TX - 'Lori Ruff', Longview, WhtFem UP9863, *General Discussion and Theories* #4

[1&2&3]

In all the searching of records, has it ever been discovered if she owned a car?

Driving has been such an important part of life, that it seems as much as she moved around and in the time frame looked at, she must have owned a car. Owning a car would mean she had to have car insurance. Our car registration lists the insurance company.

Just thinking of another avenue that would have her connected to records and to the government.

 

[Gardener1850]

Wonder what problems the boyfriend said she had. Drugs? Maybe wanted to be too serious? Money? or already showing mental illness? Perhaps she wanted to move to fast for him and he broke it off. She then finds Blake a few years later, sort of a clod and marries him.

We really don't know much about her even during the years she was Lori.

All we really know about their relationship prior to marrying was that they used the word "courting" to describe it. In the Christian world this usually means no sex prior to marriage, JMO. We know she went to church regularly. She not only attended services but went to Bible study classes, where she met Blake. It's pretty easy to attend church and never get to know anyone personally but its much harder to attend Bible study and not ever get to know people. If it was a "singles" class she might have gone hoping to find a husband. The Seattle article tells us Blake went to the class after his brother met and married someone from the same Bible study...And Blake always followed his twin brother's lead. So it seems Blake was looking for a wife at the very least and he found Lori.

Random details we know about her:
She was a vegetarian who liked Cuban food (Unusual since Cuban food uses a lot of Pork).
She liked to go to tea rooms.
She dressed "matronly"
She asked for an Easy Bake oven for Christmas.
She claimed to have worked as a hand model
She claimed to have played basketball in high school.
She was smart (according to Blake)
She was fond of animals
She said she destroyed all photos of her family because she had a bad life
She didn't talk to neighbors and would walk the edge of her property in the evenings
She wanted a child "more than anything"
She was very protective of her daughter
She took an interest in the Ruff family genealogy
She collected Ruff family recipes
She would often tap naps instead of socializing (according to the Ruff family)
She agreed to go to counseling when her marriage was falling apart (IMO this indicates something about the kind of person she was)
She may have ADHD or Tourettes (this is from the Seattle article but no info is given as to why they suspected this)

 

[milkymama]

I think it could be speculation too. I have mention though, if she did, a man is in the picture somewhere. I really think we should see if a man changed his name in Dallas about this same time. She had a breast enlargement and perhaps needed the money dancing, and I see a man pulling the strings. He might be the cause of all the moves. He might be the one who needed to hide.

I started looking at the court cases with sequential case numbers forward and backwards from Lori's in the court where she changed her name. So far, I have found no other name changes. I am not too far into it yet though. But I can say that she didn't walk in side by side with someone who was also changing their name, because they would have had sequential or pretty close to sequential case numbers and have been heard on same day or maybe the day after. I think she was pretty smart and thought this out...if someone was changing their name too, that person would have gone to a different court/different county to avoid suspicion.

 

[Gardener1850]

In all the searching of records, has it ever been discovered if she owned a car?

Driving has been such an important part of life, that it seems as much as she moved around and in the time frame looked at, she must have owned a car. Owning a car would mean she had to have car insurance. Our car registration lists the insurance company.

Just thinking of another avenue that would have her connected to records and to the government.

I seem to recall she had a mid-sized economy car. Nothing flashy or expensive. I haven;t seen anything about her registration or insurance though and I don't know what years she owned a car. Does anyone know car insurance laws for Texas? They vary by state.

 

[sloane7777]

So I looked up this :[h=1]The Oriental, Bangkok[/h]48 Oriental Ave, Bangkok, 10500, Thailand.............this reminds me when Chandler on" Friends" lied to his GF that he was moving to Yemen,1 Yemen Rd , Yemen............the Oriental Hotel
, my point is it seems fabricated, such a general name. easy to say ," oh that's the wrong one"

 

[Gardener1850]

I started looking at the court cases with sequential case numbers forward and backwards from Lori's in the court where she changed her name. So far, I have found no other name changes. I am not too far into it yet though. But I can say that she didn't walk in side by side with someone who was also changing their name, because they would have had sequential or pretty close to sequential case numbers and have been heard on same day or maybe the day after. I think she was pretty smart and thought this out...if someone was changing their name too, that person would have gone to a different court/different county to avoid suspicion.

