The marriage certificate named the parties and the date and jurisdiction: Denton County, Texas, January 5, 2004. It named the officiant. It was a legally valid marriage certificate, because Lori Kennedy was a legally valid name — the product of a court-ordered name change — regardless of the fraudulent basis on which that name change had been obtained.
The name change from Becky Sue Turner to Lori Erica Kennedy had been accomplished through a Texas court in July 1988. Courts granting legal name changes do not typically conduct background investigations into the petitioner’s prior identity. The petitioner presents identification documents, the judge reviews the request to ensure it does not appear to be intended to defraud creditors or evade legal obligations, and if the request is not flagged for those reasons, it is granted. The identification documents in this case were the Idaho state ID obtained in the name of Becky Sue Turner — itself a fraudulent document — but the Texas court had no mechanism to verify the authenticity of that out-of-state ID against vital records from Idaho and California and Washington.
The legal name change was the crucial step that converted a fraudulent assumed identity into a legally sanctioned one. After July 5, 1988, Lori Erica Kennedy was not just a name Kimberly McLean was using; it was her legal name, supported by a court order. When she subsequently obtained a Social Security number, a Texas ID, a driver’s license, a passport, and eventually a college degree, these were all issued to a person with a legal name backed by judicial documentation.