meaning - Whoever had the lice, they're dead now

This sentence is from South Park. There was a lice problem in the school and the children demand that their teacher Mrs. Garrison tell them who exactly had the lice. She says that it's not important because

Whoever had the lice, they're dead now.

Now, obviously she means that the lice are dead, not the person who had them. But doesn't her sentence mean (strictly speaking) that the person is dead? In similar constructions in Standard English, can they refer to the object of the main clause? I see no syntactical difference between the first sentence and the seemingly wrong

Whatever damaged the keys, they're in my pocket now. (= the keys are in my pocket)

I guess my question is

• How should I parse the first sentence?


• Is the second sentence wrong?


• If so, What would be the difference between the first and the second sentence that makes the first sentence OK, but not the second?

Hope the question is on topic.

_{I am having some difficulty properly tagging the question. Please help :)}

Answer

I think you've answered your own question. This is a pun of sorts, one might even catagorize it as a paraprosdokian.

But doesn't her sentence mean (strictly speaking) that the person is dead?

You're exactly right! In fact, I think that's what we're all supposed to think when we first hear the sentence, before we realize it's the lice that are dead.

The way the sentence is constructed invokes images of a dramatic line in a movie, something along the lines of, “Whoever it was who just tried to save the world, he's dead now.”

This is classic adult animation humor, where the scriptwriters rely on clever wordplay to invoke a laugh from an adult audience.