TX - Longview, WhtFem (UP 9863), 41-50, Suicide - Assumed Identity, Dec'10

[NCSleuth]

Just found thread today. Read all 25 pages. It's fascinating. Quick search shows a lot of different addresses. She moved around. Austin, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Houston, TX; Dallas TX; Bedford, TX; Irving, TX. In no particular order.

 

[webrocket]

I have been searching and cannot find a death or birth notice for lek or even le_ with no last name born on 7-18-69...
Would the birth date definiately be from the deceased?

unless the real LEK had a SS# and the family retired it, then she would not show up in the SSDI. I tried finding archived newspapers from the Scottsdale area online but had no luck with old obits. (keeping in mind we don't know what year LEK died).

for what it's worth, we understandably are fixated on the real LEK, however, that's not likely to help us at all figure out who this imposter was. I assume (and you know what they say about assuming) that the SSA contacted the K------ family and showed them the imposter's photo. if she was a complete stranger to them then they will be hard pressed to figure out who she was.

depending on how long the imposter planned this, for all we know she faked her own death and her family wrote her off as dead and would have no reason to be looking for her anywhere.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

I have been searching and cannot find a death or birth notice for lek or even le_ with no last name born on 7-18-69...
Would the birth date definiately be from the deceased?

That is a good question. I would assume that the one thing she would be stuck with was the birth date from the stolen birth certificate. That birth date would then have been associated with the SSN she fraudulently obtained and would be fixed through marriages and name changes. But all my assumptions have been wrong lately concerning this case.:waitasec:

 

[NCSleuth]

anyone considered Carla Rebecca Corley?

 

[Magnum P.E.]

7 inches shorter, does not look much like FLEK's younger or older pix to my eyes. Circumstances of disappearance are a bad match. Let's keep diggin'.....

 

[NCSleuth]

I forgot we had a younger picture. you are right. Only reason I was looking in AL because I found an infant with same last name and same birth day. different first and middle name.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

I forgot we had a younger picture. you are right. Only reason I was looking in AL because I found an infant with same last name and same birth day. different first and middle name.

It was as good a shot as any. This may be solved by someone doing just exactly what you are doing, going case by case and looking at pix. I see Websleuths as complimenting the efforts of LE by doing what they have not the resources to do.

I wish the SSA would give us another morsel of information.

 

[OC Lady]

So do my fellow Websleuthers think the lack of a mention of a birthmark rules out Melissa Highsmith

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/5505/0/

 

[mawt28]

I live in Kilgore/ Longview TX, Gregg county. I studied her picture for so long..I feel like Ive seen her but no name comes to my mind. Does anyone have a name...the name of her child or spouse?
In regard to a possible college choice, Kilgore Community College is very close by as is University of TX, Tyler.
I have several friends who work in LE here in Longview and Kilgore. Ill run this by them and ask them if anything as been resolved in the case.
Maybe I can contact the local paper, Longview News Journal, and ask them to write an article?

 

[Magnum P.E.]

Hi mawt and welcome to Websleuths.

See post #602 as to why we must only use initials on this forum. Please don't post any actual names, they have not been released officially although they are common knowledge.
It is probably a bad idea to ask a newspaper to write an article, the family still lives right there and innocent people could be embarrassed/inconvenienced. It is good to get at the truth but like doctors we must first do no harm.


If you had access to a graduation program from UT Arlington (I forget the year) it would be nice to know if she actually graduated or if that was also an invented part of her background. That program is given out freely and is a public document.

 

[mawt28]

I just found out the most unusual information about this case from my daughter.

She was introduced, through a mutual friend, to the spouse. This friend filled in her on some detail...she committed suicide on Christmas Eve, she left a baby girl behind, she left a suicide letter but the spouse has yet to read the letter. Strange I know...

My daughter was not told that she was using an assumed identity (perhaps even the friend didnt know)...but was intrigued enough that she will talk to this friend without causing suspiscion.

 

[deca]

I would assume the investigators have read the letter and there was nothing leading to her true identity. MOO. Very intriguing, though.

 

[neesaki]

I have been searching and cannot find a death or birth notice for lek or even le_ with no last name born on 7-18-69...
Would the birth date definiately be from the deceased?

Same here kd. I've searched on Ancestry and FamilySearch. Not a thing

 

[Magnum P.E.]

Same here kd. I've searched on Ancestry and FamilySearch. Not a thing

Hmmm. I wonder if FLEK used LEK's birth certificate to get the SSN but used her OWN birthday so she would remember it. I know that's weak but it's all I can com up with.

SSA if you are reading this please throw us a bone.

 

[Babyslims]

Hmmm. I wonder if FLEK used LEK's birth certificate to get the SSN but used her OWN birthday so she would remember it. I know that's weak but it's all I can com up with.

SSA if you are reading this please throw us a bone.

They probably don't know any more than what we do lol


Mawt28 Welcome to Websleuths! Thank you for sharing!

