Te'o told Notre Dame officials that he received a phone call on Dec. 6, while in attendance at an ESPN awards show in Orlando, from a number he recognized as having been that he associated with Kekua. The woman on the line during that phone call told Te'o she had had to fake her own death in order to elude drug dealers, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports, citing a source close to Te'o's family. The woman then tried to restart her relationship with Te'o.
Te'o asked for a photo with a date stamp to verify her identity, the paper reports, but wasn't convinced and then went to his family and school officials to describe the hoax.
At the Heisman Trophy presentation Dec. 8 in New York, ESPN's Chris Fowler asked Te'o what moment of his very public story of tragedy he would remember.
"I think I'll never forget the time when I found out that, you know, my girlfriend passed away and the first person to run to my aid was my defensive coordinator, Coach [Bob] Diaco, and you know he said something very profound to me," Te'o said. "He said, 'This is where your faith is tested.' Right after that, I ran into the players' lounge and I got on the phone with my parents -- and I opened my eyes and my head coach was sitting right there. And so, you know, there are a hundred-plus people on our team and the defensive coordinator and our head coach took time to just go get one (of those players). You know I think that was the most meaningful to me."
Te'o also said on ESPN Radio the same day that he hoped his grandmother, who died Sept. 12, and his girlfriend, who was reported to have died on the same day, were proud of him.
The Associated Press turned up two more instances during that gap between Dec. 6 and Dec. 26, the date when Te'o told Notre Dame that he knew of the hoax, when the football star mentioned Kekua in public.
During another interview at the Heisman ceremony that ran on WSBT.com, the website for a South Bend TV station, Te'o said: "I mean, I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. So I've really tried to go to children's hospitals and see, you know, children."
In a column that first ran in The Los Angeles Times, on Dec. 10, Te'o recounted why he played a few days after he found out Kekua died in September, and the day she was supposedly buried.
"She made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play," he said Dec. 9 while attending a ceremony in Newport Beach, Calif., for the Lott Impact Awards.
Meanwhile, on Friday an adviser to Te'o told ESPN's Jeremy Schaap that the linebacker has been huddling this morning with family members and a team of advisers, who are trying to determine the best way for him to address the controversy. The adviser, who has been part of the discussions, also said all of the advisers are thoroughly convinced that Te'o is telling the truth in saying that he was a victim of a hoax.
They are encouraged, too, by the fact that several people have come forward defending and supporting Te'o. The thing most upsetting to Te'o, his adviser said, is that his relatives were also victimized by the hoax and are now suffering because of it.
Te'o's Notre Dame family is also suffering. Doubts about his participation in the scam extend to the campus, where he is one of the most popular players in Notre Dame's storied history.
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