculation. Many speculated that Laurie had been

(30:28):
involved in a polygamous cult, or harped on the notion
that she may have been a stripper. Quick break ads
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(30:53):
Thanks for sticking through that. Let's get back to it.
Around the time the story went public, a new scientific
avenue for identification was introduced, though it required patients. In
twenty thirteen, the Reporter received a call from Colleen Fitzpatrick,

(31:14):
a scientist and forensic genealogist, who proposed using DNA analysis
to reveal Jane Doe's identity. While Laurie's mitochondrial DNA from
a hair sample had been tested and yielded no matches
in missing persons databases, Fitzpatrick wanted to examine her autosomal DNA.
This type of DNA maps more points on an individual's
genome and is more useful for genealogical fishing expeditions. When

(31:39):
Colleen Fitzpatrick proposed using DNA analysis to reveal Jane Doe's
identity in twenty thirteen, she was offering something that had
existed at the frontier of forensic science. Fitzpatrick had an
unusual background for a genealogist. She held a PhD in
nuclear physics from Duke University and had spent twenty five
years developing high resolut LUC laser measurement techniques for NASA

(32:02):
and the Department of Defense. In two thousand and five,
she transitioned into genealogical research, publishing a book called Forensic
Genealogy that aimed to establish an entirely new field. Her
early work focused on historical cases and missing persons. She
had been part of the team that identified remains from
Northwest Flight forty four two to two, which crashed in

(32:24):
Alaska in nineteen forty eight. She worked on identifying the
unknown child on the Titanic. She helped expose literary frauds,
but the technique she wanted to use on the Lori
rough case, what would come to be called forensic genetic
genealogy was still in its infancy. The key difference was
in the type of DNA being analyzed. Traditional forensic DNA

(32:47):
testing uses a small number of genetic markers, typically thirteen
to twenty three locations on the genome, and compares them
against databases of known criminals and arrestees. This works when
you already have a SUSS or when the person you're
looking for has been arrested before. But what Fitzpatrick proposed
was different. She wanted to examine autosomal DNA, which maps

(33:10):
hundreds of thousands of points across an individual's genome. This
type of testing had become popular with consumer genealogy companies
like twenty three and meters and ancestry dot com, where
people submitted their DNA to learn about their heritage and
find distant relatives. The breakthrough came with a website called Jedmatch,
founded in twenty ten by Curtis Rogers, a Florida court

(33:34):
appointed guardian. Jedmatch was created as a free public service.
It allowed people who had tested with different companies to
upload their raw DNA files to a single database. And
compare results. The site became popular among amateur genealogists searching
for relatives. What made jedmatch revolutionary for forensic work was

(33:55):
that it was open access. Unlike the commercial DNA companies,
which prohibit did law enforcement searches without a warrant, jed
matches terms of service were looser. Anyone could upload a
DNA profile, anyone could search for matches. Fitzpatrick realized that
if you could create a DNA profile for an unidentified person,
whether a Jane Doe or a suspect in a cold case,

(34:17):
and upload it to jedmatch, you could potentially find distant relatives,
third cousins, fourth cousins, people who shared a common ancestor generations.
Back from there, a skilled genealogist could build family trees,
working backward through time to identify that common ancestor, then
forward through the generations to identify living descendants who might

(34:39):
match the age, location, and circumstances of the person in question.
The process relied on the fact that by twenty thirteen,
millions of people had voluntarily uploaded their DNA to these databases.
Each person who did so created a genetic trail not
just for themselves, but for everyone they were related to,
including people who had never taken a DNA test. In

(35:02):
April twenty eighteen, this technique would explode into public consciousness.
Law enforcement announced they had used jedmatch to identify Joseph
James DiAngelo as the Golden State Killer, a serial murderer
and rapist who had terrorized California in the nineteen seventies
and nineteen eighties. The case had been unsolved for decades.

