061724

Putative author of al-Hazred hoax ms found dead in marsh

Arkham, MA – A badly decomposed body discovered south of Innsmouth last Thursday has been identified as that of Alexander Moraru. The body was found awash at low tide by clammers. It was entangled in a length of stout rope, which may have caused it to run aground in the marsh as the tide fell.

Readers may recall that Moraru, then employed by the Innsmouth Public Library, was the "discoverer" in June 2009 of a forged text initially ascribed to the 8th-century Arab folklorist Abd-al-Hazred. Al-Hazred, author of the Necronomicon, was reportedly identified as the author of De Stellis Maleficarum by Moraru on the basis of writing style and similarity of contextual references.

When the manuscript was recognized as a forgery, its "discoverer" disappeared. Moraru was thought to have left the country. Now it appears that he died while still in Innsmouth.

Ignacia Marsh Corvina, spokeswoman for the Innsmouth Police Department, referred to an ongoing "murder investigation" when asked about the circumstances of the former librarian's death. When questioned further she declined to elaborate. However, a retired dockworker claimed to have seen two hooded figures throw a body off the end of a dock two nights after Moraru resigned from the library staff. One of the two figures made no sound the entire time. The other spoke in a peculiar guttural hiss.

This reporter attempted to examine the forged manuscript, but its new owner, a local collector of forgeries, could not be located.