EVENT_DEATH is parsed after the corpse created and the npc is removed from the entity list, at the tail end of NPC:
eath(). the corpse's item list would already have been populated at that point. i'm probably going to have to add a function such as $corpse->RemoveItemByID() to be able to do what i'm looking to do. i'll have the item id stored in the script for the npc that i'll need to delete from the corpse. working on a method to generate random loot for npcs on spawn (in addition to normal loot table drops) and means to delete said randomly generated loot if the kill was trivial to anyone on the npc's hate list on death. everything else is working flawlessly except for this one part. for the time being, i have the corpse poofing entirely, but i'd rather just remove the one item.
EDIT:
hmmm... i guess i could always cause the item to poof after it was looted in EVENT_LOOT via player.pl, but that'd surely cause an uproar from the player base. haha.