Lori Ruff Identified as Kimberly McLean of PA

[BigCityAccountant]

HerStory, I am so sorry to hear about your mother. I wish you the BEST in your transformation and move . Just don't move away from Websleuths and don't change your screen name or you'll confuse us and send us down some unbelievable rabbit holes!

:ditto:

So sorry to hear about your mom, may she rest in peace. Also sorry to hear about troubles with other family members as well. Good luck with the new identity and may you find your own inner peace.

:rose::rose:

 

[Pink Panther]

Hmmm...Happy to see that Lori has finally been identified but I don't buy a bit of the "why" she went off the grid. Why would she bother going to the extreme of adopting a dead child's name? It doesn't sound like her family looked for her after she left. She was an adult by then. IMO she was afraid of something. Otherwise, why bother with all of the lies and fake identities. Makes no sense. Nice tidy article to try to close the loose ends and we will probably never really know but ain't drinking the cool-aid.

moo

 

[Pink Panther]

They never even looked for her. NOTHING on the web. No ineever looked or tried to contact her. Why would should she bother to set up such a ruse?

 

[HerStory]

No worries folks . . . I will keep coming back to WS and will always be HerStory. but!
Parlez vous francais?

 

[Sherwood Park]

Hmmm...Happy to see that Lori has finally been identified but I don't buy a bit of the "why" she went off the grid. Why would she bother going to the extreme of adopting a dead child's name? It doesn't sound like her family looked for her after she left. She was an adult by then. IMO she was afraid of something. Otherwise, why bother with all of the lies and fake identities. Makes no sense. Nice tidy article to try to close the loose ends and we will probably never really know but ain't drinking the cool-aid.

moo

The newspaper article states that Kim/Lori's family did look for her. As mentioned, she had changed names, her goal of leaving them for good was successful. She made sure she couldn't be found. No one knows why she lived a lie, but it doesn't mean she was running from something or someone dangerous. Her early Driver's License picture doesn't look like young frightened teenager. She looks happy and excited; sometimes a fresh start does that.

 

[Sherwood Park]

No worries folks . . . I will keep coming back to WS and will always be HerStory. but!
Parlez vous francais?

Feel free to skip QC and head on out to AB, we've got lots of genealogy searches you could do out here in the West! Many people who have no idea where family is, haven't seen them in decades, "lost/missing" government records. I feel terrible for those who have tried to look for loved ones but have no clue how to do so and when they try, there is no trace of them in any records or on line. Never knowing whether someone is alive or has passed on must be nerve racking.
I'm glad there are sites like WS where people with excellent search skills can get together and help find them missing.

 

[llywrch]

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...-what-conspiracy-theorists-thought-until-now/

Thanks for the link. I hadn't known about that article until now -- & I had used Google every day last week to mine for new articles on LEK's confirmed identity.

"From 1988 until her death in 2010, a woman who ultimately went by Lori Erica Ruff lived in four different states and used four different names. She most famously took on the identity of a 2-year-old girl killed in a 1971 fire in Fife, Wash."

Am I missing something? I don't see any information on the other 2 names. Or am I having a blonde moment?

I think someone's math is off.

You can arrive at "four different names" if you count Kim McLean (her birth name), the unknown name SS1988 knew her by (confirmed by others in the know that it wasn't KM & SS1988 said it wasn't LEK or BST), Becky Sue Turner (the dead toddler in Washington state), & Lori Erica Kennedy. But I don't think SS1988's evidence was reported in the Seattle Times, & she is only to have used BST twice -- to obtain the Idaho ID card & in the Texas court room where she legally changed her name. The writer should have written -- with more accuracy -- "as many as four different names".

Consider the claim she "lived in four different states". Ignoring Pennsylvania, possible candidates are Arizona (where she told the Ruffs she had come from), Nevada (where she had a mail drop), California (indicated by the Notes Page), Washington (where she found the grave for BST), Idaho (where she obtained an ID card), & Texas (of course). That's six. And then there is the photo earlier in this thread of a Kim McLean sitting in a class in a Michigan Community College, which would make it seven.

I don't know if you really are blonde, STQ, but the issue with the numbers isn't you. Or maybe there's still information about this case the journalist of this article knows but the rest of us doesn't.

 

[Vivette]

Kim McLean sitting in a class in a Michigan Community College??

 

[fedfan4life]

Note to Self - Pay close attention to eyebrow shape when comparing photos. Dead giveaway.

 

[Owutatangledweb]

Kim McLean sitting in a class in a Michigan Community College??

I had not heard this or seen a photo. I must have missed this. Does someone have a link?

 

[mrseeker]

I had not heard this or seen a photo. I must have missed this. Does someone have a link?

There is no connection with Michigan for this case that has been reported. Someone linked a photo earlier of a Kim in Michigan and it was not LEK. I am not sure we are going to get our curiosity satisfied until some people come forward who knew her in 1986-88 and do interviews. Google is not going to much help here.

