We guess that between Ken Lay's reputation in the wake of the Enron collapse, his conviction on fraud and conspiracy charges in May and his sudden death this week, conspiracy theories were inevitable — and there are plenty of them, apparently. Some people claim Lay killed himself, others say he was murdered and some believe he's still alive, particularly among the radio call-in set:

"And I thought people would really reflect on this death, Enron, but no," said [Houston radio host Sam] Malone. "There are so many people who have this little switch in the back of their head: conspiracy — he's not dead."

Can't you imagine Lay, Elvis and Princess Di sipping cocktails on some remote island? Though the preliminary coroner's report said Lay died of a heart attack, Malone believes some people will always be skeptical: "If they can't figure out with 100-percent certainty who killed President Kennedy, there will always be a question mark about the death of Ken Lay," he told KHOU.

Whatever people believe about Lay's death, it's creating a lot of fodder online: According to Technorati CEO David Sifry, 871 blog posts contained the phrases "Ken Lay" or "Kenneth Lay" between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. Wednesday, compared with an average of 46 a day in June.