October 8th 1977, The Oxford Times

Terence Erskin has today been found guilty of the Murder in the First Degree of his niece, Rose Oliver, in one of the most sensational criminal cases of recent years.

Erskin, 47, who is an American History Professor at Corpus Christi College, was charged with the poisoning, and subsequent suicide of Miss Oliver, 17, who was living under his care. The media storm that engulfed the trial was fomented by the manner of poisoning with which Erskin had driven the deceased to end her own life, and its sinister ties to the past.

Formerly considered within academia to be the foremost expert on the Salem Witch Trials, Erskin’s work and teachings had been severely challenged by the publication last year of Linnda Caporael’s thesis ‘The Fungus Theory’. Caporael advocated that the Ergot fungus on the rye grain eaten by the Salem residents during the trials may have caused severe hallucinogenic reactions, therefore accounting for the mass hysteria which gripped the town during the 17th century. The hypothesis directly contradicted the findings of Professor Erskin, upon which he had built his career. He confessed to the court that in a bid to disprove and discredit Caporael, he had begun to feed the corrupted grain to Miss Oliver shortly after the paper’s initial publication.

Oliver, suffering under the escalating effects of the poison, and experiencing disturbing delusions in the week leading up to her death, was said to have believed that the world was coming to an end. There are several reports from Jericho residents stating that she was stopping passers-by and bursting into shops, screaming that there were only a few days left until mankind would be slaughtered.

‘It was getting really scary,’ said Julia, a classmate and sometime friend of Rose. ‘She was running around campus and grabbing people, trying to get them to listen. She said we were all going to die. It was horrible.’

The court heard how Miss Oliver, in a final desperate attempt to communicate her nihilistic fantasies to her fellow students, climbed to the roof of the faculty building on the 14th of July this year. With her arms spread wide, she shouted,

‘The clock is ticking, time is up!’ and jumped.

When asked why he didn’t cease to administer the fungus, when he clearly saw the devastating effect that it was having on his niece, Professor Erskin’s answer chilled the court.

‘If she had survived, she would have been in a position to communicate her experiences with Ergot poisoning to Linnda, and to participate in further studies. As the fungus clearly was a hallucinogen, this would have strengthened the academic reputation of my rival. That would have somewhat defeated the purpose, wouldn’t you say?’

Terence Erskin has been served a life sentence with no chance of parole.