She Said BRB… and Never Came Back

Ever thought about pulling a full disappearing act… new city, new name, new life? 

Yeah… we went there this week.

Because let’s be real, sometimes life will have you READY to vanish. Burnt out, heart cracked, tired of being everything for everybody, and lowkey wondering, “What if I just… didn’t?”

This episode? We’re unpacking that urge.
The fantasy. The recklessness. The freedom.

And babyyy… we’re telling REAL stories of people who actually DID IT. Just dipped and started over like the main character they are.

But here’s the question nobody talks about
Are you running away, or running toward something better?

Let’s get into it.

So tell me, if you could disappear TODAY… where you going? 👇🏾

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

This episode of Moosewings the Podcast is brought to you by Optional Delivery Services.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

That's right. When you need a courier service, think of optional delivery services. They do same-day local package delivery, priority express shipping, as well as overnight shipping serving the Greater Bay Area.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

So if you need shipping services, think ODS.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

And let them know what Mood Swing sent you for a 10% discount. All right. That was good. Girl Jay. And I'm Kendra, and you are listening to Mood Swings the Podcast. Hey girl, hey. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm I'm sore. My neck and my shoulders hurt, like old people should. My neck and my back. Yes, girl, it's sore.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

You're preaching to the choir, girl. Every day I wake up with something new, some new pain. I didn't even know there's a toe joint that could hurt like that, but it does. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

It's part for the course when you're hitting this age. That's like when Celine Dion announced that she had that stiff person's dick knees. I'm like, bitch, I got that every morning when I wake up. Relax, Celine.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

And it is crazy though. Have you ever seen her go through her therapy or or one of her episodes? It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Yeah, no. She's stiff. No, I haven't. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

I mean, it's painful. You know, you can hear her, like it's audible. She's, you know, yelling out loud, like in the undescribable type of scream. Not like a regular scream, like it's a unworldly, painful kind of scream. It just is continuous coming out of her mouth. Like, it's crazy. Hey, hey, hey.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Hey, Debbie Downer. We're just joking. We're just joking. Just telling a joke about being stiff in the morning. You're like, you're like, that's no joking matter. She's really in a lot of pain, Kendra. She's in a lot of pain. And she loves it. You know what? I'm in pain too, because my effing neck and back hurt. My back and my neck. Anyway, moving right along. Boy, do we have quite a show today? Oh, snap.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

I'm super excited. I know nothing about it. So I'm I'm waiting for you to tell me what it is. And I'm slightly scared when you don't tell me what the pro uh what the topic is.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

We are going in blind, all blind. So but before we do that, how are you today? What's your mood? What's going on? I want to hear everything.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Well, I'm just a little bit tired. It's just um been up doing a lot of things. You know how sometimes when you're pulled in so many directions, you just trying to find one place to fill your centered again. I think it's just the body uh just just coming down from the weekend and saying, hey, it's time for you to to get your shit back together. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

We did a lot of start this weekend, huh?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah, no, but for my age, I guess I did, but no, I actually was just doing a lot of housework, spring cleaning, things like that. We were participating in a community-wide garage sale or yard sale. Yeah, and um, it was just a lot of stuff. My mom is down, and so I've been, you know, treating her and making sure that she's okay. That's nice, that's fun. Yeah, so yeah, I'm just a little tired, but um, but always happy to talk to you, Kate. Amen. Same here, sister. So I decided today I'm just gonna go ahead and have me a night, just a little crisp coarse light. Coarse light? A beer?

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Nothing too fancy. Wait, you're having an actual beer? A co a coors light, a beer. No, bitch, I am not.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

I'm having a vodka soda with someone.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

I was like, who is this? Because you said a coors light. That's what I was like, who is this? You know, a beer?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

It's a coors light, right? Or a bud light or a Miller chill? I think I'm saying these things right, but I don't know. Yeah, either I just a Miller light.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