 

[webrocket]

I am going to assume (with all the pitfalls that come with assuming anything) that the imposter actually obtained a copy of a birth certificate issued to LEK. in my estimation, and please add to the list if anyone sees another possibility, that there were only four ways for her to have known about the real LEK and her demise. these are 1. she had actual knowledge of LEK's life and death as in caregiver, friend or relative of the family or a local; 2. she saw the obituary in the newspaper when it was originally printed; 3. she trolled cemeteries and found the headstone; or 4. worked at the registrar where the birth and/or death records were filed.

unless it was 4 (where she simply made copies of the birth certificate herself and even stamped or sealed it to make it authentic), she would need to obtain a birth certificate from the appropriate authorities which means she would need to have known where LEK was born. the most reliable source for that would be the obituary so had she not read it herself the first time, she'd have to go to the library and look up old editions of the newspapers. the internet as we know it did not exist in the late 1980's.

so she reads the obit and finds out LEK was born wherever. if it were me, I would have called the registrar's office to inquire what procedures they had to get a copy of the birth cert. who knows how easy it might have been back then to simply go in and pay a small fee to get the document?

having tendered her fee, she gets the birth certificate and she is practically home free. it is still a mystery why she did not apply for a SS# under LEK's name when from all we can tell now, no number was ever issued to the real LEK. Had she done so, it is probable that the SSA would never have known she was in imposter as she would have been using a SS# issued to her and not fabricating her own number which would raise red flags. [I still don't know why the SSA stated the number was issued to her in TX in 1988 if it were a fake #. the feds are not helpful in this dept]

so getting back to the imposter, it is clear that she had to have had some physical presence to the Scottsdale AZ area which is where the real LEK was presumably born. (why else would the obituary have stated she was from there?) in terms of timing, I really think that the real LEK would have had her own SS# by the age of 16 so in my best hunch, she died probably no later than age 13, which would have been around 1982.

if any of our sleuths live in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area, is there any way to make a trip to the local library to find out who has archived copies of the local papers and see if there is the name L--- K------ in any index of names from obituaries in the 1970's or early 1980's?

 

[Corvid]

I thought flek changed her name to lek along with lek’s birthdate at the time she applied for the SS#, figuring that lek died young and probably didn’t yet have a SS#. (That is the way that Joseph Newton Chandler III did it, and he also wasn’t discovered as an imposter until after his suicide.)
I also assumed that flek’s Scottsdale, AZ origins was just a story that flek offered whenever someone inquired about her past. (Why would she direct someone to a place where her deceit might be discovered?) If that is the case, then I would think looking for a lek born on 7-18-69 in any state other than Arizona would fit the bill. No?
If that could be found it might show where their paths crossed..... maybe... somehow.... possibly... I don't know.

 

[CherBearSTL]

having tendered her fee, she gets the birth certificate and she is practically home free. it is still a mystery why she did not apply for a SS# under LEK's name when from all we can tell now, no number was ever issued to the real LEK. Had she done so, it is probable that the SSA would never have known she was in imposter as she would have been using a SS# issued to her and not fabricating her own number which would raise red flags. [I still don't know why the SSA stated the number was issued to her in TX in 1988 if it were a fake #. the feds are not helpful in this dept]

so getting back to the imposter, it is clear that she had to have had some physical presence to the Scottsdale AZ area which is where the real LEK was presumably born. (why else would the obituary have stated she was from there?) in terms of timing, I really think that the real LEK would have had her own SS# by the age of 16 so in my best hunch, she died probably no later than age 13, which would have been around 1982.

I am confused with what you are saying. I think that the fake LEK took the real LEK's birth cert to the SS office and obtained a SS # making her the official LEK. Her SS# would be tied back to the real LEK's birth parents. So, when her family applied for death benefits when she committed suicide in 2010, the family found out that she had stolen the identity because the SS administration contacted the real LEK's parents listed on the birth cert. Does that sound correct?

In my opinion, I think she used other SS #s because she was trying to avoid being detected. In other words, if she needed a SS# to apply for credit, she may have used another # to avoid any flags being raised. I believe she used both the SS# that was issued to her in 1988 as well as others that were fake.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you used to get an official copy of your birth certificate while you were still in the hospital. If hospitals kept copies, would it have been as easy as getting a copy from a file somewhere and taking it to the SS office? I know that stealing a deceased child's identity has been happening for years, but I don't know exactly how people do it.


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[Babyslims]

I was curious how she pulled this off.... I tried to do a little searching and found this wikipedia page that gives some examples of how its done

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosting_(identity_theft)

 

[Magnum P.E.]

I am confused with what you are saying. I think that the fake LEK took the real LEK's birth cert to the SS office and obtained a SS # making her the official LEK. Her SS# would be tied back to the real LEK's birth parents. So, when her family applied for death benefits when she committed suicide in 2010, the family found out that she had stolen the identity because the SS administration contacted the real LEK's parents listed on the birth cert. Does that sound correct?

In my opinion, I think she used other SS #s because she was trying to avoid being detected. In other words, if she needed a SS# to apply for credit, she may have used another # to avoid any flags being raised. I believe she used both the SS# that was issued to her in 1988 as well as others that were fake.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you used to get an official copy of your birth certificate while you were still in the hospital. If hospitals kept copies, would it have been as easy as getting a copy from a file somewhere and taking it to the SS office? I know that stealing a deceased child's identity has been happening for years, but I don't know exactly how people do it.


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My thoughts are in accordance with yours, except that we don't know how old LEK was when she died, so FLEK may have slipped up and applied for an SSN for a birth cert that ALREADY had a SSN associated with it, and perhaps the deception was not uncovered until she committed suicide and the SSA went to close out the account. Maybe the computer spit out ANOTHER LEK with the same birthday but a different SSN and employment history. In other words, LEK - the real LEK - may have lived long enough to leave traces of her existence. We just don't know, and no one is saying. I don't think that SSA routinely contacts parents listed on the birth certificate when someone dies.
As for the other SSNs, who knows? SSA needs to let some more info out.