Grieving Husband Cleans Out Wife’s Closet, Finds Box That Changes Everything

A man who just lost his wife was going through her things when he found a secret box that revealed some disturbing information about her.

In 2004, Lori and Blake Ruff were married and the couple were happily together for several years – even having a daughter in 2008. The New York Daily News reported that Lori Ruff was always secretive about her past and was particularly strange with her in-laws. She told them that her parents both died and that she had no living relatives.

Soon, Ruff began refusing to let her in-laws see their grandchild – and the marriage started getting strained. The couple started seeing a marriage counselor but they ultimately filed for divorce in 2010. Ruff’s behavior became more unstable after the separation, sending threatening messages to her estranged husband and his family and preventing them from seeing her daughter. 

On Christmas Eve 2010, Lori Ruff was found dead inside of a car from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Blake Ruff was devastated and soon began going through his wife’s things. It was then that he found a lunchbox that contained several IDs with different names as well as a birth certificate with a different name on it.

There were also two suicide notes along with the other documents.

An investigation revealed that Lori Ruff was actually Kimberly McLean, who vanished from her home in 1986 at the age of 17. Her birth parents confirmed her identity after police tracked them down, and speculated that she left home because she didn’t get along with her stepfather.

Ruff originally started impersonating other people in 1988 when she assumed the identity of a 2-year-old girl who died in a house fire. She took the girl’s name – Beckey Sue Turner – moved to Idaho and eventually changed her name to Lori Erica Kennedy.

It was when she moved to Dallas, Texas, that she met Blake Ruff and married him. 

The story quickly went viral, with many readers speculating on why she ran away in the first place.

“Yep it sounds like the stepdad abused her and the mother didn’t do anything to stop it or at least that’s what the daughter thought so she cut ties with her too. She changed identities to make sure the mother didn’t find her. However, the husband sounds like a wuss for not sticking up for her and letting his family call the shots,” one Conservative Daily reader commented on the site’s Facebook page.

“Well if I had been married to someone who was hiding something in a lunch box that I was never to open id question things right off the bat. Obviously his family suspected somthing was off and he ignored it. Sad for both families who now have to deal with all the broken pieces..especially the child,” another wrote.

“So, so sad. She was troubled from a teen after the divorce. It affects every one differently, and she needed counciling. She is at peace. Its good her family finally found her. Her daughter can now know her mom’s side of the family,” another added. 

Sources: New York Daily News, Conservative Daily/Facebook / Photo credit: New York Daily News