One thing I specifically noticed is while it shows up on numerous FLEK pages, the idea of her being Jennifer Marie Wictor is dismissed quite quickly with very little academic followup so while circumstantial, I'd like to put a few interesting things I've noted when you compare JMW to FLEK.
First of all, yes, they do look "different", but I think I can provide an actual (circumstantial) reasoning behind it, so bear with me.
Right off the bat, it's the nose, nasiolabial folds, and smile that are different. From what I've seen this has been enough to dismiss her from candidacy as FLEK with not much more followup. So what do we know about FLEK? For one, she seemed to be concerned with her age as well as her appearance, despite the claims of dressing "matronly" later in life, which I also aim to explain. Allegedly she received a breast augmentation, but before that, there's also talk of her having had a nose job earlier in life. Most of the talk I've seen regarding FLEK and rhinoplasty ends with "But why would she get it to look crooked, what did she look like before?" My theory is FLEK IS JMW, and that JMW received a botched nose job.
Rhinoplasty was the big thing in the mid eighties, but a simple google search can bring up droves of botched nose job pictures from the mid-late 80s and see how much it structurally alters one's face. JMW had a wider, more bulbous nose with thicker nasiolabial folds. If JMW were to get a nose job, it'd (speculation) be to diminish the width and shrink it down a bit, which would mean a loss of depth of her nasiolabial folds. If it were conducted improperly, or not given enough time to properly heal, one could very well easily end up with the crooked, upturned look of FLEK.
Which leads me to the FLEK smile. Always tight upper lip, in fact, one can argue FLEK's upper lip is virtually identical in all of her photographs, regardless of her expression. Almost a straight line across her teeth, with the rest of her mouth making the smile.
From a forum post regarding rhinoplasty side-effects/aftereffects:
"I'm one week out from Rhinoplasty and a chin implant. I have numbness in lower lip due to chin implant and my top lip won't move due to rhinoplasty. I was not told this would be an affect, and I look freakish when I try to smile and my smile used to be very pretty and wide. Now my teeth aren't visible when I smile and I just look so weird! I'm literally having major anxiety over this as I'm worried this might be permanent. I'm regretting doing these procedures.
- In general, almost all noses are numb right after a rhinoplasty. In most cases its the tip that is numb, but this numbness can extend down to the upper lip, and in rare cases some of the teeth. There are nerves that are cut and stretched during a rhinoplasty, and it takes a long time for those nerves to start working again. This is true of an open as well as closed rhinoplasty, although it tends to be more extensive in open rhinoplasty. This could also be more extensive if a septoplasty is performed at the same time. This, along with the swelling, gives you a stiff, plastic type feel, and can give you an odd smile. However, the nerves will start working and again, and your nose stiffness will go away with time. As the nerves grow back, you may feel some tingling, itchiness and on occasion pain. This takes in most cases months, but can take years in rare cases. Extremely rarely, the numbness is permanent, although I have never seen such as case"
Now this post was in 2014, and it is not uncommon nor is the doctor's response. Now, go back to 1988 which nose job full on botches and/or inappropriate aftercare were much more common. Is it entirely possible this happened to her and remained semi-permanent?
As for the financial means, I've bounced a few theories back and forth, but the one that sticks out in my mind as the most plausible is either as JMW or a possible transitional identity, she took out a loan she never intended to repay (as she was planning on changing her identity already) and when the nose job was botched, she had no recourse but to continue on with her life.
