Lori Erica Ruff

Lori Erica Kennedy Ruff (born Kimberly Maria McLean, October 16, 1968 – December 24, 2010), was an American identity thief, who committed suicide in the driveway of her former in-laws' home in Longview, Texas on December 24, 2010.

Following Ruff's death, her ex-husband and in-laws discovered through documents found in a lock box in her closet that she been living under a false name when she married into the family.

Coupled with her secretive behavior, which had contributed to the collapse of her marriage, Ruff's true identity remained unknown for nearly six years after her death.

She also took a birth date of July 18, 1969.

In the fall of 1986, just after reaching age of majority with her 18th birthday, McLean abruptly moved away from home to the nearby town of King of Prussia, cutting off contact with her family shortly thereafter.

On May 20, 1988, McLean obtained the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner, a two-year-old girl who had died, along with two of her siblings, in a house fire in Fife, Washington in 1971.

McLean requested the birth certificate in Bakersfield, California, Becky Sue Turner's birthplace.

Crucially, Becky Sue Turner was born in one state and died in a different state, which reduced the likelihood of McLean's identity theft being discovered.

She then traveled to Idaho, where she used the document to obtain a state ID card on June 16.

McLean, posing as Becky Sue Turner, appeared before a judge in Dallas on July 5, 1988, and legally changed her name to Lori Erica Kennedy.

A week later, she obtained a Social Security number, removing traces of her true identity.

She received a Texas driver license in 1989 and qualified for a GED the following year.

She enrolled in Dallas County Community College, and in 1997 she graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with a degree in business administration.

By 2001, McLean was living in Bedford, Texas.

In 2003, while residing in Carrollton, Texas, McLean met Jon Blakely "Blake" Ruff, the son of a socially prominent family in East Texas, in a Bible study class.

Ruff described her as being incredibly secretive, particularly regarding her past.

She had told him she was from Arizona, that both her parents were dead, that she had had an unhappy childhood, and that she had no siblings; she also said her father had been a failed stockbroker.

The couple eloped in January 2004 after Nancy Ruff, Blake's mother, inquired about placing a wedding announcement in the local newspaper.

The only person in attendance at their wedding ceremony, held in a church outside Dallas, was the officiating preacher.

After getting married, the Ruffs moved to Leonard, Texas.

They tried several times to have a child, but she had trouble conceiving and suffered multiple miscarriages.

This led investigators to believe that Ruff was older than she claimed, although the difference turned out to be less than a year.

She eventually gave birth to a baby girl via in vitro fertilisation in 2008.

Ruff was "extremely protective" of her daughter, often refusing to let anyone else hold her and even taking the baby with her to use the bathroom.

She would also obsessively track the Ruffs' family history and try to find out their family recipes, but she still refused to talk about her own past.

Eventually, Ruff did not want her in-laws to have any contact with her daughter; as a result, the Ruffs began encouraging Blake to get out of the marriage.

After some failed marriage therapy sessions, Blake Ruff moved back to his parents' house in Longview and filed for divorce, leaving Lori with their daughter in Leonard.

In the months between the separation and Lori's suicide, she behaved very erratically.

A neighbor recalled that she and her daughter appeared to be undernourished and that Lori would often ramble incoherently to herself while pacing back and forth outside.

She also began sending harassing emails to the Ruffs, created a scene at a custody exchange, and stole a set of house keys from them.

The harassment was so severe that the Ruffs filed a cease and desist order just before Lori's death.

On December 24, 2010, Lori's body was discovered in her car in the Ruffs' driveway, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In the car were two suicide notes: One 11‑page note addressed to "my wonderful husband" and another addressed to her daughter, to be opened on her 18th birthday.

The Ruffs opened and read the letter, but it contained only "ramblings from a clearly disturbed person" and no details about Lori's past.

Authorities believe she initially traveled to the home with the intent of harming the family.

A 2013 Seattle Times feature article about the case was published in news outlets around the world and created enormous interest in the online "websleuth" community.

Ruff's true origins remained a mystery until September 2016, when her identity was confirmed using a combination of public records and direct-to-consumer autosomal SNP analysis of her husband's and daughter's DNA, leading back to the McLean–Cassidy family on Philadelphia's Main Line.

Ruff was born as Kimberly Maria McLean in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to James and Deanne McLean (née Cassidy).

She grew up in the suburbs of Delaware Valley, until her parents divorced, with her mother gaining custody of McLean and her sister, marrying her second husband Robert Becker and moving the family to Wyncote, where McLean attended Bishop McDevitt High School.

She reportedly had a difficult time adjusting to the new environment, and did not get along with her mother and stepfather.