The Riddles' Murders (WAS: The only one he ever feared?

[Debbie]

No: HPFGUIDX 117359


Katrina wrote:
> 
> > <snip> What LV fears about DD is what he knows.  I've heard it 
> postulated that when TR dropped "off the radar screen" after he 
> finished at Hogwarts, it was because of the triple AK murder in 
> Little Hangleton.  The ministry had to know about this: talk about 
a 
> violation of the Statute of Secrecy!  And since the victims were 
> named "Riddle," someone had to have been able to put 2+2 together.<
> 

Kim:
 
> It also hadn't occurred to me that the MoM would have been on the 
> look-out for the murderer of the 3 "Muggle" Riddles.  Tom Jr. was 
> spotted in the vicinity, wasn't he, but was unknown to the Muggles 
in 
> the area, though you're right -- not to the "all-seeing eye" of 
the 
> MoM.  The MoM would have known that AKs had been used even if the 
> cause of the deaths had stumped the Muggle police.  So Tom hit the 
> road as a fugitive from justice.  

I don't believe that Tom Riddle disappeared *because* he was fleeing 
the scene of his parents' murders.  Rather, he decided to leave to 
seek out what Dumbledore calls "the very worst of our kind" who 
could instruct him in the Dark Arts, but before he left he stopped 
off in Little Hangleton for the revenge murder of his parents.  

Perhaps this is a subtle difference, but the reason I think it's 
correct is that I don't believe the MoM was aware of the Riddles' 
murders.  As Dumbledore states in GoF, ch. 33, the MoM largely 
ignores the Muggle newspapers.  While the Riddles' murder was 
undoubtedly sensational news to the Little Hangletonians, it may 
have escaped the notice of wizards other than Dumbledore himself and 
those of like mind; most would have thought the Muggle press beneath 
their notice.

And we, as readers, learn about the murders from JKR herself, as GoF 
begins with an omniscient narrator relating the story.  Notably, the 
police investigation ceased only because they concluded they lacked 
evidence of murder (the coroner could not identify a cause of death) 
and not because they no longer believed Frank Bryce had killed them.

The only argument that supports the notion that the MoM must have 
known about it is that if the Improper Use of Magic Office employs 
countrywide surveillance, Mafalda Hopkirk's predecessor should have 
picked up on it.  But I doubt they keep track of very much, or they 
would've noticed Mundungus Fletcher disapparating at 4 Privet Drive 
at the beginning of OOP.

Debbie