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[–] SpottyMatt 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago 

http://nytimes.com/2014/08/15/upshot/no-celebrity-deaths-do-not-come-in-threes.html

Best article I could find in a few moments on mobile, but this happens every time a very well-known person dies: people start paying attention to celebrity deaths and draw connections between them.

Celebrity deaths are distributed evenly, just like everybody else's deaths. We are just paying attention and looking for something now that somebody's death got widespread media coverage (Bowie).

Look at Wikipedia's List of deaths in January 2016: there are about the same number of notable people dying every day, but Bowie's death was the one where people started paying attention this time.