A screenshot, taken way before rexxit, of two comments on reddit, dated “1 year ago”.
The first comment is by a deleted user and the comment has been removed. The second comment is a reply to the deleted comment and it says: “That solved it. Thanks!”
Edit: added temporal context.
It looks like it was removed by a mod. If a user deleted it it would have <deleted> in place of comment text rather than <removed>. This user also deleted his account but that wouldn’t delete his posts/comments.
Not if the user edited their comment with [removed] before they deleted their account. That isn’t necessarily a mod change.