The Letter of Reference

I don't know what to think about Lori K. Ruff- whether she was a criminal herself, or was trying to establish ID because she was a child victim in some way.

With that said, and also with respect for the incredible sleuthing done here and elsewhere about her, there IS another possible explanation for the " Roger Steinbeck" name.

In the late 80's, there were 2 popular CBS soap operas which aired back to back in most of the USA. They were " As The World Turns" and then " Guiding Light' immediately following.

Each soap had ONE main villain. The one on ATWT was named James STEINBECK.
The villain on GL was named ROGER Thorp.

Put them together and you have Roger Steinbeck. Co-incidence? Possibly but I tend to think she would have had PLENTY of time to watch soaps on TV and invent names.

Thanks for reading.
Maria

In one of the other threads, there is some information that she may have worked for an apartment management company early on. Many of these companies hire janitorial staff or apartment managers and part of their compensation is a place to live, one of the apartments. That letter may have been specifically drafted to obtain one of these positions. Duties would most likely be janitorial as well as some repairs and upkeep. If you look at the Lebaron angle, those children were made to work long hours in the Texas area appliance repair businesses. If she was related to those folks, she may have had some of these skills. Even if there is no relation to that angle, she may have had some other skills from elsewhere that allowed her to take such a position. Either way, it makes sense that the letter was drafted for this purpose if she did indeed work for apartment management companies. I would think the focus should be on tracking down the lead about her employment in that capacity. I can't remember which thread I read that in. But the name of the apartment complex began with a "C". Carrabas or something like that.

My first thought when I saw the name Roger Steinbeck was how close it is to that Dallas hero, Roger Staubach. Maybe she chose it subconsciously to inspire confidence in a Dallas-area employer/leasing company.

Has anyone considered that the letter is not fake, but is for a different Lori Kennedy and was obtained by FLEK prior to changing her identity.

Soon after she established her first fake identity, she quickly changed her name to Lori Kennedy. Perhaps her motivation for that change was that she was already in possession of this reference letter and assumed it would help her find legitimate employment.

The last date on the reference letter is 1988, which is before FLEK became Lori Kennedy, but around the time she first began to establish a false identity.

In other words, maybe this reference letter is where she chose the name Lori Kennedy.


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Undoubtedly, the letter is fake, but it may still yield some valuable clues. The Oriental Hotel, one of the most famous hotels in the world, and the most famous hotel in Thailand was the playground to celebrities for decades. The hotel had visitors the likes of Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward, Graham Greene, John le Carré, Barbara Cartland, and James A. Michener who have stayed at there That they hired some American girl to work there, and let her stay as her salary is ridiculous. Any guide book on Thailand would have included a reference to this hotel. It is actually at 48 Oriental Avenue Alley, Bangkok, Thailand. And it became the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in 1985, so even the letterhead is wrong. Of course, if she was just looking up information at the library the latest changes to the hotel's name probably wouldn't have been in there in 1988.

I think there's something of a connection to her old identity in what she chose to reveal about herself. The letter does not mention that she lived in Bangkok but she chose that letter head for a reason.

I remember reading in the Seattle Times article that she enjoyed going to tea rooms. The Oriental is famous for its high tea in the Author's Room. She also listed London when completing her passport application as one of the places she planned to visit. She may never have traveled to Bangkok or London. But she had warm feelings for the formality of high tea. I'm not sure the significance. But I think the Oriental and high tea are two important clues to her past.

I think the whole letter, the signature and the name are complete works of fiction.

It's easy to forge a signature when you don't have to match it to a real one.

Oh and the fact that the investigator said that there is no Roger Steinbeck is a pretty bold statement. One would assume that he researched him and any connection to Thailand and the hotel to be able to say that with any certainty.

Yes this is all fictitious I couldn't help but laugh at the "the oriental" on "oriental avenue" lol.

The hotel itself exists at that address, that much is true:

http://www.mandarinoriental.com/bangkok/

I don't believe that she lived and worked in Thailand (the letter doesn't suggest that); I think it's much more likely that this living/work arrangement took place much closer to her home.

What if the letter is basically authentic -- with just minor modifications (her name, say) made by either using "white out" over the name and typing the new name in, and then photocopying it to disguise the change or retyping the original letter and substituting the new name for the old on a sheet onto which she'd already copied the closing and signature?

I don't know what I think about the letterhead. Someone she knew could have taken this kind of job after high school or college -- or she could have known someone working or traveling in Thailand through connections in the sex industry (if, in fact, she was doing that kind of work).

Isn't the period covered in the letter immediately prior to her taking on the BST identity? I believe it's been noted in this thread before that this kind of arrangement -- living in an employer's residence and working for room and board -- seems like the kind of thing someone in a transitional period in their life would do.

Ok ty that sounded like a The American on American Avenue lol so I thought it was totally made up. She probably found the hotel randomly, just making sure it would be far enough for possible recruiters not to call the supposed author of the letter. What surprises me is how very unprofessional this letter is when Lori was in her mid 20's at the time. She just wrote like someone who has never worked in her life, is totally clueless about it all.

Before adding my two cents here, I want to summarize what I think the consensus is. This reference is a forgery, & probably wouldn't fool anyone who read it skeptically. And I suspect anyone who thinks it's a forgery also believes it was written by LEK, & it makes most sense to assume she wrote it soon after arriving in Dallas. But as something she wrote, I believe it reveals a few things about her.