No, it's a beer. It sounds very yeasty. Very yeasty.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yes, it does. Just the it's the yeasty boys. Okay, so you're having a vodka soda. I am having a vodka soda. My mood is just um it's tired but happy. I'm still happy. I'm just just a little bit, you know, a little winded. And so I think this little vodka soda uh is gonna is gonna get me right tonight before I go to bed. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Well, good for you. I okay, who's counting? That's what I'm saying. You drink according to your mood. This is called mood swings. So, you know, one may one mood might be I wanna have one drink. One mood might be I wanna have four. You know, girl, you grown. Oh, maybe six. Okay. What mood are you in, Kate? I am in all uh girl, my mood is one of exquisiteness. Like, I am perplexed, and it's based on today's show. So, to match the theme of today's show, I have a drink that I've made. It's a craft drink that I made special for the show. It's called The Disappearing. This drink is vodka lemon juice, a splash of elderflower, just a splash, because I'm not a big elderflower girl. And I top it with a little bit of sparkling water and a little lemon twist. What alcohol was this again? Wait, what? What am I saying? Are you saying? Are you saying vodka? I'm saying vodka nigga, vaca. Like, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Vaca nigga, vodka.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

How'd that go? Vakka nigga. It's vodka nigga vodka. I'm saying vodka. Oh, how melania of you. I know, right? My Russian spy voice. So, yes, I am drinking that tonight, the disappearing act. And, you know, tonight's drink is just gonna be really light, kind of like the commitment that these people had to their original lives. All right, girl, it is the time of the show where we need to shout out our viewer of the week. So remember, our viewer of the week is someone that loves the show. They're always commenting on all of our social media posts. They are liking our videos on YouTube, they're just friends of the show. Drum roll, please. Leslie. Welcome to the swing set, Leslie.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Thank you for always being a friend to the show. Once we get enough listeners in our set, we will be giving away some free merch of moose swings. So keep your hats peeled.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Let me ask you this, Jay. Let me ask you this first. Have you ever just wanted to just disappear and start over? Yeah, of course. Like, who has it? That's the dream, right? If you could, if you could disappear and just start over a whole new life, what would you change? Have you thought about what your new name would be? Would you have an accent? What would your personality be like? You could just completely start it over. And at 50, would you would you really start over, or would you just kind of block people and call it growth? What would you do?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Well, I mean, it depends on where you feel starting over in your life is where it would you know at the very beginning of your life in your adolescent years. Where was it that you wanted to really start over at? Did you want to start over at the time that right like right now?

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Well, I mean, realistically, you couldn't start over in your youth. You can't make time go backwards. So you'd have to start over where you are, unless you look very youthful and you can pull it off.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

No, Benjamin button my ass and shit. Um, no, no, okay. Well, just starting over, just like career-wise, family-wise, love-wise, all that.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

That's crazy. You know what? No, let me let me jump into what starting over really is going to be for me. I'm not saying I'm a start over, but if I was gonna start over, this is how I would do it. I would go to some island like Fiji. I'm talking remote. I'm talking way out. Not no touristy Turks and Caicos type shit. I'm gonna be in some island in where Aborigines people are or some shit like that. And I'm going to have a little hut off the beach. And shut up. Seriously, I am out of the hustle and bustle. I'm going super simple. I'm wearing Birkin socks every day. I'm letting my hair dread up. I'm gonna embrace the island. I'm gonna eat fresh coconuts off of my tree. I'm going full on no stress. Everything's gonna be iry, man.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Be quite iry. That's it's true. The problem is you don't like to eat a lot of things. I told you I'd gonna eat coconut. I guess that would help, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

I can have coconut shrimp. And I'm living on an island, so I'm gonna get crabs and lobster all the time. And I don't know. I'm just I'm just having a no-stressed life. So you know what?

SPEAKER_01 8:21

I like it. I I mean, I can't even lie. It I think that's amazing. I'm too tired to even think of something like that. I'm thinking like career-wise, okay. Well, I guess I'd like to live in New York and you know, work on Wall City. So I'm like, what the hell? Okay, you're talking about like literally start over, like working over. Yes, ma'am. Like a I feel like we know well, we will be planning that in our near future for retirement and and starting over in that sense, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Okay, that's not what I mean. Let me let me just give you let me get right into it so you can know what I'm talking about, okay? Because all of the things are. I'm gonna start a new job. Yeah, and then I was like, I knew something was up your sleeve. Let me go ahead and do it. Go ahead. So I want to tell you about some real stories about some folks that really went missing. But here's the thing they went missing, but they did it so that they could start over, right? Like with an auto texture program. I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm gonna give you the full T on it. So we're gonna start off with a lady named Brenda Heights. They're calling her the I'm over it queen. And the reason being is because in 2002, Brenda dropped her kids off at school in Pennsylvania. She goes to the parking lot, and then she just disappeared. Her car was left behind. The police are thinking there was some sort of abduction or a murder, and her family is devastated. They never see Brenda again for a whole decade. Her children are like, is my mom alive? Her family is like, what happened to Brenda? We love her. But what happened in reality is that Brenda met some strangers in that parking lot that she disappeared in, and they were like, Hey, we're going to Florida, what are you doing? And she was like, Bet, bitch, I'm going too. And she moved in with them and lived in a homeless encampment. Let me make sure I want to make sure I'm phrasing this correctly and giving this the respect that it deserves.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

