We can tell that Jason Todd has been dead for a while since he still sends telegrams.
The best analysis of these issues I've read starts with the fact that Dick Grayson was originally slated to die in Infinite Crisis, and Jason Todd was supposed to take over the Nightwing role for a while. But the editorial staff changed Dan DiDio's mind on sending Dick to the dirthouse.
All the actions that make no sense for Dick—waking up in bed with a woman who's name he's forgotten, working as a model because he can't find anything else to do, modeling in a Nightwing costume—make more sense if we decide those actions were planned for Jason.
In this case, the giant, tentacled, man-eating slug would have been someone else, not Jason. But it still makes no sense, no matter which way we look at it.