TX - 'Lori Ruff', Longview, WhtFem UP9863, *General Discussion and Theories* #5

[EmiLove832]

Regarding the polygamous cult angle, has anyone reached out to former cult members like the stars of this tv show? http://www.aetv.com/shows/escaping-polygamy
I don't know how real their show is or anything about it, but if they are legit former polygamists maybe they know the families or have resources for researching those families that we don't have access to with just internet searching. They may be able to show FLEK's pictures around to escaped family members who otherwise would never see her picture. Also, perhaps former cult members would volunteer to have their DNA tested against FLEK's to find out if she had any familial connection to them?

I mentioned Escaping Polygamy a few pages back when someone brought up the Kingston Clan.

The Kingston girls on the show have REALLY big eyes which makes me think of Lori's early photos.

One thing I noticed is that the FLDS following Warren Jeff's have a very distinct speech pattern. To me it sounds a little bit nasally, like getting over a cold.

Even the ladies on Sister Wives have similar sound but not as distinct as the Jeff's followers. If you listen to an interview with them, listen to how they say family.

 

[EmiLove832]

Yes. I reached out to two who wrote books about their life/escape and one daughter of a very high profile one in the LeBaron clan. They circulated FLEKs pic amongst their circles and nobody said they knew her.


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Escaping Polygamy is based off of the Kingston clan. I'll look and see if there is a way to contact the girls on the show.

 

[Gardener1850]

Lynne remarried to Kurt Kennedy....

http://politicsrusprinciple.tumblr.com/post/101616672274/mormonhair-linda-kelsch-with-her-mother-and

Lynne's obituary: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=55453473

 

[EmiLove832]

I found some of the Kingston girls on Facebook. One has a message that she welcomes messages from strangers so what should I write? Can someone help me put something together?

 

[Linda9681]

Send her the article link and pics of FLEK from Idaho. Tell her you think she could have possibly be a part of a " clan" and ask how to go about finding out


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[Gardener1850]

I found some of the Kingston girls on Facebook. One has a message that she welcomes messages from strangers so what should I write? Can someone help me put something together?

I don't know--I've never contacted anyone about this case. I hope Linda and others that have experience can help! Maybe just start by saying you have been following a case about an unidentified woman who is deceased and you wonder if she could be related to their family? You could could send her the link to the Seattle Times article as a start, maybe. Wait until others weigh in though. I'm terrible at contacting people...

ETA: Linda beat me to it.

 

[EmiLove832]

Thank ladies. I sent her a message and included the link to the Seattle Times article like you suggested. I'll let you all know if I hear back from her.

 

[Gardener1850]

Thank ladies. I sent her a message and included the link to the Seattle Times article like you suggested. I'll let you all know if I hear back from her.

You're awesome Emilove! It's a shot in the dark but who knows...If none of her family recognize FLEK maybe she could even mention it to the producers of her show and they could do a special on FLEK's case. Anything to get more people to see her photos is a step in the right direction.

 

[tarheelslim]

Someone posted recently that they thought when or if we find out who Lori was, the photo will look exactly like her. I couldn't agree more.

Think of Grateful Doe / Jason Callahan. All of the proposed, reported missing individuals that were suggested before looked kind of similar but when Jason's identity was discovered and the photos were posted online, there was no doubt it was him.

I don't think Lori was ever reported missing. I'm not convinced she was "missing".

As much as I would love to see this case solved, we may never know who she really was.

I think you are absolutely right about that - but I do think we will find out who she was someday, and when we see the photos of her when she was younger, it will be instantly recognizable as her, it won't be someone you have to squint and look out of the corner of your eye and pretend they're 6 inches shorter to be her.

 

[Hank36]

Hi--I'm new to this forum, so I know that my chiming in here may disrupt a conversation, but I did have one observation about Lori Ruff:

I'm seeing where several articles state that she likely employed the services of some type of sophisticated "identity broker", due to how thoroughly she was able to erase her past.

