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".

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.

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.

Death and reactions
On July 15th, 2017, less than three weeks into the Vans Warped Tour and days after the band's performance at the XFINITY Center, Sandy was found unconscious in her Arlington, TX mansion.

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 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%.

3 years later in August 2020, just 10 hours before a Columbia show during the Buddy Dave Worldwide Tour, SquarePants was found unconscious at the backstage area at Estadio Atanasio Girardot in Medellin, Colombia by his bandmate, Yolandi. He was pronounced dead upon arrival to local medical facility and the cause of death was suicide.

Cause of death
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.