TX - 'Lori Ruff', Longview, WhtFem UP9863, *General Discussion and Theories* #1

[Occam's Razor]

Another inconsistency: We teach kids to ask "Which of these things doesn't belong with the others?" Looking in that "crafts" box, the thing that jumps out at me is that Paragliding certificate. It apparently has nothing to do with creating or maintaining a new identity. Why did she keep it in that box? If it had sentimental value she could have kept it in her other file cabinet. Why did she keep it in her false identity box? I can't help but believe that this is a major clue if we just knew how to read it.

 

[Liebchenmutti]

Hi, I'm new on this forum, but I've been following along and I think I'm reasonably familiar with the evidence, so I'll try not to waste everybody's time.

There's one theory that I haven't seen on here that seems patently obvious to me: She cheated on her GED. I'm not sure how much closer that info gets us to the identity of BST-1 day, but it should shed some light on her situation at the time.

Her GED scores (95% on Reading, 58% on writing;93% on social studies, 43% on science) indicate to me one of three possibilities:

1. She was a voracious reader why could barely write, who read a tremendous amount of social studies but absolutely no science; or

2. She ate a HUGE bowl of Wheaties on 4/14/90; or

3. She had a ringer sit for the test for her on 4/14/90

I'm not coming up with any 4th explaination.

Of course, if I'm right that would be a huge risk for someone who is trying to hide beneath the radar. Also, how was it done? Obviously it would involve another false ID for the ringer. Finally, who did she know that she trusted enough do that for her.

Comments?

Judging just from her resume & reference letter that she wrote, she was horrible at writing. You can be a prolific reader & have great reading skills and not have writing ability--learning disabilities produce this. On the note she wrote, there seem to be transposed letters "Hollowod" or something similar which hints at dyslexia.

Social Studies would also be heavy on reading comprehension. She's a drop out (I think--she may have actually finished HS, but couldn't use the diploma as it was her old ID), so she had little science or no interest/aptitude in it.

The scores look consistent with the other snippets we have of her abilities.

JMOO

 

[Liebchenmutti]

Another inconsistency: We teach kids to ask "Which of these things doesn't belong with the others?" Looking in that "crafts" box, the thing that jumps out at me is that Paragliding certificate. It apparently has nothing to do with creating or maintaining a new identity. Why did she keep it in that box? If it had sentimental value she could have kept it in her other file cabinet. Why did she keep it in her false identity box? I can't help but believe that this is a major clue if we just knew how to read it.

It's really weird. I'm wondering if the notes are to throw people off track--there doesn't seem to be any useful information that she could reference from that paper--did she put it with the other documents just to litter the investigation with misinformation? If it is just doodles/notes from phone calls, why put it in the strongbox?

 

[ClaireNC]

Welcome Occam's Razor!
For clarification she scored at the 70 percentile for math, which is not horrible. I don't think she cheated or had somebody fill in for her. It is not all that unusual for people to have strengths and weaknesses. So she was really good at reading and read about social studies. Science just didn't interest her and she might have had some kind of learning disability that interfered with her writing ability. As Liebchenmutti said, "her scores are consistent with the snippets we have of her abilities."

It's possible that she took a GED prep. class and missed the days they covered science and writing. As Astrokitty mentioned test anxiety could play a big role, if she was more confident in reading and social studies, she would have less anxiety. Maybe she just woke up feeling great on 4/14, while she was exhausted, sick, upset, or woke up with her period and horrible cramps on the day she took the science test.

She probably researched the best ways to pass a GED test so she knew just what she needed to do to pass the test. The bottom line is that she passed, the individual subject scores don't really mean all that much.

 

[ClaireNC]

I am going to go ahead and post this here, because of now, I don't think it deserves it's own thread. If someone can clear this up quickly, awesome, if not and feels it needs discussing, lets start a thread for it!!

What happened to the PARTIAL SS # from NJ that the original investigator whom webrocket contacted mentioned in the old old post here:
Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - TX - Longview, WhtFem (UP 9863), 41-50, Suicide - Assumed Identity, Dec'10

AND I HAVE A PARTIAL SSN ALSO USED WHICH IS FROM NJ.

Our leads are expanding.. Including the northeast possibly, so I didn't want anyone to dismiss a NJ connection, just because it had not been mentioned recently.

Apologies if I missed where this was dismissed/solved.
Moo

Good catch, MrsT. I had forgotten about that partial SSN. That was a long time before the Seattle Times article. Was it the same investigator from the SSA that gave webrocket that information? Now that the story has been published, maybe somebody can go back to the investigator and ask for clarification.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Welcome Occam's Razor!
For clarification she scored at the 70 percentile for math, which is not horrible. I don't think she cheated or had somebody fill in for her. It is not all that unusual for people to have strengths and weaknesses. So she was really good at reading and read about social studies. Science just didn't interest her and she might have had some kind of learning disability that interfered with her writing ability. As Liebchenmutti said, "her scores are consistent with the snippets we have of her abilities."