I'm not so sure--I'm old enough to remember how, in the pre-internet age, the type of identity theft used by "Lori" being discussed in multiple public contexts--particularly a memorable "60 Minutes" segment in which Mike Wallace interviewed a court clerk about public access to birth certificates. As the clerk stated that people getting copies of other people's birth certificates wasn't a problem, Wallace, on camera, pointed out to the clerk a young woman waiting in line for a copy of a birth certificate, and made a remark to the effect of "You aren't here to get somebody else's birth certificate, are you?" The woman said "no", but of course, she was an undercover "60 Minutes" reporter who was, in fact, seeking the birth certificate of a dead child, and who went on to obtain a wide variety of photo ID and credit cards.

Then, as now, financial crimes were the primary motivation for identiy theft, but I also recall reading in a college textbook about the phenomenon of "social suicide" in which people assume a new identity, going so far as to explain that visiting cemetaries seeking headstone information was a great method for learning of a deceased infant.

(I should also point out that as the eighties were also a time when states were gradually raising the drinking age back to 21, and as some people born in the late-60's and early 70's were legally able to buy alcohol in some states but not others, creating a wholly forged driver's license was not especially difficult for anybody with access to a laminating machine--and who outside of, say, Delaware had any idea what a Delaware driver's license was supposed to look like?)

The eighties were also a time when one's social security number was (a) often not issued until one reached his or her teens, and (b) hardly considered the closely guarded secret it is today. Another memory of my college days--at least one professor who posted exam scores on his office door by printing a list of the full nine-digit social security numbers of the entire class, with each student's score next to his SS number.

"Lori" may have taken things a step further by going before a judge and changing her name again, and by traveling to multiple states, but again--I don't think she did anything, or had access to any specialized knowledge, that any motivated individual of reasonable intelligence couldn't have pulled off as well. Again--it was a different time, and it isn't unreasonable to surmise that "Lori's" paranoia must have increased over time as a direct result of the ever-snowballing digital revolution and information age.

 

[Hank36]

Here's something else I question from one of the main articles on this woman, by the fellow heading up the investigation:

And she had no accent, leading Velling to believe she originally came from the Pacific Northwest or West Coast.


“Everyone in Dallas has an accent and she did not. On the West Coast, we generally don’t have a discernible accent,” said Velling, a Seattle native.

First of all, are there any audio recordings of her voice available for review? Frankly, what I'm not finding the articles I've read so far are any discussion of her from people who actually knew her outside of her husband and her inlaws (who clearly disliked her). However obsessively private she may have been about her past, however, I see no suggestion that she was any sort of recluse.

More to the point: Deciding that this woman is from the West Coast solely because she reportedly had "no accent" seems a fairly flimsy reason to automatically eliminate the other 70% or so of the U.S. from consideration. Does he reaally mean "no Texas accent"? (For what it's worth, the statement that "everyone in Dallas has an accent" is fairly dubious as well.)

Second of all--the idea of her having "no accent" is itself false, in that even so-called "non-regional English dialect" e.g. a local TV news anchor is itself a dialect.

But the point I really want to make is this: I've known people who have moved from one part of the coountry to another--typically from a rural area to an urban area--that have taken great pains to learn to speak what could be described as "without a discernable accent". Some people are able to pull it off on a full-time basis better than others, but like I said in my previous post--this was primarily dependant on how motivated they were to lose the accent.

So unless somebody can show me any actual evidence definitively placing in the western U.S. for an extended period of time prior to 1988, or can point to observations from people who knew her and interacted with her that lend credence to the theory that she'd lived most of her life out West, I have no basis to accept the theory that she was a West Coast native.

That said--there seems to a dearth of people that actually knew her who have publically discussed their relationship with her, even on a superficial level. If there are any articles that do contain such information, please direct me to them!

To me, that where my inquiry starts--to come up with some type of a profile of this woman.

 

[Gardener1850]

Welcome to the case, Hank36! I agree about the accent. I think of the midwest when I think no accent but she could have come from anywhere.

 

[Linda9681]

I lost my regional accent when I went into the military. I tend to adopt accents I am exposed to, and I think the multiple exposures of many accents at once canceled mine out, and O noticed this happened to other people too


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[Sherwood Park]

I understand how the hints work, having been on ancestry for several years and locating dozens of our own missing family members (due to alias and hiding issues). That is why I am 'on the fence' about the pictured DS in the 1975 yearbook, especially since I can't see the follow up photo from 1977. I am not on the fence, however, that there was a daughter in this family named DJS. Again, back later, as soon as I can to answer more.

