Men charged with killing disabled woman, selling their bodies as ‘ ghost brides’

Three men in Northwest China’s Gansu Province have been charged with killing two mentally disabled women and selling their bodies in nearby Shaanxi Province as “ghost brides,” Shaanxi- based news website xiancn. com reported on Wednesday.

Ghost marriage is a Chinese custom in which a wedding is held as at least one of the partners are deceased. Unmarried, deceased woman are sometimes married to dead single men to “look after them” in the afterlife.

The three men, surnamed Ma, Tang and An, were stopped by local police in Wuqi, Shaanxi on April 13 when they were driving the body of a woman, also surnamed An, to Shaanxi for a ghost marriage.

Ma told the officers that the woman was his relative, surnamed Liu.

Police detained the three suspects and carried out an investigation after they identified Ma’s lies.

Ma then revealed the woman’s real identity to the police officers.

Ma and An abducted the victim by posing as a matchmakers and took her to Qujia village, Ningxian county, Gansu, where they injected her with powerful sedatives that caused her death.

In February, they killed a woman, surnamed Liu, in the same way.

Ma hired Yang to drive Liu’s body to Yulin county, Shaanxi, where they sold the body to a local village for a ghost marriage, netting Ma 35,000 yuan ($ 5,259).

Ma has been charged with abduction, human trafficking and murder; An is facing charged of abduction and trafficking; and Yang faces jail time for shielding Ma, according to Wuqi police, xiancn. com reported.