A Strange Way To Find Out About Breaking News

So I'm checking my referrers log, and I found that in the space of 13 minutes, I'd gotten 12 hits from all over North America from people searching for "Bob Vern". There's nothing about "Bob Vern" on Google News, or even on some of the more active message boards. I found out I was fairly high up on the Google Search for "Bob Vern" because of a comment someone made in a post back in 2005. It gets me to wondering -- are they searching for information on Bob Vern the actor? Did something happen to him? Should I go out and buy the URL "bobvern.com" just in case it's about to become a household name? I guess I'll have to find out in the morning.

Update 2313 22 Jan: It turns out that all the simultaneous searching was generated by a card at the end of that night's episode of "Grey's Anatomy" saying "In memory of Bob Vern", who was the father of one of the screenwriters. She discusses it here.