Lori Ruff Identified as Kimberly McLean of PA

[Buzzaround]

It's so amusing to me how we can all look at a photograph and come to such different conclusions.

As soon as I saw the yearbook photo this morning, I was blown away by how similar it looked to her Idaho ID. Her eyes and smile look EXACTLY the same to me.

Plastic surgery can change someone's face, for sure, but it can't change a person's essence.

And yes - I fully realize how hokey that sounds.

 

[Harriet]

Hi Artsy Owl!! :seeya:

Not sure if it was you or not, but a while back someone on here also mentioned they believed she was Irish. I chimed in and said I was glad someone else beside myself believed she was Irish and thanked them for saying it. Yes, the Kennedy connection to Dallas as well~~but I don't think that had as much to do with it, IMHO anyway.

It was me that said I thought she looked Irish. But then I also thought she may have been born in an Irish Magdalene laundry and looking for birth parents.

I still sense a huge sadness in her life and lots of trauma from her family life.

 

[bodester413]

Boy was I surprised last night to see they had identified who this was. It had been awhile since I checked on this thread, so I found approximately where I had left off and started to read the posts. Eventually I skipped ahead because I was so excited to see what her original name was. I'm happy for her daughter. She can finally get some answers. Like someone posted earlier in these threads. She can ask her new family what her mom was like a child. How cool would that be?

 

[bears10]

I think she definitely had a nose job, it's not just the tip of her nose the bridge of her nose is a lot wider too.

Maybe Carl will come by and comment, he's the in house expert on facial features.

Also, she is looking down in the HS photo and up in the first two ID photos we have of her. That's going to make a big difference.

I put all the pictures together for us to see. I didn't double check to make sure they are chronically ordered, going off memory.

ETA: I can't figure out how to get the photo to show up in the text of my post?

For some reason all I see are the words "attached thumbnails" but I can't click or see any pictures. Is it bc I'm on my phone?

 

[llywrch]

It's so amusing to me how we can all look at a photograph and come to such different conclusions.

As soon as I saw the yearbook photo this morning, I was blown away by how similar it looked to her Idaho ID. Her eyes and smile look EXACTLY the same to me.

Plastic surgery can change someone's face, for sure, but it can't change a person's essence.

And yes - I fully realize how hokey that sounds.

Since the beginning of this thread, a lot of pictures have been posted of missing people as possible matches for KM/LEK. I never felt any of them were likely. No real reason other than they the pairing just didn't "feel" right to me. But I never commented because I'm often wrong about these things.

But the high school picture *is* her, IMHO. As you said, the eyes clinches it. There is something about her gaze: it's steady, certain, but not piercing. (And in the latest two pictures of her, it's changed a bit: it's not as certain; there's a tentative quality about her gaze in each.)

BTW, is Kim in the high school picture wearing a school uniform? The Wikipedia article on the Bishop McDevitt's HS indicates that it was a Catholic school, & many of them require school uniforms. If not, that top does not fit the style of clothing worn in the 80s at all.

 

[astridxx]

Are you guys legit picking apart whether the high school picture is Lori, and whether or not Lori is the high school picture?? :doh:

 

[shadowdancer]

I think it looks exactly like her (well it IS her)
Everything is just thinner because she is younger here.
If it's Sophomore year she would be about 15 years old.
Her eyes: same shape
Her eyebrows:same shape, just thinner
Her Hair: same color and texture (over the years some wondered if she died her hair darker)
Her smile: same little half-moon, upper teeth only, same lip thickness
Her chin: the same shape, only thinner
Her nose: looks a little different, but only the tip. I think she broke it somehow rather than having a nose job though. DV or an auto accident?

I hope we see more photos. I always thought her smile seemed forced but this smile looks the same, so maybe that was just how she always smiled. Maybe she just really hated having her photo taken and was always uncomfortable around cameras. Or maybe she was just someone who can't smile naturally on cue.

ETA: I forgot, her ears! Her ears are exactly the same level on her face and same shape.

I feel exactly the same way! I'm so shocked that people wouldn't have recognized her!

Maybe its like those optical illusions - We just all 'see' things differently.

 

[south fishy]

Thanks! Since you are from the area, do you know if there were Southern Baptist churches there in the 1980's? I realize the SBC is everywhere today but I don't know about Philly in the 1980's.

No that would be one I don't think would be around here. Although, working the other way around, when I moved here from SC and a southern Baptist family, I went to several regular Baptist and Presbytarian churches in the Philly suburbs that were pretty much identical to the SB at home.

 

[llywrch]

Am I in a rabbit hole with my Jeanne Clery / Josoph Henry theory?

You might be right, but at this point we're back to not having enough evidence to construct plausible theories about her.

It's much like the response to my theory that she considered & maybe even went to Hollywood with the idea of becoming an actress or model -- probably not. Then again, my theory was intended more to explain the Notes Page than to explain why she left her family. And my theory could be right if she only thought about it, or was in LA for a very short time -- less than a month, or even a day or two. When she cut off all her ties to her family, she was at liberty to try anything, so she might have attempted something totally out of character for her. And it doesn't really conflict with EmiLove's theory, since she could have been influenced by "someone that led an adventurous, wild life", then at one point went to LA/Hollywood during or after this friendship. Or this friend may have instigated it; some have plausibly argued at least two people wrote on this piece of paper.

But the point of any theory is to provide a jumping-off point for further research. Which is what we need -- more research into her background.

All we know for sure is that she didn't get along with her stepfather, severed all ties with her family, lived in PA for a while before leaving the state, then in Spring of 1988 she appears in Bakersfield & begins reinventing herself as LEK.