It's possible that she took a GED prep. class and missed the days they covered science and writing. As Astrokitty mentioned test anxiety could play a big role, if she was more confident in reading and social studies, she would have less anxiety. Maybe she just woke up feeling great on 4/14, while she was exhausted, sick, upset, or woke up with her period and horrible cramps on the day she took the science test.

She probably researched the best ways to pass a GED test so she knew just what she needed to do to pass the test. The bottom line is that she passed, the individual subject scores don't really mean all that much.

ClaireNC, Reasonable minds can differ, but the fact that her grades shot through the roof on one day and were terrible on the other days is EXTREMELY suspicious. Also I beg to differ, in that reading and writing skills are intertwined (I don't mean handwriting itself, I mean the ability to express yourself with the written word). The writing portion of the GED has both multiple choice and an essay. If she had done so much reading, why couldn't she write a simple essay? At least enough to beat a 58%? On science she got 43%! That doesn't mean 43% of the population at large, that's 43% of the people who took the GED! I know several people who took the GED test, in Texas, and none of them are rocket scientists, believe me. And they all said it was extremely easy.

I'm not trying to be condescending. FLEK was obviously a very smart cookie. But as far as "book learning", she seems self taught to me. And I find the sudden near doubling of her scores on 4/14/90, and then back to D's/F's the next week is too much for me to swallow.

 

[trixandhoney]

ClaireNC, Reasonable minds can differ, but the fact that her grades shot through the roof on one day and were terrible on the other days is EXTREMELY suspicious. Also I beg to differ, in that reading and writing skills are intertwined (I don't mean handwriting itself, I mean the ability to express yourself with the written word). The writing portion of the GED has both multiple choice and an essay. If she had done so much reading, why couldn't she write a simple essay? At least enough to beat a 58%? On science she got 43%! That doesn't mean 43% of the population at large, that's 43% of the people who took the GED! I know several people who took the GED test, in Texas, and none of them are rocket scientists, believe me. And they all said it was extremely easy.

I'm not trying to be condescending. FLEK was obviously a very smart cookie. But as far as "book learning", she seems self taught to me. And I find the sudden near doubling of her scores on 4/14/90, and then back to D's/F's the next week is too much for me to swallow.

People with learning disabilities very often have huge discrepancies in their academic achievements. So it would not be unusual for someone to be good at reading comprehension while struggling with writing. It's also not uncommon to see their scores fluctuate, particularly if ADHD is also a factor.

With that being said, I think it is just as likely (if not more so) that the bad spelling and uneven/fluctuating skills were the result of mental illness. IMO that's why this case is so difficult. It's hard to figure out who someone "was" if who they were changed drastically over time.

 

[ClaireNC]

I agree with the self-taught, but with another definition. She grew up in the 1960's and 1970's. The public education system was very different from what it is now. People with mild dysgraphia-type "learning disabilities" needed to teach themselves how to cope and over-come those "deficiencies" in the way they learned. There was no child study team or trips to a therapist/specialist to formulate a diagnosis. Children with these types of mild disabilities were not assigned a teacher's aid to help them through the day and were not classified as in need of "special education". They were just simply labeled as poor spellers with bad hand writing.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, test anxiety could have played a big role on certain tests, especially if she had some type of mild learning disability. Or she might have just been having an off day, when she wasn't feeling well or simply had not slept the night before.

We are all entitled to our own opinion, but I certainly don't see her GED scores as EXTREMELY suspicious.

 

[Occam's Razor]

While searching for strip club owners/managers in the Dallas area, I also did some searches using their names and "parachuting"... thinking I might find someone who shared this hobby with her.

'Could be the unknown boyfriend was a paragliding enthusiast?

Paragliding boyfriend is not a bad idea, in fact it's the most likely explanation. But why keep it in her "I can't ever let anybody ever see this" box?

 

[ClaireNC]

Please move discussions of FLEK's occupations, including dancing, over to this thread: Lori's Occupations - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

 

[trixandhoney]

Paragliding boyfriend is not a bad idea, in fact it's the most likely explanation. But why keep it in her "I can't ever let anybody ever see this" box?

Maybe he was "the one who got away"?

 

[Occam's Razor]

Maybe he was "the one who got away"?

Why put it in that box?

 

[ClaireNC]

Another inconsistency: We teach kids to ask "Which of these things doesn't belong with the others?" Looking in that "crafts" box, the thing that jumps out at me is that Paragliding certificate. It apparently has nothing to do with creating or maintaining a new identity. Why did she keep it in that box? If it had sentimental value she could have kept it in her other file cabinet. Why did she keep it in her false identity box? I can't help but believe that this is a major clue if we just knew how to read it.

The biggest thing to keep in mind about the safe box is that we don't really know what all was in it. We only know what the SSA investigator chose to disclose and what the Seattle Times decided to print. (Remember, the Seattle Times never published the student loan application, but it was stored in a back file supporting the article.) The article published 24 "pieces of evidence", for all we know there might have been 1000 pieces of paper in that box.

