Mark Rausch Funeral Services (of Cameron, WI) did not handle any funeral arrangements for a Guy Straley.

Has someone contacted the original poster to try to explore further, directly or indirectly? Or did we go straight to extremes?

I'm pretty sure that "kimi" doesn't have an e-mail address visible in her profile. One of the stompies would have to either (1) provide the e-mail to a non-stompy who would be willing to e-mail kimi; or (2) e-mail kimi themselves.

And really, #1 isn't an option, if we want to maintain any semblance of respecting people's privacy. The stompies can't go around handing out e-mails if there's none publically listed.

So is a stompy willing to e-mail kimi?

t edit To be clear, I'm not suggesting that a stompy *should* e-mail kimi. Frankly, I think even if you did, you wouldn't get a reply. I'm simply saying that the only people with kimi's e-mail address are stompies, so *if* anyone e-mailed her, it would have to be a stompy.

Stompy. Stompy. The word has lost all meaning.

I believe so, with no response so far.

Trudy says she didn't - I think only the stompies even can.

(And I am mostly in agreement with you and Sean - but we're throwing out an awful lot of emotional energy here too.)

And I just wanna say that this whole thing has reaffirmed for me something about humanity that I had forgotten - people from Wisconsin are really polite on the phone.

BTW, there's no Guy Straley at www.ratemyprofessors.com, either.

If this Gus person has in fact died, despite the fact that he's fabricated some elements of his life*, I want to know so I can mourn.

If he's not dead, I have a bajillion better things to do with that emotional energy.

What Sean said.

I was trying to track down a high school friend a couple weeks ago who is working on her PhD, but hasn't earned it yet, and within five minutes I had not only found her name but her e-mail address as well. Someone with a PhD should be easily googleable.

BTW, there's no Guy Straley at www.ratemyprofessors.com, either.

I checked there just last night. And ended up rating my prof from this semester.

Also, yes, there are now 500 posts in here on this subject, and we don't really know anything more than we knew before*, but I think it's necessary and healthy, so that maybe it's easier to deal with the next time something like this happens, whether it's true or not.

*I do think that 500 posts, and two days of sleuthing uncovering no new information is significant. If you investigate UFOs for 20 years, and essentially uncover no information you did not already know when you started, and have no more proof one way or the other than you did 20 years ago, you know what the best possible conclusion to make is? That UFOs don't exist.

No, we have no new proof or evidence one way or another, after quite a bit of expended effort, but that is enough to make me think that, until we receive something definitive, a wake thread and a donation is a waste of time, money, and emotional energy.

And I am mostly in agreement with you and Sean - but we're throwing out an awful lot of emotional energy here too.

That's a fair point, but again, I think this has mostly been healthy, and may serve us well in the future.

Brenda, there's also the whole story about the novel which apparently he recycled from his blog three years ago. There's definitely been lying. Enough to reasonably question the death.

Aside from that, the whole episode is extremely typical for the pseudicide dynamic. The pattern is well established by now and this one goes by the numbers.