I just want you to know that my quietness is just my pure perplexness of Right. I'm just gonna go with I'm just gonna pick door B today.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Right. She was like, you know what? You're homeless. You don't have any responsibilities. Your shit is carefree. I'm in. Sign me up. And she lived in this homeless encampment with these friends that she met in Florida for years. She would take odd jobs, she survived on the street, and she didn't contact her children once. Not even a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

And the leader, she's like, and Chuck, your your last name was what again, Manson?

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Okay, yeah. Um Right. Right. So and then one day she was just like, God damn, I want to sleep in a mattress again. So in 2013, she just decided she wanted to just get her life back. So she just casually walked into the police station and was like, Hey, my name is Brendan. I've been gone a long time. Damn. Yeah, yeah. So she met these strangers in the parking lot. Sorry. It's it's great. Because my mind was blown. I'm looking at the pictures of her missing person's poster that was put up around town about her. There's pictures of her and one of her very best girlfriends, and they're like, you know, having drinks in a bar, and they look like just normal people. The best friend is devastated. Like, where is my girl? People are thinking something really happened to this woman that she met Valfry. So her missing uh flyer from 2002 says circumstances unknown. On February 8th, 2020, Brenda took her children to school. Her car was last seen by neighbors parked in front of her home at around 8:30 that morning. When her children returned home from school that afternoon, they found the house empty. His car was gone from the from the driveway, and there were no signs of a struggle. For days after she disappeared, Brenda's company car, a white 1998 Mercury Mystique, was found parked in a parking spot at the tenth block of North George Street in York. The keys were not in the car, and there was no damage or any indication that there was something wrong with the car. She was legally declared dead in 2009. Damn. They declared her dead. That's crazy. So she was like, hey, hey, I'm not dead. I'm just unavailable. You know what I mean? Like, what am I doing? Wow. You know, I'm alive. I'm just stressed out.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Is there any legal ramifications for things like that? Kind of like, you know, calling it a fake crime, you know, or anything like that, or she actually couldn't get in trouble because she just disappeared.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Well, I know that there is some sort of legal ramifications if there's some sort of like which brings me to one that's pretty famous that we all know about, Sherry Papini from the Bay Area. Do you remember Sherry Papini? Yes, I do. Yes. Yeah. Okay, okay. How old was that? Sherry Papini? Yeah. Sherry Papini happened in 2016. Basically, she went jogging and she just disappeared. You know, I'm gonna say, why people, Janana Giz. So a hundred percent. Has no reports are missing. It's national news story, which we all know, right? Then three weeks later, miraculously, she's found on the side of the road and she's bruised. She has a brand, because she's been brand, and she has a story to tell. And everyone's like, oh my gosh, Sherry was so pretty, this cute little blonde white lady, and she survived being trafficked. But in reality, she was with her old boo. And she made up the entire kidnapping story. So that happened in 2016. So in 2022, she was arrested and sentenced. That's what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

That's what, you know, again, as we talked about in the last in our last episode about freedom of speech, um, but not freedom of consequences. Same thing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because how dare you, how dare you, I know children in your family believe you're dead, have a funeral for you, you are decl legally declared dead in the state of wherever of California. Right, right. That is you have to move on.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

So technically, since you're alive, aren't you technically still married? Surprise. So for in the in the case of Sherry Papini, once she came back and they poked all these holes in their story, the husband filed for a divorce. But now in the other case of Brenda, because she was legally declared dead, I guess the husband was probably declared a widow. I don't know. I just think it's a really it's a shitty thing to do to people that love you, especially your children, right? Because then think about the rem think about the ramifications of the children where it's like, damn, you didn't give a shit about me. You didn't give enough care about me to just let me even know you were okay. Or what this was gonna do to my psyche finding out you were alive all this time.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

