Another good article Theo.
It is a very strange case, someone is not being truthful!
Another thing that I have run across is when a name is stolen sometimes the theif will make it appear as though the real owner is still in control ( Name. addy etc). Did you see if the email associated for those dates and the person/company remained the same throughout? That is the one thing they cannot get around, sometimes register a new free email that looks like the real owners. Unless they transfer out to privacy but that defeats the purpose of looking like everything is normal.