What we don't know -- & might be explained if we knew where/what she was doing in that undocumented period -- was how she met the woman she introduced to S/S1988 as "her mother", what happened to her nose between 1986 & 1988, & when she decided to become religious. (If she'd always been a church-goer, for instance, the rumor she had been "a dancer" at some point becomes more than odd: either it is not true at all, or demonstrates she could rationalize her behavior to an extreme degree.) And what was it that triggered her desire to reinvent herself.

 

[Gardener1850]

Are you guys legit picking apart whether the high school picture is Lori, and whether or not Lori is the high school picture?? :doh:

I don't think anyone is saying it's not her. Some are just admitting/realizing they are bad at recognizing younger pics of the same person. We compared so many photos over the years and some people had strong feelings that other people they found "looked just like her". I'm sure most people had a favorite they thought would turn out to be her (Jennifer Wictor is one that got brought up a lot but I never saw the resemblance). Now that we have a photo that IS her people who had a different person in mind are probably shocked at how far off they were in the photos they thought looked like her younger self. That's all that is happening. People are shocked. A lot of people were also "sure" her real name would be Lori or some variant (Laurie/Laura/Loretta, etc). Well a lot of people were wrong. It's natural to be surprised and point these things out, IMO.

 

[SavetheQueen]

Can I just interject here that my husband's side of the family - like everyone seems to carry a variation of his dad's first name, even the women. And like, his sister's kid is named after my husband, and her other kid is named after their dad, and then 3 or 4 kids have a vartion of grandpa's name, and our daughter's middle name is named after my husband's sister and blah blah -- it's so convoluted. But, he's Hispanic, so maybe that's why.

I digress.

No, no, I understand. My son's are all middle named Thomas. Their dad, and all male relatives in his direct line were named Thomas in some form. They're Choctaw, Native American, and Thomas was the name of a Chief in their family a few generations ago - who once we tracked it down was actually a blonde haired English guy who married into family who had only daughters and was appointed Chief solely for that reason. Glad to know our family isn't the only one who did this. LOL!

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

 

[neesaki]

Just saw it, can't believe it. Finally.

 

[SavetheQueen]

Wow. Can someone tell me how old she is in the pic please? What is a 'sophomore'? Isn't it amazing how a nose makes a face... I think the tip shape changes her face a lot. Also, the hair parting makes the face a different shape too.

Sent from my SM-J500FN using Tapatalk

Year 10 in school.

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

 

[ClayBertrand]

Scaled down for easier viewing

 

[SavetheQueen]

Thank you for posting these! After seeing all the pics lined up like this, and I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I actually am now thinking that she may have had some type of surgery on both her nose and her chin. I would also appreciate Carl's input on this.

I'm going to concur with you. I think that she had the tip at least shaved down and refined on her nose. I'm also thinking a subtle chin implant.

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

 

[SavetheQueen]

Am I in a rabbit hole with my Jeanne Clery / Josoph Henry theory?

It's a possibility it happened. How would we know?

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

 

[SavetheQueen]

The Seattle Times is hosting a Facebook Q&A with reporter Maureen O'Hagan and forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick at 1 p.m. PST. You can click into this Seattle Times Facebook post and leave a question ahead of time.

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

 

[south fishy]

Since the beginning of this thread, a lot of pictures have been posted of missing people as possible matches for KM/LEK. I never felt any of them were likely. No real reason other than they the pairing just didn't "feel" right to me. But I never commented because I'm often wrong about these things.

But the high school picture *is* her, IMHO. As you said, the eyes clinches it. There is something about her gaze: it's steady, certain, but not piercing. (And in the latest two pictures of her, it's changed a bit: it's not as certain; there's a tentative quality about her gaze in each.)

BTW, is Kim in the high school picture wearing a school uniform? The Wikipedia article on the Bishop McDevitt's HS indicates that it was a Catholic school, & many of them require school uniforms. If not, that top does not fit the style of clothing worn in the 80s at all.

Most definitely a school uniform. You can see same outfit in pieces of pics above and below in scan. And I've never seen a catholic school here that did not require uniforms.

 

[south fishy]

So one of the addresses that keeps popping up for Kimberly and her family in searches struck me as odd. So I googled it and confirmed its one of the main skyscraper office buildings in center city Philly. Well she didn't live there. So why is it everywhere?

Well, I researched the building history and it used to be the Mellon Bank building. The I researched that company...
They bought an oil company in the 80's.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellon_Financial

ETA: maybe the failed stockbroker story wasn't a lie after all.

 

[llywrch]

Most definitely a school uniform. You can see same outfit in pieces of pics above and below in scan. And I've never seen a catholic school here that did not require uniforms.

Just saw the article over on the Philly.com website. It's a verbatim repost of the Seattle Times article, but with one difference -- a larger snapshot of the page KM's photo is on. On that page you can see other pictures of students, & it's clear she's wearing a school uniform. (And there's no mention of the forum on Websleuths. :-( )

Link: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/M...ing-mystery-of-identity-thief-Lori-Ruff-.html

The comments in the Philly.com article include one interesting fact. In response to a question if anyone at her high school remembered her:

[FONT=&amp]They have, this was a topic of discussion on the McD Facebook Alum page yesterday, some people remember her but she did not last all 4 years and it was 30 years ago so fewer than normal did, but a few definitely remembered her. Nothing out of the ordinary.[/FONT]

Still reading the comments, so there might be more.

Update: Nothing more in the comments to the Philly.com article as of this time. Fox News also had an article, but with nothing that's not in the Seattle Times article. And unless you want to see what a completely unmoderated forum looks like, don't bother with the comments to the Fox News article.

Would be nice if someone could look at the McD Alum FB page & report on anything of interest there.