10. Lori Ruff's True Identity
In 2004, Blake Ruff married the love of his life, a woman he thought was named Lori Kennedy. Lori was a private person who refused to speak about her past, and most who knew her accepted her silence as part of who she was. When Lori committed suicide in 2010, the Ruff family found a box that revealed a whole other story: Since 1988, she'd been living under a fake identity stolen from a dead girl.
After Lori's story became legend, Colleen Fitzpatrick, a genetic genealogist, signed up to help solve the case and led police to the Cassidy family. The Cassidys had a daughter named Kimberly McLean who ran away from home in 1986, furious over her parents' divorce. When police brought Lori's picture to a family member, she cried out, "My God, that's Kimberly!"
A DNA match confirmed that Kimberly McLean was Lori Ruff. The discovery was bittersweet; her mother had finally found her missing daughter, but she would never get to see her alive again.
9. The 'Grateful Doe' Identified
In 1995, Michael Hager crashed his car into a tree in Virginia. The accident killed both him and a teenage hitchhiker he'd picked up. The only clues to the boy's identity were a Grateful Dead shirt on his back and a note in his pocket from two girls promising that they'd meet him again. Since then, the Grateful Doe's face has been spread all over the Internet in the hope of finding someone who knew him.
In 2015, all that work paid off. The boy's mother stumbled upon the Grateful Doe's Facebook page and, in complete shock, sent them a message. Her son was Jason Callahan, a troubled boy who ran away so often that she didn't report him missing, believing that he'd gone to live on his own.
8. Benjaman Kyle Learns His Real Name
In 2004, a man in his fifties was found lying naked between two dumpsters behind a Burger King in Georgia. He had been hit three times in the head, and he couldn't remember his own name. He picked up the nickname "BK" and fleshed it out to "Benjaman Kyle." Benjaman lived out the next decade of his life with no clue who he really was.
CeCe Moore, a genetic genealogist, took the job of tracking Benjaman's past down, and she found that he'd been missing for a lot longer than ten years. He ran away from his parents in 1976 and hadn't spoken to them since.
Benjaman's real name hasn't been revealed because he wants to keep his privacy. He has, however, reunited with his family, which, ironically, might never have happened if he'd never gotten amnesia.
7. What Happened On The Mary Celeste
In 1872, a ship called the Mary Celeste was found at sea completely deserted. Strangely, there were still six months of food and water onboard and no sign of any damage or fighting—but every crew member had vanished. The legendary story of the Mary Celeste has attracted a lot of interest over the years, and now chemistry professor Dr. Andrea Sella believes he's figured out what happened.
According to Dr. Sella, 1,100 liters (300 gal) of alcohol had leaked on the boat, and the crew abandoned ship when that alcohol exploded. Dr. Sella has conducted an experiment that simulated the explosion. It would have blown the hatches open and terrified everyone on board—but wouldn't have left a single trace of damage.
6. Caledonia Jane Doe Identified
In 1979, a young woman was brought out into a Caledonia, New York, cornfield and shot two times in the head. Her pockets were emptied, and heavy rain had washed away every piece of evidence that could have identified her. Even dental records didn't turn up a match, and the woman was buried without a name.
