Puckerville – Toxic News has learned of a break-in at Professor Rheinhold Sauernoggin’s home. Investigative Reporter Lacy Chemicals is on the scene with the Professor. This is the report she filed moments after the discovery of the break-in and subsequent theft:

Police have few leads in this case but the initial investigation suggests someone entered the basement lab of Professor Sauernoggin with a mission. Once the lab was secured by police, the Professor allowed me to view the scene. His entire lab had been ransacked and some of the by-products of his experiments are missing. Many of the stolen items include random samples of sour candy the Professor has created. However, the notes that are missing appear to have been carefully selected from the large volumes of other research performed by Sauernoggin.

“It appears that whoever is responsible for this knew precisely what he was looking for,” the visibly shaken Professor told me. “They took the only copy of my greatest creation: the secret formula for Toxic Waste Hazardously Sour Candy! The loss is staggering.”

I pressed Sauernoggin and asked if he had any ideas on who might have been responsible for this theft; if, perhaps, someone had a score to settle with him. After expressing some fears over repercussions if he accuses this person and police determine him to be innocent, the Professor finally revealed the name: Dr. Igor Smogg.

The Professor explained that Dr. Smogg is a wealthy industrialist who has made his fortune in heavy manufacturing. But his methods were wasteful and produced a lot of toxic by-products. In order to dispose of these by-products, he began buying up land to turn into huge, unmanageable landfills. Smogg quickly discovered that he could make more money taking in the pollutants of others and storing them in his unsafe waste dumps, despite knowing that improperly handled waste products are harmful to the environment.

Sauernogging lamented, “He no longer creates anything useful. He just fills up the land with high concentrations of noxious substances.”

When I asked him why he thought Dr. Smogg stole his secret formula, Professor Sauernoggin said, “If toxic waste can be converted into something good and useful, he’ll be out of a job!”

With that, the Professor excused himself, saying he was too distraught to continue the discussion.

I’ll be on this developing story and will send updates as they become available.