Do you recall if anyone had contacted the son of Richard Stalder, G. Stalder to ask if he knew FLEK? I wonder if his first wife Dace would have known FLEK or if she would recognize the early pictures of FLEK.

 

[PoirotryInMotion]

Do you recall if anyone had contacted the son of Richard Stalder, G. Stalder to ask if he knew FLEK? I wonder if his first wife Dace would have known FLEK or if she would recognize the early pictures of FLEK.

Don't know if anyone has contacted him, but his first wife (the TX one) was L*** and she would be the one that would possibly know, as D*** wasn't married to G until later. But L*** has 'disappeared' records-wise (as has so much of this family). Don't know whether it's the 95% military rate or what, but this family has been hard to find records for (especially the males).

I've spent the evening trying to round up addresses, and got caught in a rabbit trail (interesting but not productive as far as answering Gardener's question of yesterday about the common address). Gardener, first off...there was an 8-yr age difference between him and his sister, and I believe they were step-sibs, so I'm not sure if the two ever lived in the same household after 1977--but again, I will check my screenshots to see where I got that from. There is no record of marriage or divorce for RN (her mom) and RS, either, and there is the possibility that DJS may have been born out of wedlock. There are, indeed, a lot of Debbie Stalders, but the problem is not that I'm mixing them up (I'm keeping a painstaking list, in fact)--the problem is that the records themselves give 2-3 conflicting birthdates for the DS who was married to Sh*****d. I've found a Sep 1949, a 1957 and a 1958 date (as of tonight) for that Debbie, and obviously they are not all correct (if any). I'm putting together a Text doc, which I could show you to make my point, but it'd probably just confuse you all further. And it's taking me a bit longer as I'm having to navigate a new operating system in my computer this week - one which does not yet have Word on it - so I'm having to use Text instead. Emilove, I'm sorry--not trying to confuse anyone, it's just that there is differing, conflicting info in the records themselves. The birthdate you said you found for the married DS is the one I found for my DJS. But ancestry has NO record of marriage for her to Sh*****d, and neither does familysearch. Maybe I just need to not post in here until I get to the bottom of it. This is worse than trying to trace my Mennonite ancestry.

 

[Hank36]

I wouldn't expect this woman to have had what might be classified as "close friends", but if she went to church, if she had a job, if she went to school, if she belonged to women's business associations, I do think that the recollections of people who crossed paths with her in those context wouold provide at least some insight. By this, I'm not trying to imply that she was in the habit of spilling her guts to total strangers, but as guarded as she was said to be, I do think it more likely that a casual acquaintance would pick up on something type of unwitting behavior. A rough sorrt of example: While people from Texas would have noted that she simply spoke without an accent, if she was from a state such as Minnesota, WIsconsin or Michigan, a random stranger from one of those states would be far more likely to zero in on pronounciations or linguistic use typical of that region.

Again--this is why I'm skeptical when I hear some law enforcement type reason that (a) everybody in Texas has an accent; (b) she had no accent; and (c) people from the West Coast have no accent. Therefore, she must have been from the West Coast. Huh?

What I'm curious about is: Did she have any hobbies? What type of music did she prefer? (If she was, at one time, a stripper, she must have developed some sort of musical preference.) Did she enjoy a particular sport that could point her towards a specific region of the country?

These are the things I'm wondering about. I'm gathering--and correct me if I'm wrong--that she was trying to present a face to the world, rather than hiding away at home. In a way, it makes more sense that her husband would be the last person to notice such things, for no better reason than he was the primary individual she was intent on deceiving.

Did she leave any type of estate behind? It's not completely unreasonable to think that she may have been simply avoiding creditors, and if she was willing to engage in all of this identity chicanery, she may well have been just as creative with her personal finances.

What about her medical records? I'm reading where she went to fertilization clinics and other such things. Medical providers routinely ask clients about their personal and medical histories. What did she tell them? If her husband was the personal representative of her estate, he should have access to such records. Did her doctors ever note any disclosure of childhood illness or injury? Did she have any medication or other allergies? She attended college in the 1990's--I can't say for certain, but I'd be willing to bet a dollar that to attend classes, she needed to provide proof of immunizations.

