These unexplained details are the traces of a reasoning process that died with Kimberly McLean. They are the evidence of a life that had history and complexity and, at some level, a logic that made sense to the person living it. The specific content of that logic is not recoverable.
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## Identity Fraud: A Historical Pattern
The method Kimberly McLean used to create a new identity for herself in 1988 was not invented by her, and she was not the last person to use it. It belongs to a documented pattern of identity assumption that has been practiced in the United States and elsewhere for decades.
The *Paper Trip* booklet, published by Barry Reid in 1971, described the method in terms accessible to a general reader. Eden Press, the publisher, continued to sell updated versions for decades. The booklet was advertised in underground newspapers and reached people who were seeking to evade legal obligations, avoid abusive situations, escape financial consequences, or simply start over under a different name in a world where their previous life had become untenable.
The specific technique of using a deceased child’s birth certificate exploited the jurisdictional separation of birth and death records in a pre-digital vital records system. A researcher working the technique effectively would look for a child who had died young — too young to have established a credit history, a school record, or any of the other traces that an adult identity generates — and whose birth and death had occurred in different states or counties, reducing the probability of cross-referencing. Becky Sue Turner, born in Bakersfield and dead in Fife, was an example of exactly this type of match.