While I have given a bit of info re: Synanon and their finally released FBI files, I think I need to say that I do not really believe that Mrs. Ruff ( whoever she was) was hiding either a " bad" childhood or a " bad family"
Maybe one generation ago she would have needed to cover up her ancestry or beginnings in life to be accepted in society but this is not true of any of us living today.
A person makes their OWN way in society, or fails to in our generation (s).
Obviously, Mrs. Ruff considered her efforts to succeed and belong to be a failure to commit suicide and leave a young child behind.
IMO, with my experience and degree in psychology, she was hiding her own failings, probably something criminal in nature committed in her youth. We can pretty much estimate the high end of her age when her daughter was born as 45.. women usually don't carry pregnancies past this age, within a year or two of 45.
Half her normal lifespan had been lived when she married into the Ruff family.
This leaves quite a lot of years for personal " failures" or possible criminal acts to take place.
IF she was OCD, she was likely a perfectionist. Past wrong doings would seem huge, monumental, they most likely mattered most to her personally.
The only things we know about her which are " off the beaten path" legally are the stripper work in Dallas.. and before that, the ID theft.
It has been put forth that she had a benefactor or other adult helping with the Becky Sue Turner ID theft and switch to the Kennedy last name. This may or may not be true.
I think a very smart young person could have gotten BST's BC if they were of a duplicitous and criminal nature to begin with, without any help from another person. Palladin Press published MANY softcover, short books on " How To Change ID", "How to Rob Banks", " How to Kill Without a Trace". " Hitman" being their most infamous book of all and the how- to criminal book which finally put them out of business. Their story of criminally themed books is a whole other subject unto itself, and it is fascinating.
Anyway, the books were not " deep reading". They provided a step by step guide that anyone needing or wanting to do a certain criminal activity could follow. A girl who had done something criminal who read one of the Palladin Press books or a similar book on changing ID illegally could have followed the steps and done it.
The books gave every step in the process. It didn't used to be complicated to do, and the younger a person was when asking for a " replacement BC" the easier time they had getting one.
I don't see anything overly smart or overly complicated in what she did. It's the WHY that I diverge from most of the group on. I think everything she did was to protect herself and only herself.
I think she had plastic surgery at an early age, probably around 21.
I don't think she was from a " criminal" family or an undocumented birth from a LDS splinter group, I think she needed to change her ID and her appearance because she did something really bad that she needed to cover up and get away from- committed a crime or crimes early in life, and possibly kept on being in the fringes of a criminal element until she met the Ruff guy and decided to settle down, or was somehow at the end of the line with running, and he was her last hope for anonymity; for her sanctuary from prosecution.
I don't think most posters here think of her as an almost lifelong criminal, but our society does NOT punish children for the sins of the parents.
I do NOT believe anything she did pertained to paternal or maternal relatives.
Boyfriend/ husband/ ex- husband, possibly, if she was an accomplice.
I'd look at crimes committed by pre-teens, young teens, a young couple if I really wanted to know who she was or why she was on the run. Personally, I don't think we will ever know because I doubt it was a nationally known wrong- doing or crime. And IMO, she absolutely was always on the run, in the end, unable to go any further. When the Ruff marriage fell apart, and her mental stability crumbled, this is proof to me that the Ruffs were her very last refuge from whatever it is that she had done.. which apparently had no statue of limitations.. or the SOL had not yet run out, or guilt caused her to take her own life, not sure which. The AGE of her daughter at the time of her decompensating might be significant, as young people often hurt or accidentally kill children younger than they are.
She was afraid of HER own personal actions in the past being found out. She was not running from anyone else's wrongdoing such as parents being shady or cultish. I am almost 100% sure of this. I mean no harm to a deceased person by saying this, and I wish she could have found someone to help her before she jumped off the train of life. Almost anything can be magnified in a guilty person's mind, and I think her guilt was overwhelming. Hence the OCD symptoms-- she was trying to focus when her inner voices were so strong that they drowned out rational thought processes. She seemed OCD when she was trying to block out the "bad stuff". I've seen it many times in therapy with overwhelmed people.
One last thing- being 5'10'' with a gene marker for heart disease does not mean she had Marfan syndrome. I don't think she had Marfan's. Peaches Geldolf said she had the genetic marker for heart disease, Lisa Marie Presley has it, probably half of us reading on WS do. It is not synonymous with the heart changes seen in Marfan's which are related to the connective tissue abnormalities with Marfan's.
Maybe this is a group of posters on the short side investigating Lori Ruff, but at 5'9'' and with long thin fingers myself ( my bio. father is 6'5'' and again, no Marfan's) so I don't see any red flags with her height. If I saw acromegaly or other bone/ joint/ connective tissue abnormalities, then.. maybe.. but she didn't have acromegaly.
