Not The Woman He Thought She Was
Blake can feel the panic building like an unstoppable snowball in this pit of his stomach as he stares inside the closet. How was this possible? Was everything a lie? Hundreds of questions run through his mind like an Olympian going for gold.
She was his wife. The woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He thought he could only feel this type of heartbreak if she cheated on him. But she hadn’t. She had done something much worse and unimaginable. And after finding this inside their closet, Blake knew she wasn’t the woman he thought she was. Far from it. And no amount of love, forgiveness, and strength could stop Blake from feeling sick to his stomach.
Unlucky In Love
For Blake Ruff, it was safe to say he was unlucky in love. Unlike his friends, he wasn’t after a fling. He wasn’t looking for something casual, he was after somebody he could spend the rest of his life with. To stand by him through the good and bad.
After numerous failed relationships and dates, Blake was about to give up on the idea of love and marriage. Until one day, everything changed for Blake, and nothing was ever the same again.
The One
As soon as Blake laid his eyes on Lori Erica Kennedy at a Bible study class in 2003, he knew she was, “the one.” Every time he saw her smile, butterflies circled in his stomach, every time he heard her voice, his heart skipped a beat.
Finally, Blake picked up the courage and asked her out, in which she agreed to. Blake was the son of a well-established family in East Texas and Lori was a shy, introverted woman from Arizona who didn’t know anyone in the area yet. She seemed like the perfect woman. But Blake had no idea how wrong he was.
Something Wasn’t Right
Lori was pretty quiet about her past and made it clear she had been through a lot. Both her parents passed away and her father, a failed stockbroker, left her with nothing.
Blake’s family, on the other hand, had a lot of questions about his new girlfriend, but he paid them no mind or attention. Little did Blake know he should have listened to his family.
Moving Away
Despite his family’s hesitations to accept Lori as one of their own, Blake and Lori married in 2004 and decided to get away from Blake’s family. They moved to Leonard, Texas, where in 2008 they welcomed a daughter. Soon after her arrival, Lori became, even more, private and distant. She wouldn’t let anyone else hold her daughter, not even the baby’s own grandmother.
On the outside, the couple seemed completely normal, but Blake’s family had a bad feeling that something wasn’t right. They knew something was off with their daughter-in-law. Lori even started to become obsessed with learning about the Ruff’s family history, which was especially strange since she refused to talk about her own. But things were about to get even more bizarre for this family.
Falling Apart
Over time tensions had grown higher between Lori and Blake’s family, which put a huge strain on their marriage. So when she banned Blake’s parents from seeing their granddaughter, it was the last straw.
In 2010, the couple tried marriage counseling as a last attempt. Unfortunately for them, it was already too late and Lori was not the same woman Blake had married. He finally listened to his family and moved back home with them filing for divorce that Spring. Blake thought this was going to be a fresh start; a brand new chapter in his life. But he had no idea how wrong he was.
Devastating News
A few weeks after moving back into his family’s home, Blake finally felt at ease. This was a brand new start for him, right? But the day after he received some news that left him lost for words.
Lori had unfortunately passed away. Blake was devastated. His whole world crumbled right before his eyes. He thought things couldn’t get any worse, but he had no idea what was coming.
Sorting Out The Closet
A month after Lori’s passing, Blake arrived at their home to sort through Lori’s things. But as he sifted through piles of clothes and shoes a terrible feeling hit the pit of his stomach.
He soon realized that his family had been right along. His wife wasn’t the woman she said she was; she was hiding some very dark secrets.
A Secret Discovery
While searching the home they once shared together and made memories inside, Blake found a sealed trunk in the back of her closet.
Lori was always very adamant about her husband never touching the private safe of sorts and he never even questioned it. But Now was the time to learn the truth.
Inside The Trunk
A police officer cracked open the trunk and pulled out numerous documents including several different IDs with different names from different states. There was also a birth certificate with a name Blake had never heard before and a document of a legal name change from when “Lori” would have been just 17 years old…
What was going on? Blake could feel his heartbeat in his throat. He needed answers. And he needed them fast.
What Is The Truth?
Inside the document, it revealed that Becky Sue Turner legally changed her name to Lori Erica Kennedy in 1988, but a little digging on this strange tragedy revealed something even more bizarre.
Becky Sue Turner and her siblings passed away in a house fire in Washington state in 1971, when she was just two years old. What was the truth?
Who Was She?
The authorities and experts claimed Lori Ruff was now “Jane Doe” and investigators started to piece together the strange puzzle of this mystery woman’s life.
The only clear thing was that because Becky Sue passed away in a different state than she was born, Lori had obviously gone to extreme lengths to keep her true identity a secret. But there were still hundreds of questions that Blake needed the answers to.
Leading Nowhere
Investigations also found that she obtained a state ID and social security card as Lori Erica Kennedy in Idaho and received her GED and a degree in business from the University of Texas.
So when the investigators ran her fingerprints and face through databases, they were stumped to find no matches. Although she was linked to a few disappearing women, none of them led anywhere. Investigators thought they would never learn the truth, but six years later this mind-boggling and bizarre case was finally about to get cracked.
Back On The Case
It wasn’t until genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick learned of Lori’s bizarre case in 2013 and took a saliva sample from Lori’s young daughter to try and find a DNA connection.
The tension was high as Colleen and investigators awaited the results. And finally, a few days later she was matched with many distant relatives around the world, the closest being Michael Cassidy who lived in Pennsylvania. Colleen informed the man and jumped on a plane to question Michael’s relatives. Finally, the truth was about to reveal, right?
Still More Secrets
Immediately, a family member recognized the face on the ID cards as Kimberly McLean, meaning investigators would finally get the truth about “Lori.”In 1986, 17-year-old Kimberly disappeared from her Pennsylvania home after her mother remarried a man she didn’t like or care for. She told her mother to never look for her and she was never heard from again.
Although Lori Erica Huff’s true identity was finally discovered years after her passing, there are still periods in her life that are completely unknown. And any other secrets that woman was undeniably hiding, had been taken with her to the grave, forever.