Police have warned office workers to stay at home as the renowned “PowerPoint murderer” claimed his 8th victim yesterday afternoon. A man in his forties was found slumped over his desk as an endless loop of 83 slides with phased animation told its own grisly story.

“We’re urging people to stay well away from their computers,” said Detective Inspector Fawning-Buttocks from Scotland Yard. “The PowerPoint murderer is getting wiser, and his techniques even more death-defyingly boring each time. The latest victim was obviously subjected to several hours of “death by PowerPoint” – we found him in a pool of his own stupor.”

The PowerPoint murderer struck for the first time last week at a conference in Little Shytte, killing three C-level executives with what police have described as the most “chilling” slide deck they have ever seen.

“The hideous use of bullet points is one of the PowerPoint murderer’s calling cards”, added Fawning-Buttocks. “Yet he has so many – it’s hard to say how and when he’s going to strike next. In this particularly gruesome deck, he overloaded his victims with bullet points to begin with, before moving on to the more insidious pie charts. Not only did he introduce pie charts, it is believed that he used zoom-in, fade-in and fade-out animation for each section of the pie chart. It is at this point that we believe his first victim died.”

He continued: “The other two struggled on, only to be slain by the clip art image of a pencil figure with a question mark over his head, intended to ask the audience if they have any questions. The only question his victims had was ‘is there life after this presentation?’. Clearly, the answer was a grisly ‘no’.”

Detectives do believe that they have found clues. At the location of each killing, a set of what the killer calls “handouts” have been found, with nouns used as verbs – another of the killer’s trademarks. They have also issued a description of the PowerPoint killer, who they say is “slightly dull, with a receding hairline, grey suit, grey shirt and glasses, a monotone voice and a horrifying belief in his jokey camaraderie.”

“We’re closing in on him – the net is tightening,” added Fawning-Buttocks in a volley of cliches. “However, we’re worried that he will strike again soon, and that he is developing new ways of boring people to death. Only last week, a man was grievously attacked and hospitalised after an incident with an excel spreadsheet. The attacker got away, but please, be vigilant. Stay at home, stay offline, and don’t approach anyone who looks remotely dull.”