The discovery of the stolen identity came after new investigative technology employed by the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service developed new leads in the case this year, the Marshals Service said without elaborating about the technology.
Facial recognition?
It used to be trivial to steal the identity of a dead child, obtain a SS#, and build a fake identity. There were manuals you could buy to walk you through it. Changes to the system like issuing SS#s at birth and computerizing databases has made this technique obsolete.