That's what I was saying. I think it's worse than when if you were to commit suicide, which I already think is a self-attack act already. Absolutely. Because they're already believing that they don't know what happened, something horrible happened to you, and that's all they they know that you dropped off the store, gone. And they don't know what happened to you. You again, as I said, as the time goes on, they've lost hope. They moved on, they're not never moved on, but you know, having to restart their life. Yeah, and then you're just like, uh, I'm just gonna pop back in. I'm just tired. And then they're thinking, Well, all that that anguish that they went through can turn into resentment, and you might as well just stay dead. Oh, you know what I'm just saying, if you were gonna do that to me. So I mean that would just be me.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

I mean, I mean, not to be a Debbie Dionner, but I know how awful the blanket of grief could feel from losing the disease.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Celine Dion has has um stiff body's disease.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

I told you. That's why I was like, that's what I was telling you. It's called stiff person's disease.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

No, I was just saying, because you're like, I don't want to be a Debbie Downer. I'm like, well, guess what? Celine Dion has stiff person's disease, okay?

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Oh my God. No, I'm saying I don't, I don't want to be a Debbie Downer and just talk about like grief, but I know that grief is so heavy and so hard, and you have to go through this process. There's seven layers of it, and it it goes back and forth, it slides. It is a process to think about your loved one disappearing, going through that whole process of grief, which can take you years, and then you finally come to terms with this person's never coming back again. Only for this fucker to show up again and was like, Yeah, I'm tired of living on the street. In Brenda Heis's case, she chose to leave her home to be homeless. She chose that life, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Well, so my question is what kind of life did she have that made you choose homelessness over what you had, right? You know, and now now people are gonna start digging into the family or hey, hey, was it a bad household? Were these kids pieces of shit? The dad was a loser. What was it? What wouldn't make someone just dress out the blue? Because normal people who are fine with their lives, and even if they're going through some type of turmoil or if they're going through something with their marriage, doesn't mean that that they're gonna go and just disappear.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

They were talking to themselves. I'm glad you brought that up because we're gonna talk about that in just the next segment about what makes someone do something like this. But for right now, I want to tell you about a couple more folks. Now, this is a married couple scam that was going on. This is about a guy named John Darwin. And basically, the full team, John, is that in 2002, John died in a canoe accident in the U.S. His wife Anne was a grieving widow, and she played the grieving widow really good. She collected the life insurance for John, but pot twist, John is alive, and he was secretly living in a living in a hidden room in their house. Yeah, I just don't feel like working, huh? Well, he was living in that room so that Anne could collect the insurance money.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

But he never left the room?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

He never left. He was he was laying in that room pretending that he died in an accident in the UK. Because think about it. You're in another country, you're like, oh, we can't get the body back. We just told him to go ahead and and you know, scatter the ashes in the UK, whatever. So after she got the insurance money, Anne and John both packed up and they moved to Panama to live a whole new life. They're in a whole new country, they have new assumed names, they have a whole new life. So they get there, they buy property together, and they just had this life. They would go to lunch every day and walk from their house, and they were living high on the hog. And then one day they took some photos and this thing called the internet came about. And these photos got up there and people saw them. And these photos exposed them. So now people are like, hey, that looks just like John. I thought John died. Well, in 2007, John decided the heat was getting a little too hot, and he walks himself into a police station and he tells them, Hey, I think I have memory loss, but I'm not sure. I might be someone, but I don't know. You know, like, sir, cut the shit. You were on vacation. You and Panama living your best lives.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Okay, how did you come across this topic?

