Deaths of Sandy Cheeks and SpongeBob SquarePants

On July 16, 2017. Sandy Cheeks, the bassist of The Infection, was found dead in her Arlington home. It was later determined that Sandy Cheeks died on July 14th, just two days before her body was found. Arlington detectives have stated that Sandy had "several cuts on her arms and shoulders with several pieces of cocaine".

At the time of her death, the band announced their exit from the 2017 Vans Warped Tour as they were planning on taking a break from touring to focus on recording new material. Her death triggered reactions around the world, creating unprecedented surges of Internet traffic and a spike in sales of her music and The Infection's music. In mid-May 2022, the band's catalog was sold to Universal Music Group for $550 million and retaining distribution rights.

3 years later, SpongeBob SquarePants would tragically die before a Columbia show on August 28th, 2020. This resulted in law enforcement and the FBI opening an investigation into the couple's deaths, which was later dismissed in February 2022 after gathering evidence that SquarePants died from suicide by hanging caused by being cyber-bullied online.

## Background

Sandy Cheeks was the vocalist/bassist of The Infection, one of the most influential acts of the mid-1990s and early-2000's, and the founder of her own side-project The Secret-But-Not-So-Secret Band, and the lead vocalist of her solo group. Since 2002, Sandy was struggling with depression and borderline disorder due to the deaths of her cousin Layne Staley and her father Matthew Rodger Cheeks Sr.

She had admitted during the past couple of years, that she had regularly used drugs as a relief that helped her with her mental health. Patrick Star mentioned in a TMZ interview in 2018 that Sandy kept really quiet about her drug-use during the band's recent tours.

Two weeks prior to her death on June 30th, 2017 after The Infection's show in Orlando, Sandy Cheeks informed her followers via social media that she was going through a cyberbullying situation due to her previous post in September 2016, in which she was diagnosed with ADHD. She had experienced anxiety, depression, and panic disorder during this time.

She also wrote that in early-May, her mental state was worsening and began to engage in self-mutilation and cutting causing her to miss some rehearsal sessions for the upcoming tour.

## Sandy's death/reactions

On July 15th, 2017, less than three weeks into the Vans Warped Tour and days after the band announced their extended break from touring, Sandy was found unconscious in her Arlington, TX mansion. The autopsy reported of cocaine toxicity, alcohol in her blood stream that was way over the lethal amount and a significant amount of heroin. Sandy had committed suicide by overdose. There have been fifteen cases of copycat suicide.

Paramedics received a 911 call at 11:22 am PST from the band manager, due to the rapid concerns regarding her not showing up for pre-rehearsals, and they arrived three minutes later. Cheeks was not breathing and CPR was performed, and was taken to Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital, where she was heavily sedated and put on life support. About two hours later, in the intensive-care unit, Sandy was pronounced dead at 2:26 pm.

News of her death spread quickly online, causing websites to slow down and crash from user overload, and putting unprecedented strain on services and websites including Google, Discord, Twitter, Instagram, and Wikipedia. Overall, web traffic rose by between 41% and 60%. According to an analysis released by the Global Language Monitor (GLM), 72 hours after her death, Cheeks became the fifth most covered news item in global print and electronic media. For the Internet and social media, she was number one. MTV began airing marathons of the band's music videos with MTV often airing news segments in between and featuring various reactions from fans and celebrities.

Moments after news of her death emerged, CNN, MSNBC, NBC and Fox News all broke from their regularly scheduled programming to dedicate time to non-stop coverage of Cheeks's death. All four featured live interviews with people who had known Cheeks.

## Death of SpongeBob SquarePants

3 years later, emergency services were called to the Masaya Medellin hotel in Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia, where it was reported that SquarePants was found unresponsive. He had missed his scheduled checkout time, and several family members got worried after being unable to contact him.

Emergency responders later pronounced SquarePants dead at the scene, he was 48 years old. No cause of death was given until February 2022, after waiting two years for an official statement from authorities regarding what happened, and was determined that SquarePants died from suicide by hanging.

## Tribute concert

On February 16th, a year and a half after SpongeBob's death, The Infection and The SquarePants-Cheeks Family Estate announced two shows in tribute to both SquarePants and Cheeks. The first show, played at the Wembley Stadium in Wembley, England, took place on August 27th and was streamed live on YouTube and Paramount+. The second show, at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, will take place on September 10th. It featured both SquarePants and Cheeks' bandmates as well as numerous guest artists.