Te'o also lost his grandmother _ for real _ the same day his girlfriend supposedly died, and his role in leading Notre Dame to its best season in decades endeared him to fans and put him at the center of one of college football's feel-good stories of the year. For instance, why did Te'o tell reporters before the Heisman Trophy presentation on December 8 that he "lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer," when two days earlier the woman he thought was dead called him on his cellphone? Notre Dame said Te'o found out that Kekua was not a real person through a phone call he received at an awards ceremony in Orlando, Fla., on Dec. 6. Then Wednesday, the university held a news conference saying Te'o was the victim of a "elaborate hoax." Pete Thamel, the Sports Illustrated writer who published a transcript of his interview with Te'o, said he thinks the star linebacker was duped. They just want to hear him answer these final few questions and hear the story from his point of view." According to Swarbrick, Te'o received a call from a woman claiming to be his girlfriend on December 6, telling him she was not dead. On Wednesday, Te'o and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said the player was drawn into a virtual romance with a woman who used the phony name Lennay Kekua, and was fooled into believing she died of leukemia in September. Relying on information provided by Te'o's family members, the South Bend Tribune reported in October that Te'o and Kekua first met, in person, in 2009, and that the two had also gotten together in Hawaii, where Te'o grew up. The wrenching story of Te'o's girlfriend dying... (Associated Press) 
 
 Manti Te'o's family home appears, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013, in Laie, Hawaii. But as Thamel reported Thursday, Te'o said they met through a cousin. Manti Te'o has already tried to explain how his heartwarming story of playing through adversity was a lie he wasn't responsible for, how he was the victim of a cruel hoax about a dead girlfriend who never existed. Right now, it just looks ... well, we don't know what the facts are, so I shouldn't comment beyond that."
– If Manti Te'o really was an innocent dupe, tricked into believing he had a girlfriend with a tragic story, he's going to have some explaining to do, reports the AP. Two holes in Te'o's story so far: Even though Te'o says he learned on Dec. 6 that "Lennay Kekua" never existed, he perpetuated the story at least twice after that in interviews. Te'o claimed to have met Kekua in person, including once in a September interview with Sports Illustrated. "We met just, ummmm, just she knew my cousin," he said of their first supposed encounter. "And kind of saw me there so. Just kind of regular." As for who "Lennay Kekua" really was, the New York Post reports that the woman seen in the fake Twitter account is Diane O’Meara, a 23-year-old marketing rep from California. “Somebody stole her identity,” a relative says. O'Meara is lawyered up and keeping quiet at the moment. "Te'o's story that he is completely innocent in this does not really ring true to us," said Timothy Burke, the Deadspin editor who co-wrote the original story, on CNN.