3 AUGUST 2009

LONDON - The Tower of London was a tableau of the most heinous sort when Hitwizards arrived in the early morning of August 3 in a clandestine response to suspicious muggle police activity.  Lazarus Rippringham-Gomfrey (67) was found dead in one of the Tower's exhibits. Unspeakables from the Department of Mysteries confirm there is no sign of additional hauntings on behalf of Rippringham-Gomfrey.

Our quesiest readers should skip down to the break because the following two sentences may be disturbing: Rippringham-Gomfrey was found in a state of corpus inversus, that is, inside-out.  The remains were initially mistaken for a butcher's delivery or themed prank. 

Hitwizards and Obliviators were sent to the scene by direct orders from Cameron Rosier, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and once it was determined that the cause of the corpus inversus was the Dark Arts, the matter was handed over to the Aurors.

"Well, bodies don't naturally invert themselves after death, do they? So yeah, unless he decided to do it to himself on a whim, we're reckoning that Dark Magic was involved," said an MLE source close to the investigation.

Lazarus Rippringham-Gomfrey was an Elder of the Wizengamot for these last 25 years, and from an old and respected Wizarding family.  He was known for his affinity of relics and rare artifacts and gave generously to charities. His recent work on the Wizengamot related to easing trade restrictions on foreign import, claiming such measures would benefit UK's magical entrepreneurs. 

It is that work in easing trade restrictions that caused the bulk of criticism against him.  Some speculated that the efforts were at best selfishly motivated to bolster his own acquisitions, and at worst, were the instrument of Wizengamot corruption and black market involvement. 

He is survived by his wife Ascella, his son Breyford, his daughters Petronella and Bathsheba, and his house elf Dusty.

The widow Rippringham-Gomfrey, understandably, had little to say to the Daily Prophet only that, "they even took the Spandrelle! It's been in our family for years."