This is a curious one and I have looked at it before to see if i could track down the cause.
This time I tried to remove it and it refuses to budge.
I even tried talking to it nicely or offering an inducement but to no avail.
I dumped other items on top and check the effects list but it is proving to be resilient.
It appears to have the Death flags set on but I have no mechanism to reset the Death flags .... unless ...
The solution was to kill another NPC on the same spot and Death was reset.
All is well with the world again.