(35:23):
Traditional DNA databases had yielded nothing, but by uploading the
suspect's DNA profile to jidmatch and tracing distant relatives, investigators
were able to build a family tree that eventually pointed
to DiAngelo. The announcement sparked both celebration and controversy. Privacy
advocates raised concerns about the implications that one person's decision

(35:45):
to upload their DNA could lead to the investigation of
their entire extended family. In May twenty nineteen, facing mounting pressure,
jedmatch changed its terms of service, requiring users to actively
opt in if they were wanted their profiles to be
available for law enforcement searches. Overnight, the database available to

(36:05):
investigators shrank from over one million profiles to nearly zero,
but by then the technique had proven its worth. Within
months of the Golden State Killer announcement, dozens of cold cases, murders, rapes,
unidentified remains were being solved using genetic genealogy. Companies like
Parabon Nanolabs began offering forensic genetic genealogy services to law

(36:28):
enforcement agencies across the country. In twenty seventeen, Fitzpatrick co
founded the DNA Doe Project with Margaret Press, a retired
computer programmer who had taken up genetic genealogy as a hobby.
The DNA Dough Project was a non profit organization dedicated
specifically to identifying unknown remains John and Jane Does whose

(36:49):
bodies had been found but whose names had been lost.
The organization assembled teams of volunteer genealogists who worked with
law enforcement to build family trees for the unidentified. Their
first success came in March twenty eighteen, when they identified
a murder victim who had been known for thirty seven
years as Buckskin Girl, named for the distinctive jacket she

(37:11):
wore when her body was found in Ohio in nineteen
eighty one, using degraded DNA from a vial of blood
that had been stored unrefrigerated for decades. They uploaded a
profile to jedmatch. Within hours, they found a first cousin
once removed. The victim's name was Marcia Lenore King. She
was twenty one years old when she died. By the

(37:34):
time Fitzpatrick began working on the louri roughcase in twenty thirteen,
she had already been refining these techniques for years, but
the louri roughcase presented unique challenges. This wasn't a criminal investigation.
Laurie had committed no violent crime. She had simply erased
herself and started over. Blake Ruff provided saliva samples from

(37:55):
himself and his daughter. These samples were sent to private
genealogical research companies twenty three and Me and ancestry dot Com.
Fitzpatrick intended to use the resulting profiles to subtract Blake's
DNA from his daughters, thereby creating a DNA profile for LORII.
The process relied on finding relatives who had also submitted
their DNA to these private networks. Months passed, and then

(38:18):
a year. Fitzpatrick began studying the matches as they came in.
Most indicated third, fourth or fifth cousins. Some profiles were anonymous,
one was an adoptee. A critical early match was identified
a first cousin named Michael Cassidy. However, although he had
submitted his DNA, he had not filled out any identifying
profile information. Messages sent to him through the genealogy site

(38:42):
received no reply. A quick Internet search showed nine hundred
and twenty six Michael cassidys in the US, preventing Velling
or Fitzpatrick from tracking him down. Despite the lack of
close responsive matches, Fitzpatrick continued her work. She built family
trees for the distant matches, color coded them, and plotted
their locations on maps. She began noticing geographic clusters of relatives,

(39:06):
one in Florida, another in the Pacific Northwest, and a
third in the Delaware Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York corridor.
The Social Security Administration officially closed the criminal allegation investigation
as soon as it determined there was no evidence of
crime beyond identity theft and there was no one alive
to prosecute. Throughout twenty fifteen, the search for Jane Doe's

(39:30):
identity was sustained by the dedication of individuals, both professional
and amateur. Special agent Joe Velling, who had become personally
obsessed with the case, continued to pursue threads provided by Fitzpatrick.
Velling was scheduled to retire in late twenty fifteen. The
community of online detectives continued their intense, unpaid efforts save

(39:51):
the Queen screen name of Genericce, who had joined Websleuths
in twenty fourteen, came across the Loriri Rough case a
year or so later, around twenty twenty fifteen, She was
consumed by it. She sat on her back patio for six,
eight or even ten hours at a time checking NamUs
for a match. She was motivated by the feeling that
the web sleuths were the ones who cared most about

(40:13):
Laurie as a person. Leersch screen name of Jeffrey Berling,
joined Websleuths in November twenty fifteen after encountering the case
on a Wikipedia page that arose following the twenty thirteen
Seattle Times article. He approached the mystery by constructing a
profile of Laurie, tracing her known path, addresses, and resume

(40:34):
to determine if she was running from something or trying
to build a normal life. Late in twenty fifteen, Colleen
Fitzpatrick achieved a major breakthrough. The DNA testing company twenty
three and Meters made changes to its website. Following this
website change, the name of one of Jane Doe's third
cousins was revealed. This cousin, referred to as Susan, had

(40:57):
previously submitted her DNA but had not made her name public.
Susan's identity allowed Fitzpatrick to craft another family tree. Fitzpatrick
traced Susan's lineage back four generations to a great great
grandfather named Paul Hennan born in Ireland in eighteen forty eight.
By building the Heenon family tree down to the present day,