 

[PickAName]

Wow! I couldn’t believe when I checked out Websleuths a few days ago that our LEK had FINALLY been identified! Honestly, I NEVER thought her identity would be found. That’s why I only checked out the thread every few weeks.

Kudos to Colleen Fitzpatrick and Joe Velling for closing this case as well as all others who contributed. It is nice to have found out that Kimberly McLean was not the drug trafficker, sex traffic escapee or cult escapee that some theories had proposed, lol! Including my own Army brat theory. Sounds like she was just a regular teenager that was mad about circumstances she had no control over and didn’t agree with. Whether S/S1988 is to be believed or not, he was correct in that it seemed she just wanted a fresh start in life. Certainly her Idaho ID picture makes it look that way. She looks happy and upbeat.

I’m sure her family eventually tried looking for her, though probably not at first since she was an adult and had warned them not to. By the time the internet became as prolific as it is now, she had changed her name twice. It would be next to impossible to know she was Lori Kennedy living in Texas. I wonder if she kept up with her family. After all, they may not have known she was Lori, but she knew what their names were and where they lived. Maybe she was aware of deaths, births, weddings, etc. Did she ever regret her decision, even just a little bit, as she grew older?

Who knows what happened as time went on. I imagine keeping up her charade got to her after a while. And now she had a young daughter who would never know one half of her family. I wonder if Lori/Kimberly thought of that.

Well Lori/Kimberly may you rest in peace. I hope her young daughter finds some comfort in knowing who her mother’s family was and where she came from. And I also hope Kimberly’s family finds some peace. I’m sure the closure of her life is not what they wanted, but hopefully a granddaughter they never knew about will bring them some solace and remind them that Kimberly lives on in her.

Bittersweet. Thanks for letting me ramble on.

 

[SavetheQueen]

Thanks for the link. I hadn't known about that article until now -- & I had used Google every day last week to mine for new articles on LEK's confirmed identity.



I think someone's math is off.

You can arrive at "four different names" if you count Kim McLean (her birth name), the unknown name SS1988 knew her by (confirmed by others in the know that it wasn't KM & SS1988 said it wasn't LEK or BST), Becky Sue Turner (the dead toddler in Washington state), & Lori Erica Kennedy. But I don't think SS1988's evidence was reported in the Seattle Times, & she is only to have used BST twice -- to obtain the Idaho ID card & in the Texas court room where she legally changed her name. The writer should have written -- with more accuracy -- "as many as four different names".

Consider the claim she "lived in four different states". Ignoring Pennsylvania, possible candidates are Arizona (where she told the Ruffs she had come from), Nevada (where she had a mail drop), California (indicated by the Notes Page), Washington (where she found the grave for BST), Idaho (where she obtained an ID card), & Texas (of course). That's six. And then there is the photo earlier in this thread of a Kim McLean sitting in a class in a Michigan Community College, which would make it seven.

I don't know if you really are blonde, STQ, but the issue with the numbers isn't you. Or maybe there's still information about this case the journalist of this article knows but the rest of us doesn't.

No, I'm actually a natural redhead, but it's dyed black. I have "duh" moments frequently, though, that I'm known rather well for. I was thinking this was one of those.

When I started reading that article, I became excited, thinking that perhaps some information about 86-88 had come out. I only see her having 2 names: BST and LEK. I don't count her birth name or married name. I also don't count PA, since she's from there. I don't count CA, ID (? Maybe), NV, or AZ since there's no proof that she physically resided there.

I was just left thinking, "Wait. What am I missing here?". Perhaps I was looking at the article title too literally, and it was really just click bait.

*All statements are that of my own opinion unless otherwise specified. *

 

[Owutatangledweb]

There is no connection with Michigan for this case that has been reported. Someone linked a photo earlier of a Kim in Michigan and it was not LEK. I am not sure we are going to get our curiosity satisfied until some people come forward who knew her in 1986-88 and do interviews. Google is not going to much help here.

Thank you for clearing this up!

 

[True Crime Gal]

I still see a different nose and chin shape. Her nose is 'upturned' as Lori and her chin looks a wee bit more 'pointy' as Kimberly.
Her eyes are very much the same. IMO

I think I just honestly thought that there would be a big 'ding, ding, ding' in my head as soon as I saw a picture of her in her younger years! I guess I am just not very good at analyzing pictures. LOL

I think that maybe she has a little bit more weight on her as Lori (10 pounds?) and it shows mostly in her face....which could account for the chin looking different?

I can definitely see that this is her. This may have already been mentioned, but in the HS picture, she looks she's tilting her head down more--like she's looking up through her lashes. The lighting is a lot starker and the light source is higher up (compare the lengths of the shadow on her neck).

In the later pic, she's almost raising her chin (you can see the underside of her nose better), and the lighting more directly in front of her (so the shadows are different). This makes her chin and nose look different (though I don't think that they actually are different).

Bear in mind, too, that there's distortion caused by the halftone pattern of the HS pic.