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Were you thinking about starting over? You know? And then you just ask chat, hey, how do I how do I start over? You know what's crazy is that it's so funny because I was just telling my youngest daughter, probably about two weeks ago. There's another story of a lady that just came out at the beginning of the year. During Christmas, she went Christmas shopping and left. She bounced and they thought she was missing too. And 10 years later, they find her. She's living like 60 miles away from her real house. And when they find her, she tells them, Don't go back telling my business that you found me. I don't want to be found. And she she left her child and her sister, and her sister and her child have been giving these these interviews. We don't know what to think. We're so happy to know that our mom and our sister is alive, but at the same time, we're like, what the fuck? My mom and my sister's alive, you know? So, anyways, we were talking my daughter Right. My daughter and I were talking about that story, and I shared a very personal story about when I was a little girl, my mother used to always be like, one day y'all are gonna look for me and I'ma be gone. That's what my mom used to always tell us when we were getting on our nerves as kids, you know? And I used to hate it. I hated it, I hated it so much when she would say it. It it bothered me, it scared me because I really thought one day my mom would run away. Now she never did, but she always would say it. And then one day, when I was probably like 15 or 16 years old, I was just like, Mom, I hate when you say that. Can you please stop saying that? And she was like, you know, I'm just playing. I was like, I just I don't like it. And she never said it again. So the crazy ironic thing about it is that I catch myself sometimes saying the same exact thing to my children, to my husband, one day y'all look for me, I'll be gone. And when I am, don't come looking for me. And I say that all the time. And then, you know, so that's kind of how I got on this subject. It's one thing to say it, it's another thing to do it. Right, right, yeah. Right and these folks really did it. They did it.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

I well, I feel that the the last scenario was just some scammers, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah, it's but it's like why did y'all commit a crime and then start taking a couple photos? Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

That does make no damn sense.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

It's only because it's always some stupid shit. I have to show you pictures, and they're they're older, they're in their sixties. I'm like, you're old enough to know better. And it's like, and you don't even upgrade. It's like new life, same marriage, same shit. I didn't upgrade. I know.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

At least they didn't use, I mean, use it to your advantage. Well, I guess they kind of did with by getting her benefits, right? He was she was getting the life insurance. So he was living off it too.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

He just was lazy and didn't want to work anymore.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 21:36

So if you faked your death, would you bring your man or would you leave him?

unknown 21:39

Oh, he's dead.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Can't go nowhere. Yeah. Well, give myself a little side piece, you know what I'm saying? I mean, if you're if you're gonna get a live side piece, if you won't get a new life, get a new life. Don't be on that path of bullshit. If you're about to really do it, go in. Do it all the way. New life, new car, new identity, new phone, new hair, new new everything. Hell, I might even be white. You don't know. I may not even be black no more. I'm going all the way in.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

So I'm just, it's just, he's black and white.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so this one, this took me by surprise. So we've all heard of the world-renowned writer, Agatha Christie, right? Yes. Yes. So Agatha Christie from the 20s, she was this big novelist, and she wrote all these detective, whodunit type of crime dramas. And she was this, I think she's still to this day, maybe. I have to look it up. But I know at one point I remember reading about Agatha Christie, and she was one of the best all-time world bestseller novelists. I guess she's had more bestsellers than any female novelist of all time. So that's what I always known Agatha Christie for. But did you know that this Hefa also faked her own disappearance? I did not know this. I'm gonna have to give you all the tea on this girl. So in 1926, Agatha Agatha Christie's husband cheated on her. He found out and was like, F this, and she disappears. So they found her. She was like, You want to be with that bitch? You be with her then. I'm out, right? So she disappears. Her car was found abandoned, and it went nationwide. It was nationwide panic. It's on the cover of the Daily Times. Every publication that was worth its weight and weight and salt was covering the story. For 11 days, it had the world riveted. She uh checks into a hotel under a fake name. And guess what the fake name was? I was like, you know what? The fake name is her husband's mistress's last name. Wow, wow. I was like, oh, you Agatha. Agatha crazy. Right? Right? She was like, Oh, you want to cheat, bitch? I'm gonna ruin your whole reputation. And so, I mean, I feel like it was missing, but it was like, you know, anyways. Using the mistress's name was like just petty with a purpose, and I was here for it. But what it is is that the husband, I guess, kind of had his suspicions from the very beginning. Because the husband was saying something like, She writes these novels where, you know, there's there who done it, and she knows how to disappear and make herself look different. So I feel like she probably just disappeared. Now, remind you, he wasn't telling him she disappeared because she caught me cheating, but she was he was just saying, like, well, she plays too much, she's always making disguises. And in fact, that's exactly what she did. So there's a a newspaper article from 1926 where they showed how she disguised herself and kind of walked around in in real life and no one really knew it was her. Now, in 1926, I guess disguises weren't as good as they are now. She literally stopped looking at the pictures from the newspaper, and it's literally like she put on a pair of glasses and now she's a whole different person. It reminds me of right, like Superman. Or remember like Warner Brothers were that cartoon where the guy was a giant chicken, but then he would put on a pair of glasses, and they think he was like a normal person, and there would always be one little kid and was like, he's a giant chicken. And they're like, What are you talking about? And they're like, he's like, I'm telling you, he's a giant chicken. But and then everybody's like, oh my god, he has a chicken. And the only difference was that he would put these glasses on. So that's kind of like Agatha's pictures. It's like the same exact picture, but she just has glasses on. So yeah, so the husband kind of knew it from the beginning. The husband wasn't buying in. He was like, This bitch left, but again, he didn't tell why she left. She disappears, they find her in a hotel. I think the deeper angle is that there could be some sort of emotional breakdown or she's embarrassed. I don't know. If you dis would you disappear or would you just expose him publicly? What would you do?