I hate to bring up a previously looked at rabbit hole but I wanted to mention again here the 1988 Nevada marriage record of a BST to RWB. At the Kansas address where they were listed in 1989 he was listed with her surname--R. Turner. This address no longer exists and may not have ever existed for all I can find. It would have been very easy for him to legally change his surname when they married. All it takes is filling out a SS form. This BST disappears from all records after 1989. RWB's first wife (whom he divorced, BST was #2) and his son ended up living in the Dallas metro area. RWB resurfaces in 1994 living in Missouri with a 3rd wife (he was her 5th husband of 6). I cannot find a record of his divorce of wife number 2. RWB divorced #3 and died in 2014. No mention of any of his wives in his obit but that's not uncommon in divorce cases. I found his 1st and 3rd wives to be alive post 2010 and obviously not FLEK. 2nd wife, BST, still unaccounted for. If Lori had a male accomplice my money would be on RWB but I have no proof and I don't want to freak out an innocent family by contacting them to ask about their deceased father's 2nd wife. I still revisit this rabbit hole from time to time but I've run out of places I know to dig. Any suggestions or ideas?

ETA: I have looked for R Turners in Dallas but it is too common of a name and none I found had his birthdate to prove it was RWB.

 

[Gardener1850]

So I looked up this :The Oriental, Bangkok

48 Oriental Ave, Bangkok, 10500, Thailand.............this reminds me when Chandler on" Friends" lied to his GF that he was moving to Yemen,1 Yemen Rd , Yemen............the Oriental Hotel
, my point is it seems fabricated, such a general name. easy to say ," oh that's the wrong one"

It's a real hotel and rich and famous people are known to have stayed there including the writer John Steinbeck. Here's an archived article from 1976 about the hotel celebrating it's 100th Anniversary. http://www.nytimes.com/1976/06/08/archives/oriental-hotel-marks-its-100th-anniversary.html
I wonder if a similar article was written for the 110th anniversary in 1986? Anyway, it would have been easy for Lori to learn about the hotel from the newspaper.

 

[bears10]

Apologizes in advance if this has been discussed already, but with all of these threads over time it is hard to remember.

Has anyone contacted retired det velling to invite him here? In the Lyle stevik case the detective (I believe he was retired by this time but not sure) joined WS and gave some good insight and info. I have so many questions just like I am sure everyone else does. Who was on that financial aid application? As a previous poster mentioned, we barely know anything about her during her time as Lori. Maybe additional insight on her time as Lori could save us some rabbit hell digging and give us a better idea of where to focus.

I think velling has LinkedIn, if no one has contacted him already about it, and TOS allows, maybe I can log into my linked in and invite him here.

 

[mrseeker]

I started looking at the court cases with sequential case numbers forward and backwards from Lori's in the court where she changed her name. So far, I have found no other name changes. I am not too far into it yet though. But I can say that she didn't walk in side by side with someone who was also changing their name, because they would have had sequential or pretty close to sequential case numbers and have been heard on same day or maybe the day after. I think she was pretty smart and thought this out...if someone was changing their name too, that person would have gone to a different court/different county to avoid suspicion.

Thanks for doing that. I would imagine even if you filed your request for name change on the same day, even right after another, in a city as big as Dallas, you might not get the same judge. So the actual hearing could be days perhaps weeks apart. Of course the presumed man could have done it at another time even another state. If he exists. I just think there was a man with her or meeting her in Dallas who left soon after. maybe death, prison or just left. It's probably a rabbit hole. Even if he does exist, how would we ever prove it?

 

[awillis0513]

Wonder what problems the boyfriend said she had. Drugs? Maybe wanted to be too serious? Money? or already showing mental illness? Perhaps she wanted to move to fast for him and he broke it off. She then finds Blake a few years later, sort of a clod and marries him.

We really don't know much about her even during the years she was Lori.

I imagine she was someone who latched on too fast. I hear a lot of guys call women crazy or say that they have problems when it's not a huge ordeal. I also imagine she was elusive over her past and most people get a red flag that goes up with that.


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[awillis0513]

Some men have a tendency to paint all their exes with a brush of "she was crazy" even if the woman wasn't, but I think the fact that she was apparently running from something and ultimately committed suicide after struggling with mental health issues lends a tad more credence to the "she had more problems than I could deal with" statement.

That having been said, no idea about the validity of the club work claim, except it is a way to make money quickly and given the cash nature of the business there might not be records. Dancer, waitress, or housekeeper though? Who knows.



