After the Ruff family was unable to figure out who Lori really was and why she had stolen a dead girl’s identity, they turned to Joe Velling, an investigator with the Social Security Administration. With his experience, and upon seeing the case, his “immediate reaction was, I’ll crack this pretty quickly.” Little did he know, it would be 5 years before Lori’s past came to light.

There was some information that Velling discovered fairly quickly, like the fact that Lori had first requested the birth certificate of Becky Sue Turner back in May of 1988. The request was made in Bakersfield, California. After securing this identity, “Turner” moved to Idaho and secured a driver’s license in the state in order to get a social security card to solidify her identity.