11 on trial after woman’s body exhumed for ‘ghost wedding’
A DEAD woman’s body was dug up and sold for a “ghost wedding,” a court in east China’s Shandong Province heard when the trial of 11 people began.
When police in the province’s Juye County caught a man in June suspected of stealing a moped, he confessed he had stolen the body along with eight others a few months before, according to news website iqilu.com.
The man, surnamed Wang, said they dug up the body three months after it had been buried, and had sold it for 18,000 yuan (US$2,943), the website reported.
“Skeletons buried for years are worthless, but the bodies of people who died recently can fetch up to 20,000 yuan,” Wang is said to have told police.
The buyer, in Handan in north China’s Hebei Province, then sold it on to another man for 38,000 yuan.
All 11 people involved in the theft and sale of the body were detained by police in Juye.
In ancient China, there was a belief that an unmarried person buried alone would bring bad luck to the family so a body of the opposite sex had to be found and a “ghost wedding” performed before they were buried together.
A few people in remote rural areas still cling to the superstition.
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