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I was thinking the same thing.


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[awillis0513]

Apologizes in advance if this has been discussed already, but with all of these threads over time it is hard to remember.

Has anyone contacted retired det velling to invite him here? In the Lyle stevik case the detective (I believe he was retired by this time but not sure) joined WS and gave some good insight and info. I have so many questions just like I am sure everyone else does. Who was on that financial aid application? As a previous poster mentioned, we barely know anything about her during her time as Lori. Maybe additional insight on her time as Lori could save us some rabbit hell digging and give us a better idea of where to focus.

I think velling has LinkedIn, if no one has contacted him already about it, and TOS allows, maybe I can log into my linked in and invite him here.

I've tried to via linked in, but it hasn't been updated with his retirement so I imagine he just quit checking it.


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[mrseeker]

In all the searching of records, has it ever been discovered if she owned a car?

Driving has been such an important part of life, that it seems as much as she moved around and in the time frame looked at, she must have owned a car. Owning a car would mean she had to have car insurance. Our car registration lists the insurance company.

Just thinking of another avenue that would have her connected to records and to the government.

there is a record of a speeding ticket for lori kennedy. I am not sure where i found it, but I think on the dallas county records. it might have been as lori ruff, but I think it was kennedy. Not sure if it was her or not. For some reason when I found it i thought it was. Will have to go back and look.

 

[awillis0513]

All we really know about their relationship prior to marrying was that they used the word "courting" to describe it. In the Christian world this usually means no sex prior to marriage, JMO. We know she went to church regularly. She not only attended services but went to Bible study classes, where she met Blake. It's pretty easy to attend church and never get to know anyone personally but its much harder to attend Bible study and not ever get to know people. If it was a "singles" class she might have gone hoping to find a husband. The Seattle article tells us Blake went to the class after his brother met and married someone from the same Bible study...And Blake always followed his twin brother's lead. So it seems Blake was looking for a wife at the very least and he found Lori.

Random details we know about her:
She was a vegetarian who liked Cuban food (Unusual since Cuban food uses a lot of Pork).
She liked to go to tea rooms.
She dressed "matronly"
She asked for an Easy Bake oven for Christmas.
She claimed to have worked as a hand model
She claimed to have played basketball in high school.
She was smart (according to Blake)
She was fond of animals
She said she destroyed all photos of her family because she had a bad life
She didn't talk to neighbors and would walk the edge of her property in the evenings
She wanted a child "more than anything"
She was very protective of her daughter
She took an interest in the Ruff family genealogy
She collected Ruff family recipes
She would often tap naps instead of socializing (according to the Ruff family)
She agreed to go to counseling when her marriage was falling apart (IMO this indicates something about the kind of person she was)
She may have ADHD or Tourettes (this is from the Seattle article but no info is given as to why they suspected this)

I wonder if FLEK dressed matronly because of her height and not being able to access more fashionable clothing.


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[StarrChance]

there is a record of a speeding ticket for lori kennedy. I am not sure where i found it, but I think on the dallas county records. it might have been as lori ruff, but I think it was kennedy. Not sure if it was her or not. For some reason when I found it i thought it was. Will have to go back and look.

This thread post 322 has some info
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...63-*General-Discussion-and-Theories*-3/page22

 

[Gardener1850]

I wonder if FLEK dressed matronly because of her height and not being able to access more fashionable clothing.


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She could have been self conscious about her height and trying to hide/blend in but IMO when they say "matronly" they may also mean "modest". She never wore anything low cut or short dresses, AFAIK. IMO, it's harder for tall people to find modest clothing. Shirts are not long enough and show your belly when you raise your arms, skirts that would be knee length on an average height person hit at mid-thigh on someone with long legs. It could be she struggled to find clothing that fit but it's surprising that we don't see any pictures of her in anything without a high neckline. She would have to go out of her way to find those types of clothes, IMO.

 

[Gardener1850]

This thread post 322 has some info
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...63-*General-Discussion-and-Theories*-3/page22

In regards to the speeding ticket discussed in thread number 3: I wonder if it would be possible to go back and view Dallas newspapers from 1992 and find LK's DOB and address from a police citation column. Sometimes they list minor offenses like that. I also think that since it involved so many court dates maybe there was something more to the speeding--like she argued she had a reason for it (Medical emergency?) and the judge agreed to hear her claims, let her bring in witnesses, etc. Unusual cases like that would be more likely to be covered in the news even if just one line is given.

