I think HN has long passed the point where the passing of a community member has any effect on trolls. It's Eternal September.

http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/commenting-communit...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3468102

This was a pretty good example of something similar that happened an year back, and I'm sure there are more examples (I just never bothered to pay attention to them).