Again--I know I'm coming late to this whole dialogue, but it's kind of frustrating to read articles which don't answer these questions, which I find much more compelling than to parse the meaning of items found in a lockbox. Beyond the personal secrecy, who was this woman? Was she intelligent, articulate, educated; did she seem to have come from a relatively privileged background? Did she truly have legitimate mental issues, or does her identity change account for seemingly erratic reported behavior?

Did she work in an office? If so, what was her co-worker's impression of her? I'm not concerned as to whethr they were close friends, but if they regularly interacted with her on any level, what were their impressions of her? This is the information I'm trying to ascertain. Instead, I'm looking at timelines which had large gaps of time in which she must have worked somewhere or done something to somehow sustain herself. My initial theory--and it's only a theory--is simple: she somehow managed to steal or embezzle a substantial sum of money, and was trying to duck both law enforcement and the party from whom she stole it. So...did she own a safety deposit box? Was there any indicationn that her lockbox ever contained cash or any other valuables that could be sold for cash? Has anybody tried to do any sort of forensic accounting of her personal financesand determine whether she actually earned as much money as she spent over the final 22 years of her life? (Did she eventualy elect to get married after exhausting these stolen proceeds?)

Who was she? Again--I'd be willing to bet a dollar that if this women's original identity is ever determined, people will then be able to go back and point to certain clues or moments or indications where she did somehow reveal more of herself than she intended.

 

[Gardener1850]

Don't know if anyone has contacted him, but his first wife (the TX one) was L*** and she would be the one that would possibly know, as D*** wasn't married to G until later. But L*** has 'disappeared' records-wise (as has so much of this family). Don't know whether it's the 95% military rate or what, but this family has been hard to find records for (especially the males).

I've spent the evening trying to round up addresses, and got caught in a rabbit trail (interesting but not productive as far as answering Gardener's question of yesterday about the common address). Gardener, first off...there was an 8-yr age difference between him and his sister, and I believe they were step-sibs, so I'm not sure if the two ever lived in the same household after 1977--but again, I will check my screenshots to see where I got that from. There is no record of marriage or divorce for RN (her mom) and RS, either, and there is the possibility that DJS may have been born out of wedlock. There are, indeed, a lot of Debbie Stalders, but the problem is not that I'm mixing them up (I'm keeping a painstaking list, in fact)--the problem is that the records themselves give 2-3 conflicting birthdates for the DS who was married to Sh*****d. I've found a Sep 1949, a 1957 and a 1958 date (as of tonight) for that Debbie, and obviously they are not all correct (if any). I'm putting together a Text doc, which I could show you to make my point, but it'd probably just confuse you all further. And it's taking me a bit longer as I'm having to navigate a new operating system in my computer this week - one which does not yet have Word on it - so I'm having to use Text instead. Emilove, I'm sorry--not trying to confuse anyone, it's just that there is differing, conflicting info in the records themselves. The birthdate you said you found for the married DS is the one I found for my DJS. But ancestry has NO record of marriage for her to Sh*****d, and neither does familysearch. Maybe I just need to not post in here until I get to the bottom of it. This is worse than trying to trace my Mennonite ancestry.

PIM, I appreciate you trying. I couldn't find a marriage record for that DS's mom either (the DS born in May 1959), but that doesn't mean she wasn't married. Let me ask you a possibly easier question. How did you come to the conclusion that the mom (N**m*n) was married to the RS in the obituary I posted? Since DS was NOT mentioned at all in the Obituary and we know that DS is alive I'm inclined to think that DS is NOT RS's daughter. I think you have the wrong man, but IDK. And at this point, unless you can come up with another DS besides the married one that fits the age from the newspaper stories I'm inclined to believe FLEK could not have been the DS who testified at trial.

