SAN NARCISO, Calif. -- This month, numerous headlines alleging the deaths of celebrities such as Owen Wilson, Eddie Murphy, Charlie Sheen, and Aretha Franklin have been posted on social networking sites. In every case, the obituary was proven to be a hoax. However, the individual responsible for promoting the false reports managed to drive an obscene amount of unwarranted Internet traffic to his site, proving just how effective SEO programs can be. Today, according to local police, that man has been found dead.

In cooperation with search provider Google, investigators traced the IP address to a local man in San Narciso County. But what authorities discovered at the man’s residence gave the already bizarre story an even stranger twist.

Said Frank Gloaming of the San Narciso Police Department, “I guess you could call this ironic. And not the Alanis Morissette variety, but real irony. The subject in question, whose name we’re withholding until his family is notified, was found dead in his apartment, slumped over his computer keyboard. He had a rope around his neck, which was tied to an unused weightlifting machine. I say ‘unused’ because the suspect was about 400 pounds. He also had a lemon in his mouth. But despite evidence of an auto-erotic asphyxiation mishap, oddly common in this community, the strangest part is that he appears to have been beaten to death with a snowboard. Clearly, we’ve got our work cut for us on this one.”