Manti Te’o’s girlfriend didn’t die in the middle of his would-be Heisman Trophy campaign. In fact, she never existed at all, according to a lengthy investigative report by Deadspin.
The Notre Dame linebacker and his family could have been involved in an elaborate hoax devised by a family friend that included the fabrication of everything from details about their relationship to the girl’s last words before she allegedly died of leukemia in November.
Te’o’s heart-tugging narrative this season was well publicized. The star defender suffered through the death of his grandmother and his girlfriend in the span of 24 hours, then went on to rack up 12 tackles in Notre Dame’s 20-3 win over Michigan State three days later. The story became the driving force behind Te’o’s Heisman campaign.
According to Deadspin, Te’o did indeed lose his grandmother: Annette Santiago died on Sept. 11, 2012 at 72 years old. There is no such record of Te’o girlfriend’s death. But their research found there is no obituary or funeral announcements anywhere online for Lennay Marie Kekua nor any reports of a car accident she was said to be involved in months earlier.
VOTE: DO YOU THINK TE’O WAS IN ON THE HOAX?
NFL PLAYER: KEKUA WAS REAL AND I MET HER
Kekua, said to be a Stanford student, has no record of being enrolled in the school. There’s no record of her birth, either. And photos circulated of her over the last few months are actually pictures of another woman who lives in Torrance, Calif.
One of those photos never appeared on any of the woman’s social media pages. She took it in December 2012 and sent it to an old high school acquaintance. He had requested it because he claimed his cousin was in a serious car accident and had seen her photos before and thought she was pretty. The high school friend asked if she could take a picture holding up a sign that said “MSMK.” The woman did it.
That old high school acquaintance was Roniah Tuiasosopo, who is either family or family friends with Te’o, according to people interviewed by the blog. There is evidence on Twitter that Te’o and Tuiasosopo know each other and hung out before Notre Dame’s Nov. 24 win over USC. When the woman contacted Tuiasosopo he told her “not to worry about it” and the picture was taken down shortly after.
Sources told the website that Tuiasosopo created Kekua in October 2008 and had fake relationships with other men.
Te’o’s level of involvement remains unclear. A friend of Tuiasosopo told Deadspin he was “80 percent sure” that Te’o was “in on it” and that the scam involving the fake girl’s death was done with creating publicity for his Heisman campaign.
In a statement Wednesday, Te’o claimed to be a victim, not a perpetrator of the hoax.
“This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online,” Te’o said. “We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating. It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother’s death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life. I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been. In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was. Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life, and I’m looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft.”
Notre Dame has also released a statement claiming it has been investigating the fraud for nearly a month.
“On Dec. 26, Notre Dame coaches were informed by Manti Te’o and his parents that Manti had been the victim of what appears to be a hoax in which someone using the fictitious name Lennay Kekua apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia,” the statement read.
“The University immediately initiated an investigation to assist Manti and his family in discovering the motive for and nature of this hoax. While the proper authorities will continue to investigate this troubling matter, this appears to be, at a minimum, a sad and very cruel deception to entertain its perpetrators.”
Te’o says he never met Lekua, but his father, Brian, told the South Bend Tribune this fall that “every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there.”
Te’o and his family members told stories about Kekua to numerous media outlets. Brian recounted a story of Te’o staying on the phone overnight with his ill girlfriend, who was in the hospital. Though Brian did lament the fact that he never met Kekua.
“[W]e came to the realization that she could be our daughter-in-law. Sadly, it won’t happen now,” he told the South Bend Tribune in November.
The conspiracy began to completely unravel when another Twitter account which purported to be Kekua’s sister popped up. Te’o tweeted her a happy birthday, but allegations came that the account was a lie and the posted pictures proved to be a woman named Donna Tei. There are connections between Tuiasosopo and Tei, who contacted the producers of the movie “Catfish” (now an MTV show), which features online deception through fake identities.
Te’o said on College Gameday that her last words to him were “I love you.” He didn’t go to Kekua’s funeral because Te’o said she told him to “honor me through the way you play.”
Te’o finished second in the Heisman voting and won four other year-end awards – the Walter Camp, Chuck Bednarik, Butkus and Bronko Nagurski.