It’s amazing the parallels the human mind can draw when it tries.

The belief that stars die in threes was strengthened in 1997 when fashion designer Gianni Versace, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa died in a three-month time period.

The theory was made fresh again last week when TV personality Ed McMahon, pinup girl Farrah Fawcett and singer Michael Jackson died.

It’s our human urge to group, organize and understand that dreams up these theories. But in reality, we know they aren’t true.

For instance, a Google search on the Versace, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa time frame also shows that singer John Denver died right around that time.

Actor Burgess Meredith died only four days after Mother Teresa.

So from July to October in 1997 at least five stars died, not three.

Last week’s trio was busted when TV pitchman Billy Mays was found dead Sunday morning.

Before Mays died though, the world was trying to make its own string of threes, this time all in one day.

Fawcett and Jackson died last Thursday, and before the day ended Internet rumors had movie stars Jeff Goldblum falling off a cliff, Harrison Ford killed in a yachting accident and George Clooney dying in a plane crash. None of these men really died, but it made a heck of a grouping.

Big-screen deaths — so to speak — impact us all. It’s not like when your neighbor’s aunt dies. Aunt Sophie just isn’t known by as many people as Michael Jackson and Billy Mays are.

TV, movie and music stars come into the lives of Americans daily. We’ve come to believe we know them as well as we know our neighbors — just ask the hundreds of Americans devastated by the divorce of reality TV stars and parents of twins and sextuplets Jon and Kate Gosselin.

And grouping our deceased icons into trios is apparently our way of coping.

The outpouring of interest after Jackson’s death last week was enough to temporarily shut down user-controlled sites like Twitter and Wikipedia. And CNN reported that even simple searches on popular search engines were slowed by the amount of Internet traffic from around the world.

Teddy bears, flowers, notes and candles have filled every public site affiliated with Jackson in the days since his death. And the nearly non-stop news coverage has become a bit overwhelming.

But America is in mourning.

The groupings offer a weird solace to a nation asking, “why?”

When one star is gone, the second and the third are to be expected. Once a trio is started, more deaths are bound to happen, we think, so it’s not so surprising when they come.

But what about the fourth wheel?

Billy Mays death has been overshadowed by those of much bigger, much better-known stars. Had the pitchman and star of his own Discovery Channel TV series died apart from the others we would have heard more about the man that made Mighty Putty sell.

His business was a unique one and Mays was its Michael Jackson.

Like the king of pop to music, Mays forever changed the pitch.

But his death came one star too late to forever be remembered in the trio.

Julie Cooper is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.