“Breaking Bad” isn’t just a TV show and Walter White isn’t just its main character. For its hardcore fans, it was a real event and he was a real person. So when (spoilers!) Bryan Cranston’s character died on the show’s finale episode, a group of his fans has paid a real-life obituary in the Albuquerque Journal.

Discreet and made to look like a small ad, the obituary, printed on October 4, does not contain any indication that it was intended for a fictional character. It includes a small headshot of Walter White, and mentions his rise to becoming a drug lord.

(credit: Albuquerque Journal)
Obituary for Walter White in the Albuquerque Journal (credit: Albuquerque Journal)

“WHITE, WALTER aka ‘Heisenberg,’ 52, of Albuquerque, died Sunday after a long battle with lung cancer, and a gunshot wound. A co-founder of Gray Matter, White was a research chemist who taught high school chemistry, and later founded a meth manufacturing empire,” the obituary reads.

“He is survived by his wife, Skyler Lambert; son Walter ‘Flynn’ Jr; and daughter Holly. A private memorial was held by his family. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to a drug abuse prevention charity of your choice. He will be greatly missed.”

According to Albuquerque Journal, the obituary was paid for by the Facebook group “Unofficial Breaking Bad Fan Tour.”

David Layman said he and the members of the Facebook group were inspired to place the obituary in the paper after watching the finale on September 29.

“I’ve been a humongous ‘Breaking Bad’ fan since the beginning,” he told the Journal. “I was actually in the pilot, and putting the obit in the paper was fitting, because the series was based in Albuquerque and it provides some of us some closure.”

The show was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the U.S. for six years until its final episode. It stars Cranston as a chemistry teacher who, after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, turned to producing and selling methamphetamine to secure his family’s financial future.

“Here’s a guy that was living paycheck to paycheck,” Layman said of White. “He ends up with cancer, has a son who is disabled, a wife who is going to have a baby and he finds some way to work it all out. He becomes unstoppable, he thinks. He’s a little man who kind of made it, even if he didn’t make it the right way.”

“Breaking Bad” aired for five seasons from 2008, and also starred Aaron Paul as Cranston’s former student who became his partner in crime.