In the flurry of blog posts and tweets and speculation that followed the original Deadspin story, it didn’t take long before someone unearthed tweets by someone else who, it turns out, had been hoaxed by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo via the Lennay Kekua character. The tweets came months before Deadspin’s story and were a sort of unheeded–and at the time, nearly invisible–warning to Te’o. They changed the tenor of the speculation, making what is now the consensus sequence of events (Te’o greatly embellished the story but was essentially hoaxed) seem far more plausible.

Thing is: the Deadspin folks had found these tweets and had contacted their authors in their own investigation. Deadspin was really hoping–and had probably convinced themselves–that Te’o was in on the hoax and did the whole thing for publicity. Their original article didn’t mention these tweets’ content at all. Deadspin was very careful to say what they did and did not have evidence for, but the implications were very clear. But I think they clearly set aside some of the evidence they gathered in hopes of a more explosive story.