How did Tom kill his father?

[garybec]

No: HPFGUIDX 111649

*Brenda now:
*snip*
 
 Or, for all we know, the Muggle authorities might have learned the 
 existence of WW during Voldemort's reign of terror. When Muggle 
 police started wondering why there are so many unexplained death.

Becki Responds:

We have to remember that LV's actual rein was much later.  According 
to SS p54 (am),  Hagrid tells Harry, "...-this wizard, about 20 
years ago now, started lookin' fer followers..."  So, just 10 years 
before Harry vanquished LV, he had only just started getting his 
followers, so the rein of terror could have only been less than 10 
years.  Perhaps the muggle world was not aware of the WW  until then.

However, to play devils advocate, lets say that the MW had 
determined that something or someone in the WW was responsible for  
the strange deaths of the Riddles, I am sure it would not have been 
announced in the local newspapers.
 

*Geoff:*
  Yes, but possibly the circumstances differed slightly. I          
suspect  that Tom Riddle intended his father and grandparents to 
know what was coming to them; anyway, they must have known because 
he presumably  killed them one by one; they were in the same room 
and so had time 
to be terrified.


Becki Responds:

That is how I pictured it in my head, that Tom had psychologically 
tortured them before he AK'ed them.