SPEAKER_01 25:45

I didn't do anything wrong. So why would I have to disappear? All facts, 100%, girl. Well they have to change my life because you decided to go and do some shit. So I'm like, no, expose him so that I can also go through public ridicule? I don't know about that either. I know what I would do. But but but but if I was Agatha Christie, fuck that motherfucker. I'm about to write a good story. I'm gonna have him murdered in every in the next whole season of Agatha Christie's. And I mean, you know what? I'm never gonna solve the case. Like, well, this is just one that's just really too hard for me.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

I was like, Agatha, why don't you make most of these motherhoggers disappear? How about that? Make their asses disappear. You write stories, you know how to do that shit, make them disappear. And then she goes into full OJ. I ain't make them disappear, but if I did, this is how I do. Exactly. Okay, so one last one we're gonna go with. And this one is the story which I found to be the most riveting. This is what her name is Lori Erica Ruff. And they call her the Christmas disappearance. So this is okay, so this is kind of wild. So she lived a normal life. This lady lived Lori Erica Ruff, she lived a normal life in Texas. She married into like an affluent family in Texas, and she had a child, and it just seemed really regular, like a just a normal life, and she enjoyed a life of privilege because of who she married into. But she later killed herself. She ended up um Well, I'm also like, but now I'm like, okay, let's see what we're let's see where we're going with this. She committed suicide on Christmas Eve in 2010. On Christmas Eve, right? So when she died, and you know, her family had to go through all her paperwork and do everything to get the death certificate and barrier and all that stuff, they realized that all of her documentation saying that she was who she was was absolutely fake. Everything had been forged. So this woman that they thought was uh uh Laura Lori Erica Ruff was not her. She was born Kimberly Maria McLean. And she fled from her family in Pennsylvania in 1986. And in 1988, she adopted the identity of Becky Sue Turner, who is a deceased child, to obtain the birth certificate and create a whole new life.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Well, what she did that, she's in a totally different state state and city of that birth.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

She married this guy, Blake Ruff, in 2004, in Texas, in Leonard, Texas. And it says that she was described as highly intelligent and an animal lover, and that she was always a little mysterious and invasive about her past. Okay, well, that should have been a red flag. But she but they said that her marriage was strained by extreme secrecy regarding her background, refusing to discuss her family, or even show childhood photos. No one had even seen childhood photos of her. She was described as an intensely overprotective mother, and her marriage broke down prior to her death, mainly because of just how elusive she was about everything. So who was at the wedding?

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Good question. I don't know. Simple stuff like who was on the bride's side, who's on the bride's side? Yeah, right. The mom and dad. Who am I, you know?

