The girlfriend of Manti Te'o, Lennay Kekua, was said to have died from leukemia in September. The story became part of his Heisman narrative and Notre Dame's undefeated regular season. 

But the photographs purported to be Kekua are from the social-media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman not named Lennay Kekua.

Kekua was said to be a Stanford student that met Te'o in November of 2009.

The Stanford registrar's office has no record that a Lennay Kekua ever enrolled. There is no record of her birth in the news. Outside of a few Twitter and Instagram accounts, there's no online evidence that Lennay Kekua ever existed.

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo allegedly created the online persona of Lennay Kekua.

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. 

Te'o's Twitter profile carries a quotation from Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, the great adventure novel about a man in disguise.

Update: Notre Dame has released a statement claiming that Te'o was the victim of a hoax. Officials from the school were approached by Te'o and his family on Dec. 26.