(41:17):
Fitzpatrick located a familiar name, Michael Cassidy, the same first
cousin who had previously appeared as an anonymous match on
Jane Doe's twenty three and meter profile. Using genealogy sites
and detective work, Fitzpatrick confirmed that Michael Cassidy was from Pennsylvania,
which matched one of the geographic clusters she had previously

(41:37):
identified in the Delaware Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York corridor.
By accessing obituaries, listing the larger Cassidy clan, she found
information about Michael Cassidy's relatives, including two living aunts. Fitzpatrick
became convinced one of the aunts was Jane Doe's mother.
Fitzpatrick left a message for Joe Velling I solved the

(41:59):
mystery despite being a private citizen without a badge or authority.
Velling determined that the news needed to be relayed to
the family. On March seventh, twenty sixteen, Velling flew on
Alaska Airlines Flight thirty two from Seattle to Philadelphia. Velling
knew the people he was meeting did not expect him.

(42:20):
During the flight, he repeatedly considered how he would convince
complete strangers to hear him out. He couldn't start with
I think you're related to this woman who we also
don't know the name of. The next day, March eight,
twenty sixteen, Velling put on a suit and tie and
laced up the wingtiped shoes he had worn for special
occasions for thirty years. He made the half hour drive

(42:42):
from downtown Philadelphia to Bali Sinwood, Pennsylvania. He aimed to
meet a woman named Deborah Cassidy, who he believed was
Jane Doe's aunt by marriage and worked at a funeral home.
Velling drove through the large iron entrance gates of the
West Laurel Hill Cemetery to the funeral home, which was
housed in an old billy. He went inside and asked

(43:02):
for Deborah Cassidy. When she appeared, he introduced himself and asked,
do you have a moment for me to tell you
a story? Velling launched into the convoluted story, the marriage
in Texas, the strong box, the years of searching the
DNA evidence. When he realized he was getting nowhere, he
pulled out the photos he had of the woman who

(43:23):
called herself Becky, Sue Turner, and Lorie Ruff. He laid
them out one by one. When Velling showed Deborah Cassidy
the most recent driver's license picture of LORII Ruff, taken
when she was around forty, Deborah gasped. She whispered, my god,
that's Kimberly quick break ads keep the show running, but

(43:52):
if you want to skip them, the ad free versions
on Patreon for just three bucks a month. Links in
the show notes and we're back. Thanks for sticking through that.
Let's get back to it. Kimberly McLean was born on
October sixteenth, nineteen sixty eight. She was raised in Pennsylvania

(44:15):
in what appeared to be a normal, loving family. Her
parents were Jim McLean, a carpenter and volunteer firefighter, and Dianne,
a stay at home mom and dedicated church volunteer. Kimberly
had an older sister, Michelle. The family enjoyed vacations, day trips,
and family dinners every night. Jim McLean built the girls
a magnificent playhouse and gave them rides on the fire engine.

(44:39):
Kim and her sister attended Catholic grade schools. Before the divorce.
The family lived in a house where the backyard overlooked
Shortridge Park across the street. Neighbors remembered Kimmy as a
quiet girl who appeared happy enough on the surface, but
neighbors also observed that Kim seemed troubled deep down. Despite
the happy facac there was a darker truth. Jim McLean

(45:02):
was an alcoholic, as were others in the extended family.
The alcohol consumption was severe, dramatic, scary, terror creating devastation,
reeking horror movie alcoholics. When kim was about nine years old.
In nineteen seventy seven, her mother filed for divorce. A neighbor,
Louis Chakajian, recalled Dean, admitting that things were not good

(45:24):
with Jim and that she was squirreling away money to
take the kids and leave. Several months after the divorce,
Dianne married Robert Becker, a stockbroker who had a family
from a previous marriage. The move to a new house
and the divorce itself were a huge challenge for the
shy Kim. Kim and Michelle no longer attended McLain family
gatherings after the divorce and remarriage. Kim never adjusted to

(45:48):
the new house and the divorce. She grew more and
more withdrawn. Around fifth or sixth grade, at Queen of
Peace Catholic School in Glenside, Pennsylvania, Kim befriended Sheila o'do
on a Hugh keating. They bonded over being targets for bullies.
Kim was strikingly tall, with long, thin arms that looked
almost skeletal. Her clothes didn't fit right. She was an