Curious if anyone's done an overlay of the two pics. Guess I'll keep browsing and find out!

 

[llywrch]

When I started reading that article, I became excited, thinking that perhaps some information about 86-88 had come out. I only see her having 2 names: BST and LEK. I don't count her birth name or married name. I also don't count PA, since she's from there. I don't count CA, ID (? Maybe), NV, or AZ since there's no proof that she physically resided there.

I was just left thinking, "Wait. What am I missing here?". Perhaps I was looking at the article title too literally, and it was really just click bait.

You're not the only person who would like more information. Consider that last week, when the news broke about LEK's birth identity, up to 200 people at a time were scouring this thread for details. There is definitely a hunger out there for more information about this case.

And I know there is more to this story waiting to be told -- in spite that the only person who knows the entire story (KM/LEK) is dead, & would likely be amazed anyone wanted to know more about her. As we've all inferred from time to time, the Ruffs & McLeans know more about her than they know, & an intelligent interviewer would fill in a lot of the holes of her story. (Maybe even determine what she was doing those missing years between Pennsylvania & Dallas.)

However, it won't be a gang of armchair sleuths on the Internet who will do it. One person, who can win everyone's trust, will. (And I'm not thinking of myself -- I don't have the needed diplomatic skills.) So here's hoping someone sees this potential market & writes the book for it, because a lot of people will pay for it.

 

[PickAName]

You're not the only person who would like more information. Consider that last week, when the news broke about LEK's birth identity, up to 200 people at a time were scouring this thread for details. There is definitely a hunger out there for more information about this case.

And I know there is more to this story waiting to be told -- in spite that the only person who knows the entire story (KM/LEK) is dead, & would likely be amazed anyone wanted to know more about her. As we've all inferred from time to time, the Ruffs & McLeans know more about her than they know, & an intelligent interviewer would fill in a lot of the holes of her story. (Maybe even determine what she was doing those missing years between Pennsylvania & Dallas.)

However, it won't be a gang of armchair sleuths on the Internet who will do it. One person, who can win everyone's trust, will. (And I'm not thinking of myself -- I don't have the needed diplomatic skills.) So here's hoping someone sees this potential market & writes the book for it, because a lot of people will pay for it.

I would love a book to come out on Lori/Kimberly. I have a feeling it would be one of those "couldn't put it down, read it in a day" books for me.

 

[scriptgirl]

Through all of this, there arare 2 things that st stick out to me: one is the strained relationship with the stepdad. I wonder if there was sexual or mental abuse there. Is he even alive? Also, Lori's in-laws are a pain in the *advertiser censored*, esp that mother-in-law, who butted in at every turn. Lori's life was none of that woman's business and Lori owed her nothing. Lori was not obligated to share any info with her in-laws-her life is private, it's that simple. I don't gibe with the idea that in-laws have to know all about you and your life. Lori's mother-in-law should have just minded her own business.

 

[Hank36]

I'm still curious about three people who knew Kimberley McLean, two of whom were not accounted for in O'Hagen's article.

The third, of course, is her mother Deanne, who never reported her daughter missing and who refuses to talk to the media.

But what about her sister, who O'Hagen mentions but never names? Was she older or younger than Kimberley? Is she still alive? Why did she never look for her sister?

Also (maybe I missed it as far as this thread is concerned), there's the stepfather, Robert Becker, the man who seems to have triggered this whole escapade. Did he remain married to Deannne?

Now that I think about it (and try to pasre more info from O'Hagen's article) hat about her biological father, the firefighter?

I keep going back to "Lori's" alleged fascination with Disney and the little girl tea parties. It would seem to reflect O'Hagen's account of an idyllic pre-adolescence interrupted by family tumult, un this case, a divorce, remarriage, and relocation--Cinderella immediately comes to mind, what with Kimberley's unwelcome step-parent. I can only guess what the stepfather's "new rules" might have been...

The contradiction here is that Kimberley just doesn't seem to fit the profile of a textbook runaway. Had she been the victim of physical and/or sexual abuse by her stepfather, conventional wisdom would indicate an adulthood marked by alcohol/drug addiction and sexual promiscuity. If I tended to doubt so many of the fanciful theories (running from a religious cult/human trafficking, etc.) it's because what I found most compelling about her story are the indications that she stayed in school, had no criminal record, and at least attempted (bankruptcy notwithstanding) to live within her means.

That said, the other case that I keep thinking about is Tammy Jo Alexander. Her uncle (not her mother, father, stepfather or sister but her damn uncle) claims that the family did everything it could to find her--except actually report her as missing.

Right.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

I am uncomfortable with the speculation into KM's pre-FLEK life. We will never know these things, and further sleuthing can only hurt living family members. I would not blame the moderator if they locked the thread. She is deceased. Her identity is now known. She probably was never reported missing because she was of age when she left, and she left voluntarily with no foul play, telling family not to look for her.

Nothing more to see here, folks, time to move on.

We have many other unidentified people on this forum who could use our help.