The Murder of Sophocles Cirillo
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Overview
Sophocles Cirillo (1840-1881) was one of the most famous Magical Criminalists in wizarding history. Upon graduating from Hogsworth in 1857, he worked at the Ministry of Magicians before being promoted to Head of the Magical Investigator Office after just two years. During his lifetime, he played a role in solving an estimated 260 crime cases involving theft, homicide, vandalism, fraud, trade, and violence. In fact, each year that Cirillo worked there seemed to be less magical crime: perhaps criminals had come to fear and respect him as his reputation progressed.
Others, however, tried to challenge him. Cirillo’s last crime case was one of the only ones he did not complete.
Crime
In the early morning on January 18, 1881, Cirillo, his mother, Phoebe, and his wife, Claudia, were at their vacation home in Ireland when Cirillo received an owl. The message was straightforward but ominous: “At twelve noon or one: now a [Minister of Magicians|Minister of Magician]’s daughter is eternally silenced”. As soon as Cirillo had finished reading it, the paper vanished into thin air.
He immediately travelled to the Ministry’s headquarters to inform Minister Gardner of the plot. His two-year-old daughter, Ada, was assigned four guards and remained in Gardner’s sight for the rest of the day. By the late afternoon, nothing had happened, so the Minister allowed Cirillo to return to his Irish vacation home.
The estate, however, was burning down, along with all of the family’s possessions. Claudia and Phoebe were outside of the house, and their attempts to put out the fire had apparently been in vain. As Cirillo approached them, he was horrified— his mother had succumbed to her dangerous inhalations of smoke and lay motionless before them. An owl then dropped another message out of the sky: “It appears mournful. Careful, losses are underestimated. Don’t ignore anyone.”
The message once again disappeared, leaving Cirillo in a state of shock, sorrow, rage, and guilt. He returned to England the next day with Claudia and Phoebe’s body. To his horror, Ada was reported missing at 1:00 that same afternoon.
One more letter was delivered, and Cirillo’s frustrations were magnified the moment he received it: “A truth: hope only means emptiness.”
Message
Cirillo deduced that if the first message had told the truth, so would the others. Indeed, he had experienced a mournful day, and he had already questioned his poor wife about the fire— she had described waking up from a nap to intense heat, immediately trying to find her mother-in-law, but ultimately reaching her too late. It was the third message that gave Cirillo the most difficulty— and the one that would lead to his death.
Having memorised the words on each of the letters (as an experienced criminalist, he had a great memory), he wrote them down together to see if there was any correlation between them. The answer came to him almost immediately, and he desperately wanted to disregard his initial findings. Together, the first letters of each word spelled out: “At noon, a mom dies. I am Claudia. At home.”
Demise
Unwilling to come to terms with the possibility that his wife was behind the crimes, Cirillo raced home to see if he could talk to Claudia before turning her in with far-fetched evidence. He was not confident in his deduction and thought the final message was simply a spooky coincidence. But the moment he opened the door, he realised that he had done precisely what the message had warned against: underestimating.
He found Claudia with Ada, who was alive and well, and it appeared that Claudia was expecting him.
“Why are you home so early?” she asked.
“Why is Ada with you?” he retorted. “And I’m here because at noon, a mom—”
“Dies,” finished Claudia. She waved her wand and the great Sophocles Cirillo fell dead.
Results
Before marrying Cirillo, Claudia had been in a relationship with Minister Gardner. They had even had a daughter together, but Minister Gardner did not want to tarnish his reputation as a responsible politician. He had agreed to take care of Ada but pretended to have adopted her.
Though Cirillo had not probed very deeply into his wife’s past, Phoebe had always been somewhat unwelcoming towards her. Though Claudia often confided in her husband that she thought Phoebe was rude and invasive, Cirillo never listened. During their vacation in Ireland, Claudia finally thought that she would get a chance to bond with her mother-in-law. She was mistaken. Phoebe had apparently discovered Claudia’s past affair with Gardner and threatened to tell not only Cirillo but the entire magical community of the United Kingdom. Not knowing what else to do, Claudia sent Cirillo to England using a false owl message and set fire to the house with Phoebe in it while he was gone. She was still outraged that Cirillo hadn’t listened to her previous complaints about his vicious mother, so she decided to make a mockery of his career through the hidden yet somewhat obvious messages.
Claudia, at that point, felt as if she had been cast aside by both of her lovers and was extremely distraught. Her message about hope was a final plea to the universe that went unanswered. Feeling inspired by her made-up threat to Ada, she decided that she deserved at least one chance for happiness, and kidnapped her.
Fearing that Cirillo would get in the way of her relationship with her daughter, she killed him once she had confirmed that he had solved her puzzle. She fled the country with Ada.
Aftermath
Minister Gardner searched for both Claudia and Ada for twenty years in vain. By the end of his search, he had become weary and felt burdened by his post as Minister of Magicians. He resigned from his office to focus on his search, but he never found them. He died alone a few decades later, and the case was never completely resolved.
Trivia
- You can learn about the murder of Sophocles Cirillo and other crimes in Magical Crime Studies classes taught by the Academics team.