(46:11):
easy target. In the nineteen eighty three year book at
Saint James Parish School, Kim was in eighth grade and
voted most cheerful. She wrote that her favorite person was
the ones most important to me is my family, and
that she wanted to be an eye surgeon. She loved
French fries, Duran, Duran dogs, drawing, reading, sewing, jogging, and

(46:32):
riding her bike. She wrote a dedication to her faith,
Never give up your religion. Kim attended Bishop mc devitt
High School in Wincote, Pennsylvania for over two years. She
was quiet, reserved, and thin. She didn't really interact with anybody.
She did not participate in sports, join clubs, attend social events,
have a job or date. Drinking was an issue in

(46:53):
the mc lean family, and Kim seemed to dislike her stepfather,
Robert Becker, though the reason was unknown. Kim was very
unhappy as a teenager. There were family stories about Kim
running away a few times and ending up at her
father's house before being dragged back home. Kim bristled at
any kind of rules. By eighth grade and continuing through

(47:15):
high school, Kim talked to her friend Sheila about getting
out of here. There was something going on at home
where she said she didn't want to be there. Sheila
recalled by junior year, Kim was no longer at Bishop
mc devott. As Kim was approaching eighteen, she found an apartment.
She asked her father, Jim mc lean, for money for

(47:35):
her eighteenth birthday, insisting she had never asked for anything before.
Jim initially refused, but relented and gave her the money.
After receiving the money, Kim left the next day. In
October nineteen eighty six, she found an apartment about a
half hour away from her family and warned her mother,
don't come after me. The address later listed in her

(47:56):
father's estate files, three sixty nine East nine one hundred South,
Salt Lake City, Utah, indicated that her immediate destination was
likely Salt Lake City, though this address was a po box.
Kim was a legal adult, so the family did not
file a missing person report. They had no reason to
believe there was any foul play. Jim McLean died in

(48:18):
mid September nineteen eighty seven, eleven months after Kim had
left home. He was fifty two. He died after finishing
an inpatient rehab program and lived his last two weeks sober,
but the years of drinking had taken their toll. Jim
Maclean's will left everything to his two daughters, Michelle and Kim.
His estate, valued at about one hundred ninety thousand dollars

(48:39):
at the time, was set to be divided between them.
Kim's share was worth about eighty four thousand dollars. The
inheritance process began two weeks after his death. On May twentieth,
nineteen eighty eight, the woman who would become known as
Lori Roff obtained a copy of Becky Sue Turner's birth
certificate from Kerne County, California. Becky Yi Sue Turner had

(49:00):
been born in California, but had died in Washington State
less than a month later. On June sixteenth, nineteen eighty eight.
Using the name Becky Sue Turner, she was issued an
Idaho ID card. The ID card listed her address as
el Kebiah in Boise, Idaho. Within weeks of obtaining the
Idaho ID, she abandoned the stolen identity of Becky Sue

(49:21):
Turner to create the identity of Lori Erica Kennedy. On
July fifth, nineteen eighty eight, Becky Sue Turner appeared in
a Dallas courtroom to legally change her name to Lori
Erica Kennedy. On July twelfth, nineteen eighty eight, louri Erica
Kennedy received the holy grail of identity theft, a Social
Security number. At that time, it was not uncommon for

(49:42):
a teenager to get a Social Security card before a
first job, unlike today, where children are typically enumerated at birth.
On July thirteenth, nineteen eighty eight, louri Erica Kennedy was
issued a Texas ID card with a photograph. The transformation
was complete. What Kimberly McLean accomplished in the summer of
nineteen eighty eight required more than desperation. It required knowledge, planning,

(50:07):
and an understanding of bureaucratic vulnerabilities that most people never considered.
In nineteen eighty eight, identity theft existed, but it was
a different creature than it is today. There was no
Internet to search for how to guides, no dark web
market places selling stolen information, no automated systems cross referencing
databases in real time. The infrastructure that would later make

(50:31):
identity theft both easier to commit and easier to detect
simply didn't exist. Yet what did exist was a patchwork
system of record keeping spread across thousands of local jurisdictions,
each with its own procedures, its own level of security,
and its own vulnerabilities. The technique Kimberly used is known
in law enforcement circles as the dead baby scam. It's

