The word that strikes me the most about this case is "inconsistencies" - there are so many inconsistencies within the information that we know in the case. For example, nothing has come up to prove that FLEK had access to money outside of her jobs, and of course, marital funds while married. However, in the period of time where we don't know much about what she was doing or who she was...she had breast augmentation. This is a) not an inexpensive surgery, b) not covered by health insurance unless done in a reconstructive manner (e.g. post bilateral mastectomy or some other medical condition) and c) not something consistent with the personality of FLEK that I have in my head. Who paid for this? Why was it done? Who wanted it?
In my experience, women that have had breast augmentation surgery who wanted it for themselves were not prone to dressing the way FLEK appears to dress in the photos we have. (Forgetting the terminology of matronly, we have visual evidence of how she chose to dress) I do NOT mean that every woman who has BA is showing them off 24/7. But few have this invasive of a surgery and dress as FLEK does. Again, excepting medical reasons.
Yes, there are many inconsistencies in what is known of her life. (I'm agreeing here, not trying to be condescending.)
Another conflicting thing: I perceive her as somewhat introverted/socially awkward (true or not, I have no idea) but I do not believe she was really outgoing (it is very hard for naturally outgoing people to stem that). Now did this introversion/awkwardness stem from a horrible experience (e.g. Domestic violence (pre-Blake) as some have suggested?) Maybe so. But the tendency towards introversion that I perceive (whether natural or experience based) seems incongruous with dancing or stripping or even BA. I perceive her, as somewhat physically awkward as well - it seems incongruous.
I agree with you about LEK being shy/introverted. That would explain why so few people have stepped up to say that they knew her. And if I can take your insight one step further...
One thing that fascinates me is that LEK is known to have maintained several mail drops, as if she was expecting -- or hoping -- to hear from somebody. Expecting or hoping that someone might notice she has disappeared & come looking for her. And there is another detail we know about her that takes on new importance in this light: she talks about her father as having a wife -- not her mother -- as if her mother had left their family due to divorce or death, & her father married a woman with whom LEK did not get along with. (Which is common: I've heard more than one person refer to their step-mother as a "step-monster".) She is also known to have claimed that she was an only child & her parents were dead -- although it is possible she lied about not having any living relatives. It could be that LEK felt so isolated & ignored by her family that at one point she said, "I bet if I vanished tomorrow none of you would even miss me" -- & tested this by doing exactly that.
Maybe she moved to Dallas where she knew no one to see if anyone would look for her. First she lived under one of her new names (either BST or LEK) to make it difficult, & when no one came looking she reverted back to her birth name. And when still no one came looking for her, she accepted that it was true, that no one from her family missed her, & embraced her new identity by getting a Social Security Number & passport in that name, & started making a life for LEK.
(Warning: all of this is highly speculative & is just my opinion. But it fits all of the known facts, & is just as likely as theories she had escaped from an abusive relationship, or fled some polygamous Mormon cult.)
From what we know, other than the one former BF who has been quoted, we know of no other romantic relationships, beyond her husband. Why then? Why did she pick Blake? Was it because he was the type to "stay out of her stuff" and she felt she could 'manage'(control) that relationship? Was it this drive to have a child and knowing her time was ticking out? Why after so long alone did she think that it could work with him?
Well, there was her time with Spring/Summer 1988 -- if you believe SS1988 was telling the truth. So there
may be one more.
Lastly, and admittedly I could be way off here. I do not perceive her with the level of intelligence that all of this planning and hiding and changing this and finding people's identities to assume would imply. I do not mean that she was below average, or impaired in any way - but I don't 'feel' the cunning mastermind that pulling this off seems to take. Her work on her webpages, is mediocre. Her wording choices, bland. Nothing outstanding or energizing or really 'catchy' in any way. It feels 'adequate' but nothing that would be 'stand out'. Of course, if 'standing out' were the last thing she wanted, maybe that is part of this...but PERSONALITY, behavior, intellect - these are hard-wired and very very difficult to change. I can dye my hair, cut it, get surgery to alter my appearance, but to alter 'who I am' substantially is extremely difficult.
IMHO, I think she was brighter than average, but not that bright. By that, I mean she fell in that difficult grey area where she knew she was more intelligent than many people around her, yet not intelligent enough that she could find a way to stand out apart from them. Take a look at her resume: she figured out how to put her name so it ran along the left edge of the page perpendicular to the rest of the text -- that's not an obvious trick with your average word processing software --- yet at the same time never asked for help in reviewing the text of her resume. (A second pair of eyes always helps.) Maybe she didn't know anyone whose opinion she trusted to give her useful feedback.
As for changing her identity, there have been enough posts about the process of doing this to show it wasn't that hard to do in the late 1980s. Anyone with above average intelligence could pull it off; in LEK's case, she won the gold medal for stolen identities by finding a person who was born in one state & died in another. She could have found the person thru long, tedious work -- say, visiting cemeteries systematically until she found the right name -- or entirely by fortuitous accident.
I do think she is older than her stated age.
I can't remember reading anyone who has argued the opposite. (But remember, my memory has proven to be unreliable very recently.) Which is a theory, now that I think about it, that could be possible. What if LEK was 19 or younger in 1988?
I would be extraordinarily interested in talking to someone who knew her. You never know what kind of things that people can remember. The BF that was mentioned by Velling - any chance we could get to find out who he is and chat with him? Anything could be useful - but I would love details on what he remembers of her, expounding on what her problems were that were too much for him, knowing her behavior, did she like to go out (I see her more solitary), etc. I can think of a thousand perhaps banal questions that would tell us so much. Where did he meet her? Where did they go on dates? Did she have friends? Where did she buy her car? What car insurance did she have? Did she have direct deposit on her bank accounts? From who? Did she hate to get her picture taken or was she ok with it? And on and on and on.
You're not the only one. That's one reason I can't accept that SS1988 is making up his story entirely: I'd like to hear from someone, besides Blake & his family, who knew her, just to get some sense of her.
FWIW - my own mental ramblings
Nothing to be ashamed of. Most of what I post here are my own mental ramblings, & most of them are far from the most insightful things to be posted here.
