Which makes it even more likely that this is a troll?
Really, of all the Cmdrs in Cail, it's SDC that happen to find him.
Sorry, but desperation is the mother of gullibility.
Seriously doubt that it would be possible to scupper this by one person killing the ship!
I'm buying it until I see proof that people have found the NPC in Solo/Groups. So far no such evidence exists but it does exist for him being in Open.
Did Salome exist in Solo/Closed Groups?
I don't think it was OPEN only:
we have at least TWO different sources, see the reddit post linked in the FP.
The first is about a CMDR Kohl found in open who sent COMMS chatter.
The second is a simple INBOX MESSAGE from him, documented with four images made from a phone: I know Photoshop as well as my right hand, and I say that those four images are NOT A FAKE. There's eve the reflex of the CMDR who shot them. Try to fake them yourself, and I'll say it's a fake

What I think is that the INBOX MESSAGE could happen in solo as well. Don't ask my how or why however...
For now, what we have is on the FP for everyone to catch up, fake or not. Later we'll see.
As I already said, the Breaking News are for people to catch up with the thread: the True Gospel is in the other sections of the FP.