(50:54):
an old con one that predates computers by decades. The
principle is simple. Find a child who dies young, obtain
their birth certificate, and use that document what investigators call
a breeder document, to build an entirely new identity. A
birth certificate is foundational. It proves age citizenship and place
of birth. With a birth certificate, you can obtain other

(51:15):
documents a state ID, a social Security card, a driver's license,
a passport. Each document reinforces the others, creating a paper
trail that appears legitimate because, in a sense it is.
The birth certificate is real. The person named on it
simply happens to be dead. In nineteen eighty eight, obtaining

(51:36):
a birth certificate for a deceased child was surprisingly straightforward.
Most states maintained what were called open record systems. Anyone
could request a birth certificate by mail, often with minimal
identification required. The request simply needed to know the child's name,
date of birth and place of birth. In many jurisdictions,

(51:56):
you could walk into a county clerk's office, fill out
a form, pay a small fee, and receive a certified copy.
There were more than fourteen thousand different versions of legitimate
birth certificates in circulation across the United States, issued by
over six thousand different entities, state offices, county offices, city offices,

(52:17):
each with its own format and security features or lack thereof.
Technology had made birth certificates easier to counterfeit, but most
identity thieves didn't bother with counterfeits. They used genuine birth
certificates obtained through legitimate channels. The problem wasn't the documents themselves.

(52:37):
The problem was that nobody was checking whether the person
requesting the birth certificate was actually the person named on it,
and more critically, nobody was systematically cross referencing birth records
with death records. In nineteen eighty eight, the Office of
Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services
issued a report titled Birth Certificate Fraud. The report identified

(52:59):
what INN investigators had known for years that the system
was deeply vulnerable. Local issuing offices often had lax physical
security for blank forms and official seals. Many states had
open access to vital records. There was little coordination between agencies.
A person could be issued a Social Security card using

(53:20):
a birth certificate for someone who had died decades earlier,
and no alarm would sound. The report concluded that major
weaknesses in the procedures used by issuing agencies hampered the
ability of federal and state agencies to rely on birth
certificates as proof of identity. A follow up report in
nineteen ninety one found that the nature and extent of

(53:41):
birth certificate fraud appeared relatively unchanged. Most jurisdictions were severely
constrained from making reforms by limited resources. For someone attempting
to steal an identity in nineteen eighty eight, the key
was selecting the right victim. Ideally, the child would have
died young, young enough that they wouldn't have accumulated a

(54:03):
significant paper trail. Social Security numbers weren't routinely issued to
newborns in nineteen eighty eight. The Enumeration at Birth program,
which allows parents to request Social Security numbers for newborns
as part of the birth registration process, had only begun
as a pilot program in three states. In August nineteen
eighty seven. It wouldn't expand nationwide until nineteen eighty nine.

(54:28):
This meant that children who died before the late nineteen eighties,
particularly those who died as infants or toddlers, would not
have Social Security numbers. Their identities were, in a sense
dormant available. The child needed to be roughly the same
age as the person assuming their identity. The child needed
to match the impersonator sex, and practically speaking, their race,

(54:50):
since birth certificates listed race. Beyond that, the selection could
be made from obituaries, cemetery records, or even gravestones. Once
a birth certificate was obtained, the next step was to
use it to acquire a state issued photo ID. In
nineteen eighty eight, this was easier than it would become.
Requirements varied by state, but many accepted the birth certificate

(55:13):
along with minimal additional documentation a utility bill showing an address,
perhaps a school record or employment letter. The key was
presenting documents that appeared consistent and unremarkable. With a photo
ID in hand, the final step was obtaining a Social
Security number. Without a social Security number, a person couldn't work, legally,

(55:35):
couldn't open bank accounts couldn't establish credit with one, they
could disappear into the fabric of American life. Since May fifteenth,
nineteen seventy eight, the Social Security Administration had required applicants
for original Social Security numbers to provide documentary evidence of age, identity,
and US citizenship or alien status. Generally, this meant presenting

(55:57):
at least two documents, a birth certificate and a driver's license.
For example, applicants age eighteen or over were required to
have an in person interview. During the interview, the applicant
would be asked for prior names and surnames, and the
reasons for never before needing a Social Security number. But
here's where the system's vulnerabilities became apparent. The Social Security

(56:22):
Administration's screening process relied on the accuracy and authenticity of
the documents presented. If the birth certificate was genuine, and
it was because it had been issued by a legitimate
government office, and if the photo ID matched, the system
had no way of knowing that the person in front
of the clerk wasn't actually the person named on the documents.

