Manti Te'o's Dead Girlfriend all a Hoax?

Oh this has to be one of the lowest things I have ever seen out of a Hawaii athlete if it proves to be true.

A friend of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo told us he was "80 percent sure" that Manti Te'o was "in on it," and that the two perpetrated Lennay Kekua's death with publicity in mind. According to the friend, there were numerous photos of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and Te'o together on Tuiasosopo's now-deleted Instagram account.

The sheer quantity of falsehoods about Manti's relationship with Lennay makes that friend, and another relative of Ronaiah's, believe Te'o had to know the truth. Mostly, though, the friend simply couldn't believe that Te'o would be stupid enough—or Ronaiah Tuiasosopo clever enough—to sustain the relationship for nearly a year.

The Deadspin article if very well sourced and gathers information like one of the best investigative reporters in the business. Lennay Kekua's pictures were actually from another Facebook user that the reporter contacts. There is also no record of her being at Stanford or graduating, getting a bone marrow transplant, or even dying. She seems to have been made out of whole cloth either to fool Te'o or to add a layer of myth to his Heisman candidacy. This part of Te'o's statement sounds weird if this stuff was true:

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. 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.

Supposedly the hoaxter who is this Ronaiah Tuiasosopo guy was talking to Te'o on the phone nearly every night? The hoaxter was also supposed to have joined Te'o in Hawaii at least on one occasion. Did the hoaxter pay or trick some girl into calling him every day? That doesn't make any sense. Oh man this can only end badly for our so-called "Golden Boy."