Yesterday night (around 21:30 Feb 15 my time, but 03:30 Feb 16 UTC) I logged on to my account, and when it came to pick my character, the only option available was "Create New Character."
It has since been confirmed that I am dead, with my body sighted inside our palisade. The timestamp of my last activity (and so, my death) was three or so hours earlier, even though I hadn't logged on at all that day.
A bear was also seen inside our palisade around the time of my surprise death.
It has been suggested that I got hacked and the they just let my character die when they realized I didn't have a palisade key and so couldn't steal anything.
Help? I don't like being dead and would like to prevent this from happening again.
Edit:
In any case, I'm tightening account security against the hacking possibility.
My hearthfire was outside, on one of my kin's claim, inside a palisade. However, I've never turned on "Criminal Acts" with this newly dead character.
The body was found in a fielded area, a few dozen squares away from my hearthfire.