(56:43):
The Social Security Administration maintained a database called the Numidant,
which stored information about everyone who had been issued a
Social Security number. When someone applied for an original number,
the system would electronically screen the database using the applicants
full name, date of birth, place of birth, sex, mother's

(57:05):
maiden name, and father's name. If no match was found,
a new social Security number would be assigned. But if
the child named on the birth certificate had died before
ever receiving a Social Security number, there would be no
record in the NU medentt no match would be found,
the system would assume this was simply someone applying for

(57:25):
their first Social Security number as a teenager or young adult,
something that, while less common by nineteen eighty eight, was
still perfectly normal. The fact that Kimberly mac lean executed
these steps successfully obtaining Becky Sue Turner's birth certificate on
May twentieth, nineteen eighty eight, an idaho I D card
on June sixteenth, a legal name change on July fifth,

(57:47):
and a Social Security number on July twelve, suggests she
either knew exactly what she was doing or had help.
The speed and precision of the sequence indicate planning, not improvisation.
She had done what investigators would later describe as figuring
all this out before the Internet put endless information at
the end of a keystroke. Within a few years, the

(58:09):
system would begin to change. The Enumeration at birth program
would expand nationwide, meaning fewer children would grow up without
Social Security numbers. Death records would gradually be digitized and
cross referenced with birth records. Background checks would become more sophisticated.
The vulnerabilities that existed in nineteen eighty eight would slowly

(58:30):
be closed. But in nineteen eighty eight, those vulnerabilities were
wide open. For someone with the right knowledge and the
right motivation, disappearing was still possible. All it took was
finding a dead child's name, a few official forms, and
the nerve to walk into government offices and claim to
be someone you weren't. Kimberly MacLean had all three. The

(58:54):
final document in her deceased father's estate file, the inheritance
tax return, was dated June sixth, nineteen eighty eight. The
timing suggests that the inheritance process coincided with her adoption
of the Becky Sue Turner identity. It speculated that receiving
notification of the inheritance may have spooked her, causing her
to change her name and ensure they would never ever

(59:17):
find her. In nineteen ninety, Laurie Kennedy obtained a certificate
for a ged from Texas. Kimberly mc clean's sister later
noted that when kim left home, she did not have
a high school diploma. By nineteen ninety, Kimberly mac lean
had successfully erased her past and fully established herself as
Laurie Erica Kennedy. Around nineteen ninety one, Laurie briefly dated

(59:39):
a man in Texas. During this time, she listed him
as a reference on an application for student aid in Texas.
She told this man that she was an orphan with
no living relatives. The short lived relationship ended because he
realized that she had some issues far more severe than
he was willing to deal with. About a year after

(01:00:00):
the breakup, the former boyfriend heard that Laurie was working
in a Dallas area strip club. Blake Ruff's brother in
law had traced some of Laurie's pay stubs from the
Strongbox to a holding company that owned local strip clubs. However,
this ultimately proved to be a dead end for Velling's investigation.
Laurie Kennedy earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and

(01:00:23):
marketing from the University of Texas at Arlington, graduating in
nineteen ninety seven. That same year, Laurie declared bankruptcy. It
was later found she owed money to a pain doctor.
After graduating from college, she was scraping by as a secretary.
Laurie engaged in several high adrenaline activities during this period.

(01:00:43):
She received a certificate from an operation called Buckeye Pilot
showing she had flown an aircraft called a powered parachute
in nineteen ninety six. She also had certificates showing she
had gone skydiving twice somewhere in Texas in nineteen ninety
six and nineteen ninety eight. In nineteen ninety seven, Laurie
received a baptismal certificate. Her social life seemed to revolve

(01:01:06):
around church, though she never settled on one congregation for long.
By the end of this period, she was living in
an apartment in Bedford, Texas, a community located between Dallas
and Fort Worth. In the early two thousands, Laurie seemed
to spring from nowhere, simply appearing one day in the
Dallas area. One person described her arrival as a backward

(01:01:27):
poof all of a sudden She exists, no friends, no family,
no history, at least none she would speak of. She
was in her early thirties, tall and slim, with shoulder
length dark hair. She worked at a church for a period.
She claimed she had a degree in graphic design. She
stated she was an only child. She was an animal

(01:01:48):
lover and possibly vegetarian or organic. She was wild about
Cuban food. Churches she tried included Northwest Bible, Highland Meadows,
Christian First Ulus, Cornerstone First Baptist, and Tiny Leonard and Fellowship.
Laurie met Candy Cook, a pre kindergarten teacher at the
Dallas Megachurch Fellowship. Candy became one of Laurie's few friends.