One other thing, I want to make clear about Ancestry (and this is not directed only at you PIM). There's not a big conspiracy to hide records. Recent marriages are not on Ancestry. I was married in the 2000's and my marriage record is not on there. My birth record is not on there either. My grandmother died a couple weeks ago. Her death record/SS record is not there yet. Anything after 1940 is going to be hard to find. Before 1940 is easier because the 1940 census has come out. Many states have a policy of not releasing records until most people in them are dead, to prevent identity theft. Some states don't release anything at all. For example, I have Ancestors who lived in New York State. Their birth records and death records from the 1800's are not online. The only way I could get them is to pay the state/county of their birth for them. So not everything is there on Ancestry. You probably already know all this since you have been on Ancestry a while but I wanted to make it clear for anyone else wondering why we can't always find records.

 

[Gardener1850]

What I'm curious about is: Did she have any hobbies? What type of music did she prefer? (If she was, at one time, a stripper, she must have developed some sort of musical preference.) Did she enjoy a particular sport that could point her towards a specific region of the country?

These are the things I'm wondering about. I'm gathering--and correct me if I'm wrong--that she was trying to present a face to the world, rather than hiding away at home. In a way, it makes more sense that her husband would be the last person to notice such things, for no better reason than he was the primary individual she was intent on deceiving.

Did she leave any type of estate behind? It's not completely unreasonable to think that she may have been simply avoiding creditors, and if she was willing to engage in all of this identity chicanery, she may well have been just as creative with her personal finances.

What about her medical records? I'm reading where she went to fertilization clinics and other such things. Medical providers routinely ask clients about their personal and medical histories. What did she tell them? If her husband was the personal representative of her estate, he should have access to such records. Did her doctors ever note any disclosure of childhood illness or injury? Did she have any medication or other allergies? She attended college in the 1990's--I can't say for certain, but I'd be willing to bet a dollar that to attend classes, she needed to provide proof of immunizations.

RSBM. Some great questions Hank. I snipped for space because I wanted to only focus on what you said above.

We don't know much about her hobbies or music preferences. Her husband said she might have played basketball in High School but it seemed really vague like he wasn't sure she played basketball or not.

We don't know if she left an estate but she was either divorced or in the process of divorcing her husband--so I'm not sure who her estate would be managed by or who it would go to--her daughter? Someone found unclaimed funds for her business "An Eye for Detail Consulting". The unclaimed funds were over $800, IIRC.

You make a good point about her needing immunizations to go to college and it's one I don't think we have discussed before. Unfortunately, the HIPPA laws prevent us from finding out anything that was in her medical records. She would not have been able to easily forge those immunization records and it would be dangerous, IMO, for her to get the shots again as her new identity. Either she never had immunizations (which points to a cult upbringing IMO) and she got them then OR she found a way around that requirement. I went to college in the 90's and I still have the immunization records I submitted to the student health center. My mom had to have my childhood dr fill out a form and sign it saying I had all the required shots. I know I have this still because I referenced it recently when traveling to see if I needed anything new. That said, there ARE religious exemptions allowed in some states and some schools for people who object to immunizations. She might have just claimed a religious exemption.

 

[Bluebonnet_72]

I worked in medical records in college in the 90s. It was student job where I filed and pulled records. One thing I did was file the medical forms students needed to enroll. Every school has their own policy, but I don't remember any shot records being attached. I think there might have been a spot where you wrote down the date of specific shots. There certainly wasn't a requirement for original records.
When I started a new job a couple of years ago, I had to find my shot records. It was the first time since high school, over 20 years ago, I had ever needed them. My mom found them and they were just a paper booklet with dated stamps. Do you remember the old stamps that had the rolling numbers, month, and year for the dates? You rolled the stamp to the date you wanted, inked it and stamped it. Whoever gave the shot initialed beside it. They would have been very easy to fake.
Even if she didn't fake the records, it wouldn't have hurt her to have her vaccines again. Some of the common vaccines, like the MMR and tetanus, are redone as a adults anyway. If you get a vaccine and you already have an immunity to the thing you are being vaccinated for it won't hurt you.

 

[BigCityAccountant]

Welcome to the case, Hank36! I agree about the accent. I think of the midwest when I think no accent but she could have come from anywhere.

Oh...Midwesterners have accents...lol.. You know you are from Chicago if you refer to the living room as the frounch room.. Or in other words the front room..you know you are from Wisconsin or Michigan , eh?? About is usually 'boat.

lol