If we had the whole picture of everything that was in the box, the paragliding certificate might not have stood out as all that odd. Maybe the box contained a "bucket list" of sorts. Things she wanted to accomplish or experience in her lifetime. She obviously managed to recreate herself into a whole new identity, which I assume would have a high level of sentimental feelings attached to it, but there might have also been other things in that box that were more mainstream/common in terms sentimental value. For instance, it might have also contained her marriage license and her daughter's birth certificate. GWIM?

 

[Occam's Razor]

The biggest thing to keep in mind about the safe box is that we don't really know what all was in it. We only know what the SSA investigator chose to disclose and what the Seattle Times decided to print. (Remember, the Seattle Times never published the student loan application, but it was stored in a back file supporting the article.) The article published 24 "pieces of evidence", for all we know there might have been 1000 pieces of paper in that box.

If we had the whole picture of everything that was in the box, the paragliding certificate might not have stood out as all that odd. Maybe the box contained a "bucket list" of sorts. Things she wanted to accomplish or experience in her lifetime. She obviously managed to recreate herself into a whole new identity, which I assume would have a high level of sentimental feelings attached to it, but there might have also been other things in that box that were more mainstream/common in terms sentimental value. For instance, it might have also contained her marriage license and her daughter's birth certificate. GWIM?

If that is the case, then why was the paragliding certificate one of the pieces of evidence Velling/ST decided to release to the public? True, we don't know all of the items in that box. But of the items that were in the box that have been released, this is the only one that has no apparent connection with creating/maintaining a new identity (except for the notes page which is so cryptic nobody knows what it means). Perhaps Velling released it for the same reason, he was puzzled by the apparent anomaly. Or he hoped somebody from the class would remember her. At any rate this box was "hidden" (Velling's word) at the bottom of her closet, and her husband was forbidden to touch it. It contained items which, if found, could blow her world apart. Why would this seemingly innocuous certificate be included in that category?

 

[ClaireNC]

If that is the case, then why was the paragliding certificate one of the pieces of evidence Velling/ST decided to release to the public? True, we don't know all of the items in that box. But of the items that were in the box that have been released, this is the only one that has no apparent connection with creating/maintaining a new identity (except for the notes page which is so cryptic nobody knows what it means). Perhaps Velling released it for the same reason, he was puzzled by the apparent anomaly. Or he hoped somebody from the class would remember her. At any rate this box was "hidden" (Velling's word) at the bottom of her closet, and her husband was forbidden to touch it. It contained items which, if found, could blow her world apart. Why would this seemingly innocuous certificate be included in that category?

Did you actually read my post? Or do you actually read all through any of the posts. It seems like you just respond on the first two sentences, while the rest of the post has a lot more content. Maybe bolding will help.
I never said it was Velling that chose to release just that piece of information. The Seattle Times chose to list it as a piece of evidence. Journalist option. To make people speculate. We do not know if there were 100 or 10000 pieces of paper in that box.

Edit to add: Somebody knows what that note page means. The box was not hidden. Her husband was fully aware of it, just told not to look in it.

 

[AstroKitty]

tensions are HIGH in here.

 

[mandiedq]

If that is the case.....

I'm not sure if you're questioning if it is true that not everything was released. So, to answer that question (in case you are asking), the article in the Seattle Times says something about "among other receipts" and other articles imply there is more than what has been released to the public. (Someone else who is keeping better tabs on that can insert a link here.) Also, this is a typical LE thing to do: leave out some details so we know who is legit when they come forward and know those details.

Why would this seemingly innocuous certificate be included in that category?

That's the question that all of us are wondering! My guess? LE/Velling (the SSA agent) were also stumped OR they figured that might tip off the person who said, "that lady kinda looks like so-and-so who was really into parachuting."

There are so many unknowns in this case! I wish Velling would put all his case notes on the internets and let us have a hay day. Wouldn't that be fun?!

 

[ClaireNC]

tensions are HIGH in here.

Love you AstroKitty! :tyou:

 

[fred&edna]

Paragliding boyfriend is not a bad idea, in fact it's the most likely explanation. But why keep it in her "I can't ever let anybody ever see this" box?

I don't know the answer, but I love this question! lol

Maybe we should make some guesses? However, you will have to start because I don't know where to begin.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Did you actually read my post? Or do you actually read all through any of the posts. It seems like you just respond on the first two sentences, while the rest of the post has a lot more content. Maybe bolding will help.
I never said it was Velling that chose to release just that piece of information. The Seattle Times chose to list it as a piece of evidence. Journalist option. To make people speculate. We do not know if there were 100 or 10000 pieces of paper in that box.

Edit to add: Somebody knows what that note page means. The box was not hidden. Her husband was fully aware of it, just told not to look in it.

Yes, I read your entire post, and the gist of it seemed to be that for all we know there might have been many other documents in that box. I agree, there were, according to the article. We have no evidence about what other iems were in the box. The only evidence that we have is what has been released. and based on that, the Parachute certificate seems odd to include with all of the other items related to her new identity.

Don't mean to ruffle any feathers. Just thinking here.