Following yesterday's shocking and sudden shutdown of the 168 year old, Rupert Murdoch-own tabloid News Of The World, conspiracies theories are running rampant.

We've already noted that many people suspect Murdoch shut down the paper to protect its former editor Rebekah Brooks who, by all accounts, is like a second daughter to Rupe.

More obvious, is that Murdoch is trying to protect his big BSkyB deal, which has been in the works for months and needs government approval. In this case, it may be too little too late.

Meanwhile, Reuters law reporter Alison Frankel thinks his motives might be more nefarious. Now that Murdoch has shut down the paper he can destroy its records.

Per Frankel: Murdoch may not be "not be obliged to retain documents that could be relevant to civil and criminal claims against the newspaper--even in cases that are already underway. That could mean that dozens of sports, media, and political celebrities who claim News of the World hacked into their telephone accounts won’t be able to find out exactly what the tabloid knew and how it got the information."

Note: May not.

By the sounds of it Murdoch also may not be able to rely on the his close relationships with the British Parliament to get him through this one. British PM Cameron has already launched two investigations and there are surely more to come.

And now the Guardian is now reporting police are investigating evidence "that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard's inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005 revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators."

And according to Sky News, NOTW staff got to work this morning only to discover they could no longer access their email.

Anyone else getting the sense we are only at the beginning of this thing and not the end?