(01:02:09):
Candy helped Laurie with her appearance. Laurie's bangs were crooked
as if self trimmed, and she wore matronly clothes and
no makeup, high necked blouses and pantyhose. Laurie's apartment was
minimally furnished, while Candy's was decorated with lanterns and peacock feathers.
Laurie's walls were bare and lit with ubiquitous lamps from Walmart.

(01:02:30):
Despite their time together, Candy realized she didn't know much
about Laurie. Laurie exhibited a mix of reticence and aggression.
She was usually reticent, but could be fierce at times.
She would call people out if they were bragging or
not acting like a gentleman, which Candy said was not
exactly the Texas way for a lady. In a bold

(01:02:51):
crazy move, she once declared to a driver blocking her
car in a parking lot, if you don't move your car,
I will hit you. Candy felt Laurie may have been
a little intimidating to some of the guys. She attended
singles events hoping to meet a good Christian man. These
gatherings included Bible study classes, luncheons, pool parties, and Cajun nights.

(01:03:12):
That's when she met Blake Roff. Quick break ads keep
the show running, but if you want to skip them,
the ad free versions on Patreon for just three bucks

(01:03:33):
a month, links in the show notes and we're back.
Thanks for sticking through that. Let's get back to it.
Deborah Cassidy called her husband Tom Cassidy. They've found Kim,
she said. Deborah and Tom were still a young couple,

(01:03:55):
not yet married when Kim Tom's niece had left home
nearly thirty years earlier. They called other relatives, asking them
to come to the funeral home to confirm the picture. Finally,
they called Kim's mother. The following day, relatives converged on
the funeral home. Every one was crying and asking questions.
Velling recounted the entire story, Laurie Blake, the child, the death,

(01:04:17):
and the strong box, and finally provided the name Jane
Doe was Kimberly mc lean. Kimberly mc lean's mother was
Diane Becker, remarried, Her father, Jim mc lean, was long dead.
She had an older sister named Michel. Velling once again
displayed all the pictures. Upon seeing the most recent photo,
Michel mc lean quietly stated that looks just like me.

(01:04:40):
The family was told that Kimberly had been found and
lost again, and that her mother had a granddaughter. A
DNA test subsequently confirmed the match. Velling, thinking about his
own children as he returned to the airport, realized the
pain the family had endured grieving for thirty years. In
September two thousand sixteen, fall bow up stories identifying Laurie

(01:05:01):
Erica Kennedy roff as Kimberly Maria MacLean were published in
the Seattle Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and newspapers globally. The
story was framed as teenage runaway case closed. A few
days after the September twenty sixteen identification story was published,
the reporter received an e mail from John O'Connor, an
older first cousin who lived in Florida. O'Connor was astonished

(01:05:26):
by the news and by the prior description of Kim's
family life, which had focused on fire trucks and playhouses.
He revealed the darker truth behind the happy suburban facade
of the McLean house and the terror they had endured
under Jim's heavy alcoholism. Sloane McHugh, another cousin on the
McLean side, also confirmed that drinking was an issue in

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the family. Mcew revealed the details about how Kim withdrew
from the family after the divorce, struggled at home with
her stepfather, and often ran off to her father's place.
Their final class ended with Kim getting birthday money from
her father and leaving the next day. The reporter began
contacting former classmates and visiting Kim's former locations. Former classmates

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described Kim as quiet, reserved, and thin. Most did not
remember her. One student sat next to Kim in homeroom
for three years, but had no memory of talking to her.
She didn't really interact with anybody, the student said. The
reporter visited Bishop mc devitt High School in Wincote, Pennsylvania,
walking the same hallway as Kim walked before she ran.