First, it provides a clear date when she made the Dallas area her home: July 1988. This is a date that is confirmed in LEK's Passport application, where she writes that she has been in Dallas since "07 0 1988". This letter of reference cleanly papers over the issue where she was before coming to Dallas, & that she is using an assumed name.

Secondly, it shows that at one point she made an effort to get a job working in a hotel or apartment house in return for housing. I'm not sure just how practical that was; having this fishy letter of recommendation wouldn't convince a skeptical employer for one thing. And from personal experience, I can say that jobs working in those fields really don't rely on written references but on word of mouth, a bit of hustle & some luck. Who would think forging a letter of recommendation would get her a job managing an apartment house or working in a hotel?

That is how a kid from an upper-middle class household might think. Get a reference from a famous hotel (that can't be easily checked), & she will be offered a similar job here. And stockbrokers were considered upper middle class in 1988. And at one point LEK grudgingly described her father as a "failed stockbroker" to her future in-laws.

It would also explain how she got a hold of the letterhead to forge this paper: perhaps her father stayed at the hotel & brought some stationary home with him as a souvenir? Or perhaps he received a letter from someone staying at the hotel, & she cut the letterhead off of that letter & using a photocopier combined it with a piece of paper bearing the text?

In an indirect way, this otherwise negligible, although unusual, document offers us a way to check what little LEK told others about her history, & suggests that except for her change of name anything she had revealed about herself is likely the truth.

Just another theory to add to the many that have already been offered up.

THIS came to mind immediately upon finding this thread!!

SeekingJana said:

I don't know what to think about Lori K. Ruff- whether she was a criminal herself, or was trying to establish ID because she was a child victim in some way.

With that said, and also with respect for the incredible sleuthing done here and elsewhere about her, there IS another possible explanation for the " Roger Steinbeck" name.

In the late 80's, there were 2 popular CBS soap operas which aired back to back in most of the USA. They were " As The World Turns" and then " Guiding Light' immediately following.

Each soap had ONE main villain. The one on ATWT was named James STEINBECK.
The villain on GL was named ROGER Thorp.

Put them together and you have Roger Steinbeck. Co-incidence? Possibly but I tend to think she would have had PLENTY of time to watch soaps on TV and invent names.

Thanks for reading.
Maria

Click to expand...

I like the soap opera suggestion for the name! She probably wanted a name that sounded like a real name, not so common as would sound fake (i.e. John Smith) but not distinct enough that people who recognized the name would think they knew the guy.

One thing I've really suspected is maybe Lori was a caretaker for an elderly or sick relative (probably a grandparent or a parent if we believe Spring/Summer1988 though I don't) who died shortly before she disappeared. Someone in that situation would inherit a little bit of money, enough to start over, would lack work experience or references under their real name, and would have lost her primary reason for holding on to her old identity. Someone in that situation would obviously watch a lot of soap operas.

From the letter, I get the impression LEK was not someone who had a lot of work experience. In fact, it sounds like she'd never read or written a reference letter before in her life, and she'd never had anyone help her out with finding a job. Depending on how old she was, that could signal what kind of circumstances she came from. If she was roughly the age she claimed (born 1967-1970) she would've only been 18-21 when she changed her identity, and I don't find it that suspicious that someone that age hadn't worked or worked for family or had only worked a few very basic jobs. But if she was older, I think it points to an isolated background, possibly in a conservative religious community where women don't work. Maybe even an early marriage. Or, of course, the caretaker theory I already mentioned.

I'm assuming she found someone to hire her eventually, but it obviously wasn't off of that letter. Even if an employer believed the letter was legitimate, it shows that her employer didn't know her very well and she didn't have any skills or talents he found worthy of praise. I feel like most people could write something a lot better and I get the impression LEK was perhaps confused about what a reference letter even was.

It was smart to pick Thailand because no one was going to pay for an international call to check. She certainly could've gotten away with something much more detailed. I also think she may have claimed to have lived overseas and gone to high school overseas because maybe she thought that would explain why she didn't have her transcripts. She could also claim her family were still over there and that's why they weren't in the picture. She probably changed her story before she met Blake as it doesn't seem she told him or his family that she'd grown up in Thailand. The weird way her employment history is described "high school to July of 1988" also gives her some flexibility when telling people how old she is. Her "official" birthdate of 1969 might've been a hard sell looking at that 1990 photo of her; perhaps she had an explanation for that too.

The one thing about the letter from "Roger Steinbeck" that has always bothered me is that his name is so close to quarterback Roger Staubach, an icon in Dallas and Texas. Though he played until 1979, and this letter was written in 1988 we presume, Staubach is a revered adopted son of Dallas and a familiar name in the Metroplex (as well as nationally). I just can't get that out of my mind.

I agree with those who say that the international letter would be difficult to trace, and thus a good ruse. We paid interstate long distance fees in those days, and calling internationally was almost unheard of, unless you had a "watts" line in business. No one would verify the letter, I believe.

The errors in the letter bother me, too. The "whom it may concern" should be capitalized. "Highschool" should be two words. The "pleasant manners" and "very productive" parts of that particular sentence lack verbs. The "tenant" sentence lacks commas.

The letter mostly revolves around her demeanor as a renter, not as an employee, so I also agree with those who think this letter was written with the sole purpose of giving it to a landlord.