 

[dvo]

Apologies if this exercise has already been done. I have no paid access to information sites and I'm based in Canada, so that can impact the level to which I can look in to these things. Something I've been trying to do is search for past residents of Lori's known addresses - at least to find a possible roommate, at best to find a mysterious woman FLEK's age who mysteriously disappears in the late 90's (in case she created the LEK identity several years prior to assuming it for daily life).

I've just been looking up her addresses on this site and this one seems worth some additional eyes/opinions.

GYF
Multiple pieces of information point to an Asian connection, as it were, so this name caught my eye.
I looked up Lori's 1993 address: 3901 Oakridge Ct. Apt. 3815, Fort Worth, TX on PeopleSmart and one of the past residents of this address that comes up is GYF. I looked up GYF on FamilySearch.org and found this record for a GYF born October 15, 1965. The FamilySearch record provides a series of addresses for this person at 14400 Statler Blvd. According to the addresses note on this Facebook page about Lori, 14400 Statler Blvd, Fort Worth, TX is also a known address for Lori that comes up in Ancestry searches. So this person is connected already to two known addresses of Lori's.
There is also this record for GYF with a different birthdate, also referencing the 14400 Statler Blvd address, bringing a third apartment unit number in to the mix.

I would love to see what others can dig up on this person.

 

[llywrch]

I've looked at the archived pages for almost every place she worked because she claimed to do website design/maintenance for most of her jobs. I took basic web design classes in the early 2000's as part of continuing education for a job I had then. Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks and Front Page are all website creation tools she listed on her resume. At the time she made her website they were top of the line for "plug and play" design and used by people who didn't know html code languages well. Those applications and the basic designs she used were being taught in an intro web design class in 2000, IME. I'm not up on what is taught today and I didn't advance my website building "career" enough to know what is used. All that to say, it would be interesting to hear from your friend, Ilwych. IMO her website is nothing impressive but it also is typical of a website from that time period. Other than websites of major multiple million dollar companies most websites used to look like what she did from my (albeit fuzzy) memory of the internet. We have to remember most people used very slow dial up modem connections back then. Websites tried to increase traffic/page views by having fewer graphics because the graphics took a LONG time to load. If I ran across a website like that today I would find it sketchy and probably not give them any of my info, but back then the website could seem legit. JMO.

I know a bit about websites, both then & now; I created my first one circa 1996 in hand-coded HTML. (If you're curious to see what a state of the art website from that distant age looks like, I'll be happy to send you the URL.) And I know a little bit about coping with a dial-up modem; my Internet connection was dial-up until ten years ago. There are a lot of limitations to making a website look artistic without relying on CSS, java & all the other tricks, but it can be done. (FWIW, it was an amateur web designer who discovered the use of animated gifs back in the early 1990s. I never did figure out how to create them.)

The problem isn't the design, although with a little imagination one could make that look better. Rather, it's the choice of a picture of an eye presented in a way that looks (IMHO) creepy.

I'm going to drop my unkind criticism of a dead woman's long-gone website for a sudden thought: why would anyone name their mystery shopper/online marketing consulting firm "An Eye for Design"? As I was thinking about her artistic skills, it occurred to me that "An Eye for Design" would better fit a freelance artist than a marketing consultant. I wonder if this was a name for a business venture LEK had come up with long before she decided to go into the mystery shopper/online marketing business. Since I don't know exactly how she had her business set up -- was it incorporated in some way for tax purposes, or simply a "DBA" venture (i.e., "LEK, doing business as An Eye for Design")?

Having an answer to that won't lead us to LEK's birth name, but it might provide another piece or two of the puzzle of her identity that we're trying to assemble.

 

[llywrch]

This thread post 322 has some info
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...63-*General-Discussion-and-Theories*-3/page22

Thanks for posting that.

When LEK declared bankruptcy, her debts included a loan on a car held by Honda America. (I don't remember if the online records included the amount of the loan.) It could be she owned a new Honda, or maybe it was a used car; dealerships like to sell used cars because the profit margin on them is much higher than for new cars.

But my impression is that LEK owned your basic model car, something that would get her around Dallas so she didn't need to use public transit. (I used to ride public transit here in Portland, & although I'm told it's a much better system than in most parts of the US, & despite the costs of owning a car, i can attest that it's nicer to own one rather than having to live one's life around a bus schedule.)