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The spokesman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia did not want
to get involved. Kim's sister, Michelle, initially requested that her
name be left out of the story. The reporter noted
that while strangers had become obsessed with Laurie Ruff, people
who actually knew Kimberly mac Lean, didn't want to be
associated with her. Louise Chakjian, a neighbor from Kim's childhood neighborhood,

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recalled Kim as a quiet girl who seemed happy be
on the surface, but was troubled deep down. Shakijin saw
Kim's mother, Dianne years later in the late nineteen eighties,
after Jim died at least a full year after Kim's disappearance,
Diane asked if Shakejin had seen Kim, but declined to
provide contact information. Research into Jim maclean's estate files, heavy

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bound volumes labeled seventeen eighty four to nineteen eighty seven
in the Montgomery County court House, revealed that the state
of Pennsylvania still listed Kim's death benefit check as unclaimed property.
In the spring of twenty seventeen, the reporter drove to
the house in Ambler, Pennsylvania, where Kim's mother and sister lived.
The reporter visited the house three times. The door bell

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was broken. The third time, the reporter left a note.
Two hours later, the reporter's phone rang. Diane Becker and
Michelle McLean were on the line. Both expressed devastation. Leave
us alone, they said, we want to end it. The
reporter spoke to them just one once more for updates.
In the spring of twenty seventeen, the reporter found Sheila Keating,

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who had been friends with Kim in fifth or sixth
grade at Queen of Peace Catholic School in Glenside, Pennsylvania.
Sheila and Kim bonded over being targets for bullies. Sheila
described the bullying as relentless and traumatic. She noted that
Kim was strikingly tall, with arms so long and thin
they looked almost skeletal. Her clothes didn't fit right. She

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was an easy target, in a pattern mirroring Lorie Ruff's
later life. Sheila never felt like she truly knew Kim.
Sheila recalled Kim's defiant reaction to taunts. She would wave
them off like they didn't matter. Sheila said Kim would
fight back if physically provoked. Sheila confirmed that Kim bristled
at any kind of rules. Kim began talking about getting

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out of here in eighth grade. In high school, there
was something going on at home where she said she
didn't want to be there. Sheila said. By junior year,
Kim was no long longer at Bishop McDevitt. The strong
box included a note written on letterhead from a hotel
in Bangkok, signed by a Roger Steinbeck, claiming Laurie had
worked for him in some unspecified capacity after high school.

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Velling determined this note to be bogus. By the end
of twenty seventeen, the mystery that had captivated investigators, journalists,
and amateur sleuths for years had been solved, at least
in part. The woman who died in a black tahoe
on Christmas Eve twenty ten. Was Kimberly Maria MacLean born
October sixteenth, nineteen sixty eight in Pennsylvania, but the deeper mystery,

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the why, remained largely unanswered. The reporter found no sure
answers as to why Kim ran away. There was evidence
of family dysfunction of alcoholism that left deep scars of
a difficult divorce and an unhappy adolescence. There were accounts
of bullying, of isolation, of a girl who bristled at
rules and spoke of wanting to escape, but nothing fully

(01:10:00):
explained the extremity of her actions, the complete erasure of
her past, the decades of secrecy, the refusal to let
anyone truly know her. Retired Special Agent Joe Velling moved
on to pro bono legal work, travel and business ventures.
He reflected that he believed more identity cases would be
resolved through genetic DNA, though he maintained that using online

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DNA services should be a matter for individuals, not law enforcement,
due to privacy concerns. Forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick had moved
on to other mysteries. Her groundbreaking work on the case,
helping to establish genetic genealogy as a powerful tool for
solving cold cases. Comments about the case on web Sleuth's

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tapered off. Some expressed regret that Laurie's secret had been exposed,
wondering if the mystery had been better left unsolved. The
Ruffs and the macleans were put in touch after the
identity was confirmed, but had minimal contact. Both families made
it clear they wanted to move forward. The rough family,
specifically Nancy Ruff, insisted they had put it all behind them.

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By May twenty seventeen, Kimberly McLean's family stated that anything
more was private. Blake Ruff was in a new relationship
and appeared happy in photos posted on Facebook. Blake and
Laurie's daughter was nine years old. The Ruffs were waiting
until she was older to tell her the full story
of her mother. In the end, Kimberly mc lean's life

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remained as enigmatic in revelation as it had been in concealment.
The facts were known, the names, the dates, the documents
in the strong box, but the woman herself remained elusive.
What drove an eighteen year old girl to not just
leave home, but to methodically erase every trace of her existence.
What pain or fear was so profound that it required

(01:11:50):
the complete destruction of her identity. Those answers died with
her on Christmas Eve in the driveway of her in
law's home in a black tahoe, with the motor still running.
What remains is a daughter who will one day learn
the truth about her mother. Two families forever connected by tragedy,
and how far someone will go to escape a past

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they cannot bear to carry. At Atta,