Woman steals identity of her 22-year-old daughter to date young men

Laura Oglesby, 48, has admitted to assuming the identity of her estranged daughter, Lauren Hays. Photo / Mountain View Police Department

A woman from Missouri has admitted to stealing her estranged daughter's identity for two years, securing student loans, enrolling in college and even dating young men while posing as her 22-year-old.

Laura Oglesby, 48, is facing a jail sentence after admitting she posed as her daughter, Lauren Hays, for more than two years.

Her elaborate scam fooled both local and federal authorities in the US for two years, during which she managed to apply for a social security card in her daughter's name.

After the card arrived in the mail, Oglesby assumed the identity of her 22-year-old daughter and, as Lauren Hays, began seducing men in their early 20s, who did not know they were being catfished by someone twice their age.

The New York Post reports she also went on to enrol in college under her daughter's name.

Oglesby "completely adopted a younger lifestyle". Photo / Facebook

"Everyone believed it. She even had boyfriends that believed she was that age: 22 years old," Chief Jamie Perkins of the Mountain View Police Department told The New York Times.

Oglesby used Snapchat filters to pose for photos, pretending to be in her 20s.

"She had completely adopted a younger lifestyle: clothing, makeup and personality. She had completely assumed becoming a younger person in her early 20s," Detective Stetson Schwien, told ABC.

The Missouri woman moved in with Avery and Wendy Parker, in Mountain View, California, after tricking the couple into believing she was a young woman running away from a domestic violence situation.

She told the couple her name was Lauren Hays and lived with them for nearly two years. During that time, she applied for a Missouri driver's licence in her daughter's name and enrolled in Southwest Baptist University.

Under that false identity, she received $9400 in federal student loans, among other grants.

She admitted the fraud to authorities when, in August 2018, Mountain View Police were contacted by authorities in Arkansas, where Oglesby is originally from, saying they believed she had committed financial fraud using her daughter's name.

Oglesby has pled guilty to one count of intentionally providing false information to the Social Security Administration.

She faces five years in jail, without parole.