A man in Northwestern China has been charged with murdering mentally-impaired women and selling their bodies for superstitious rituals, reports Sixth Tone.
In a report released Monday, police in Yulin, Shaanxi, said that Mr. Ma from Gansu province is being held for homicide and human trafficking.
A traffic cop in Yan’an, Shaanxi, stopped a van driven by Mr. Yang, a transporter working on behalf of Mr. Ma, in April. The man’s abnormal behavior and out-of-province license plate led the police officer to inspect the his vehicle.
The officer found a woman’s body inside.
Authorities linked the murders of two different women to Ma. Both women were shipped from Gansu to Shaanxi after being killed.
Ma killed his first victim, a mentally-disabled woman named Ms. Liu, in March. Ma convinced the girl’s mother that he could help her find a husband. Eager to see her daughter get married and short on prospects, the mother agreed to let Ma assist. Tragically, the mother was unaware that her daughter would be dead when she got married.
After injecting Liu with a lethal dose of an unknown sedative, Ma hired a man named Yang to move her body from Gansu to Yulin. Once in Yulin, a middleman named Mr. Qiu introduced a suitable buyer, and the transaction was completed. Ma made about $5,000, and Qiu’s cut was roughly $750.
Ma struck again in April. Using the same methods, he murdered Ms. An. The body was passed off to Yang and shipped to Yulin. The body was supposed to be delivered to a local resident named Mr. Chen. Chen intended to hold a “ghost wedding” for his son. Yang was picked up by local police before the exchange could occur.
Sixth Tone reports that the ancient Chinese practice of buying bodies and marrying deceased couples in “ghost weddings” continues despite the banning of un-scientific superstitious activities during the Cultural Revolution, and the implementation of strict national laws preventing the sale of human corpses in 2006.
In rural areas, Chinese people sometimes marry corpses to comfort unmarried spirits, making them less likely to haunt the family.
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