SPEAKER_00 28:55

And but he still but he continued to marry her though. Yeah, he married. He just thought that maybe she had a rough childhood and just didn't want to talk about it.

unknown 29:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

So he didn't push, you know. If you love someone and you know that they've gone through something in their childhood that was that caused them trauma, usually when you love that person, you go into this protective mode of I don't like that they did this to you, and I'm gonna protect you, you never have to worry about it again. So you don't want to push, you know what I mean, if it's gonna traumatize them. Right. So after her super her suicide in 2010, they found a box in her closet that was locked. And when they opened it, it had multiple fraudulent IDs of many different people she had been in her life.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Oh man. So she's a however, she's a multi-starter over.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

She's a multi-starter over, but I think she probably thought she hit the jab card when she married Blake Ruff because they were in a an affluent family. So even now, her motive of as to why she created this completely false identity for over two decades is completely unknown. They still have no idea because they don't know anyone that's related to her in real life. They haven't been able to find anything out, so they don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

That's crazy. Again, like she's a a career, it sounds like a career criminal. Talented Mr. Ripley.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Yes, absolutely. That was a really good movie.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

So yeah. So some of folks are just not missing. Some folks just relocated and just blocked everybody before there was a way to actually block them, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:16

I guess. So I don't know. Wow, that's crazy. So she disappeared? What happened to her? Is there anything, any follow-up on her and the family? And or she just disappeared again, or she's just dead. But she's probably living in Italy with a different name.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

I don't know. Uh, if someone goes missing and they fake their own little thing, I feel like there's gonna be some red flag there. I mean, I feel like there are red flags with these folks that we just mentioned. So, one thing is when you're leaving your phone and your car, that tells me, girl, I don't want to be found. Don't come looking for me. You can have a call. I don't give a fuck about this car. I don't care about this phone, I don't care about none of this shit. Just take it and leave me alone. Kind of what I get from that. Because I feel like if someone is taking you, if someone has uh abducted you, right? Right. I feel like, I don't know, wouldn't they take your car and maybe change the plates and drive that shit, or wouldn't they throw your phone in the river or try to conceal it or hide it or something? Leave it in plain sight.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Yeah, I think it's really depends upon the mindset of that criminal and the education level of that criminal, right? Because they can make a lot of mistakes, right? They can make a thousand mistakes, or they can have this meticulously plotted out.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Yeah, so true. So true. Also, what about personality changes? If somebody's like, you know what, I'm tired of Tom's shit, I'm tired of it. And they keep telling you they're tired of Tom's shit, then one day they disappear, they was really tired of Tom's shit. Was tired of Tom's shit. It was really tired of Tom's shit. And then like no more foolery here. No Tom Floyd. And what about like secret accounts? If people are, well, you know what, I don't know if a secret account would be the bad thing, but I'm like, if people are stashing money somewhere else, they may be stashing it for a reason. They're planning a whole new life somewhere, maybe. I don't know. But then again, if it's a secret, maybe you may not know about a secret account.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

They're always stashing money in the Cayman Islands, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Cayman Islands, yeah. I mean, I have tons of little, don't tell anybody that I have tons of little secret accounts. They're called Venmo. And then they're called, they're called Apple Pay. Right. I keep all type of money in those little ones and no one knows about. Those are my secret accounts. But you know And I I do the same because I'm like, oh, I have this extra cash on this Venmo account. Right? Like, oh, I got$300 in here. Not enough to fight start a life in Fiji, but hey, it's enough for me to go keep it.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Maybe a Fiji. I don't know. If you become a lady boy, you can probably make some good money there. Oh God.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Well, and okay, so life insurance policies. They life insurance policies always scare me a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

If I it doesn't even matter if you make them mad or not, they got they already got plans for you. Is that what you're saying? Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Kids, like those Mendenez brothers, husbands, wives. Girl, I was just about to go, it's a tragedy money. The dream is over, right? So hella people will try to kill you behind an insurance policy. So it's like you get them because you need them, but then you don't even want to tell anybody you got them because this one is gonna try to kill me.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Right, exactly. Oh, they actually put it out on you.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

That's funny. That is crazy that you can just go and take out a random ass insurance policy on anyone. That is that blows my mind. And then hope you don't get hit by a car. And hope you don't. I guess I guess the moral of that story is that if you have to take out a loot a life insurance policy, you tell your loved ones, hey, I got a small policy, it's$5,000. So I'm just letting you know it's probably enough to give me a casket. That's it. Don't risk your life and try to kill me over no$5,000. You know what I mean? You do some shit like that.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Right, exactly. Just give a little bit of the little caveat to that.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

