Corpus Christi College was in mourning this week as popular JCR Presidential Candidate Jeremy the Plant was found murdered.
The sad news was released on Friday evening by current President Jack Evans, who emailed the JCR to inform them of the tragic situation. Evans wrote, “We are today a college in a state of shock. He was a wonderful and warm plant, although his own life was often sadly touched by tragedy.”
Vice-President of the JCR, Sam Robberts, expressed his view of what the whole college was feeling. He described the JCR as “sad that [they] have lost the noble spirit from Jeremy, and even more disappointed that the prophecy of his rising again on the third day went unfulfilled.”
Jan Willem Scholten, who proposed Jeremy’s candidacy, commented, “It’s been absolutely ghastly, I’ve been unable to function properly for the last few days. The Foulest of play is strongly suspected, even though all the obvious candidates point the finger at each other. The election has been completely overshadowed by Jeremy’s Disappearance. After the De Witts in the 17th, Marat in the 18th, Lincoln in the 19th and JFK in the 20th century, this surely is the political assassination of this century, the moment we will forever remember as the one that we were there, yet did nothing.
“Plans of sending the Austro-Hungarian police in to conduct the investigation are subject to an ultimatum that will expire by midnight tonight. We shall wait and see. In grief.”
Particularly sickening was the manner of the assassination. Kezia Lock, who Jeremy had numbered amongst his biggest rivals for the top job, described her disgust at the events. She commented, “Someone ripped up a plant and pinned it to the wall. It’s horrible.” Others were left fearing for their own safety as rumours circulated that all Presidential candidates were being targeted.
Cherwell immediately began an investigation into the evening’s events, uncovering evidence which links the attack to one member of the Corpus community. Lock told Cherwell, “Everyone at Corpus knows who did it,” although she felt her Peer Supporter responsibilities prevented her from revealing the information personally.
Cherwell can reveal that the accused individual is Jack Evans, with many at Corpus interpreting his grief as merely an act. Robberts stated that Evans called him out of formal with hands “covered in soil,” also accusing Evans of “laughing manically at the scene.” Robberts noted “within half an hour [Evans] had sent out a eulogy of Jeremy,” which he considered “curiously well prepared for how little time he had to turn it around.”
Nicholas Dickinson, who was first on the scene, witnessed the aftermath of the incident. He revealed, “As I opened the door to the JCR I noticed Jack Evans and another corpuscle standing next to the shelf on which Jeremy had been majestically perched,” continuing, “When I tried to enter, however, Evans turned and, with a crazed look in his eye, forcefully pushed the door closed, shouting at me to ‘get out, Now!’.”
Although Dickinson conceded that this reaction could have been rage at the cruel injustice of the death of a plant, since Evans was believed to have considered as a close friend (it was Evans who took Jeremy in from the streets just a short time ago), he could identify motives for Evans committing the murder. Dickinson suggested that Evans “feared the coming glorious reign of President Jeremy would overshadow his own achievements over the past year.”
Indeed Dickinson noted that Evans had been widely regarded as a high-energy president but that this could never match a successor who could synthesise glucose itself from water, sunlight, and CO2.
When asked to respond Evans commented, “THE GRADS DID IT. THEY SET ME UP. IT WAS THE GRADS.” He went on to suggest that Graduate students were out to get him, here framing him for a murder he did not commit.
Evans also told Cherwell, “I love salad. Especially from Pizza Express with goats cheese,” but then followed this with an email two minutes later which simply read, “David J. Townsend does not like salad.” The assassination came just a day after Evans had been beaten to the position of VP Access & Academic Affairs for OUSU, with Team Townsend resoundingly winning the sabbatical positions.
OUSU President-elect Townsend commented, ‘Waning political leader assassinates popular up-and-coming rival and attempts to pin blame on innocent outsiders: we all know where this story is going. I think an OUSU peacekeeping force should be sent in to secure the end of the Evans régime without further sap-shed.’
