Paraphrased from an actual e-mail
Professor gaffetheorist:
We were going through the files of $JOURNAL and discovered a manuscript that you submitted a year and a half ago. The file had been marked complete but no referee's report was included; we believe this is because the referee died.
Did you still want this paper published?
We were going through the files of $JOURNAL and discovered a manuscript that you submitted a year and a half ago. The file had been marked complete but no referee's report was included; we believe this is because the referee died.
Did you still want this paper published?