It's just the other part you were asking me about why do people leave? I mean, I feel like, like you said, there's some heavy shit here, right? Like the woman who decided she'd rather go live with strangers in a homeless encampment in Florida, you would leave your bed to go and live in a homeless encampment. You would leave your children, you would leave everything. So I feel like there's a lot of deep shit there to unpack. I feel like sometimes people have really bad relationships. That's the only thing I can think of that would make you want to leave your children like that, to leave them with that mental anguish of not knowing what happened to their loved one. And then, you know, mental health could be an issue. Maybe your mental health is not good, or your cognitive functioning is not functioning. So you're thinking this is the best way. So some people have issues with debt, made some bad mistakes with money, and now they're thinking I have no way out other than to fake my own death or leave or whatever. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Or, or you're sitting in front of Sprouts, see somebody walking by and say, Hey, I'm going down to LA, you want to come?

SPEAKER_00 34:57

And just leave. Girl, you know what? There have been days in my life where that sounds appealing that I'd be like, fuck yes, I want to go. I even got five on the gas. Let's go. Like, you know, I mean, there's days like that, but God, I couldn't imagine ever leaving my family and never telling them where. I uh I I could listen, even if I dream about it, I couldn't even enjoy it when I get there because I would be too worried about my family worrying about me. Right. Like I left them with this agony, you know?

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Exactly. And uh you're like ain't nobody, you know when you're gone, ain't nobody brushed 18th. This is in the sink, but the dog ain't been fed, the water bowl is dry. It's just gonna be just it's horrible. You gotta touch that.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

And that and that's kind of the issue of why you gotta leave in the first place, because the mental load that you have to carry for not only yourself, but maybe a spouse, maybe the children, everything is a mental load. So I have to make sure my shit's together, my husband's shits together, the kids shits together, the pets, whatever. You know what I mean? That mental load is probably what makes you want to leave. That's right. Make sure everyone's shit's together. I mean, and and I get the feeling of over being overwhelmed. I get it, I understand it, I can relate to it, but at some point you gotta communicate. You don't just fake your death and log out. You gotta actually communicate. Right. Doesn't all the work you put into faking your death or your disappearance, doesn't that come a big mental load too?

SPEAKER_01 36:32

I think that would be a lot because it's a lot of planning. And you being a planner, right? They're they're gonna see your logs, they're gonna see your your project, they're gonna see the pages, they're gonna see the you know, the receipts. It's gonna be all, yeah, it's it's just too much. But it probably would be fun for you to at least.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

I mean, you know, it's like this. You would have to give up a lot. One being social media, because you give up social media for the rest of your life, because you want to be like the dumb, the dumb Darwin family and the ones that were taking the pictures and they get that shit got out on the internet, you'd have to give up social media for the rest of your life. Or, I mean, I guess if you're doing social media, you'd have to have a name and you're not posting anything.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

You gotta figure out something else to do while you're in the bathroom.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

It's a lot of shit you gotta think of. Right. And do you trust yourself, even if you assumed another name and went under social media under someone else's, do you you still couldn't do it? Because I know if I had a missing loved one and I got a random friend request from someone named Jackie Smith, I'd be like, who the fuck is this person? Is she related to my friend's death? Does she blah blah blah, you know what I mean? Like it's just you couldn't do it. And then again, could you never talk to your family and kids again? So, and then also, could you keep that lie going for really the rest of your life if you needed to? Could you keep that lie going for the rest of your life? Half of us can't even keep a diet going, let alone a lie for 10 years or 20 years. Well, look at spies, right? I mean, even with spies, at least you know, like, I this is my job. I'm working. You're not just disappearing, and everything you know is left behind. There's no one else there. So basically, to close this all out, so tonight we learned that some people don't go missing. Okay, they just do a real live block your ass, and that's the whole thing. And that's how the cookie crumbles. That is anyway. So so yeah, so thank you for indulging me tonight, and now you understand why I decided to call my drink the disappearing act, because these bitches was disappearing.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

You know what? That was quite clever, A Mac. Quite clever. So, um, I I would love to uh see if we can do another episode of uh Disappearing Act. I'm pretty sure I bet you anything. I bet you anything there's probably hundreds of stories that are out there, but there's probably a hundred hundreds more that aren't discovered yet because they're they're living off the map right now.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

That's crazy. Amen. Amen. All right, girl. Well, thank you so much. It's so a great time. I know I love you too, Jay. Hey, here's my last little bit of drink here.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Clean, clean, clean. Cheers.