Manti Te’o Girlfriend's Death Hoax: Notre Dame Linebacker, Lennay Kekua Died Of Leukemia In September 2012 ALIVE!

Notre Dame athlete Manti Te'o was a victim of a hoax says the university's athletic director Jack Swarbrick. The linebacker's leukemia stricken girlfriend, Lennay Kekua never existed and the linebacker is a victim of "someone's sick jokes and constant lies," he and Notre Dame said in a statement.

Swarbrick had met with Te'o and trusts him, "I want to stress, as someone who has been engaged in this as anyone the past couple weeks, that nothing I have learned has shaken my faith in Manti Te'o one iota," Swarbrick said. "The same great young man, great student and great athlete that we have been so proud to have as a member of our family is the same guy tonight, unchanged in any way except for, as he indicated in the statement, his release, the embarrassment of being a victim in this case."

Because of his kind and open personality, he was an easy target for the hoax, Swarbrick said, "In many ways, Manti was the perfect mark, because he is a guy who is so willing to believe in others and so ready to help, that as this hoax played out in a way that called upon those tendencies of Manti, it roped him more and more into the trap," Swarbrick added, "He was not a person who would have a second thought about offering his assistance and help."

On December 6, Te'o received an unnerving phone call from the number Kekua used when she was alive and when he answered it realized it was her voice, he was shocked.  After the phone call the woman tried to restart the relationship. During the holidays Te'o called Notre Dame's coach and told him the news.

The university hired investigators to look into the exclusively online relationship. Te'o may talk to the public about the incident, but Swarbrick says, "At the end of the day, this is Manti's story to tell and we believe he should have a right to tell it, which he is going to do."

The hoax may be unfortunate, but people are suspecting that Te'o is lying.  ESPN showed a clip of a interview of Te'o from October 2, 2012 in which he insinuated that he met her, "I'd seen the most beautiful girl I ever met, not because of her physical beauty but the beauty of her character and who she is," Te'o said in the ESPN interview. "Even though she was fighting leukemia and fighting various things, she always found time to serve someone else."