Te'o said he altered his stories so his family and others would think he did met Kekua in person.
"That goes back to what I did with my dad," Te'o said. "I knew that -- I even knew, that it was crazy that I was with somebody that I didn't meet, and that alone -- people find out that this girl who died, I was so invested in, I didn't meet her, as well. So I kind of tailored my stories to have people think that, yeah, he met her before she passed away, so that people wouldn't think that I was some crazy dude."
Their relationship started, Te'o said, when Kekua sent him a friend request on Facebook the winter of his freshman year at Notre Dame. The two then had intermittent contact over the phone.
"My relationship with Lennay wasn't a four-year relationship," Te'o said. "There were blocks and times and periods in which we would talk and then it would end."
Te'o said their relationship escalated after Kekua told him her father had died.
"She told me her dad passed away, and I was there. I was that shoulder to cry on. And I kind of just naturally cared for the person," Te'o said. "And so our relationship kind of took another level. But not the kind of exclusive level yet."
He said he was told Kekua was in a car accident April 28 and was in the hospital. He said he was told she was in a coma.
"I would ask to talk to her, and the only communication I had was through Noah, her brother, and he used her phone," Te'o said. "And he would put me supposedly right next to her mouth and I could hear the ventilator going. And she would be breathing. ... They said every time I was on the phone, they would tell me the nurse noticed that whoever was on the phone with her, she must have recognized the voice, because she would start breathing quicker and I could hear on the phone."
