An Exceptional Case of Ritual "Mass Suicide"

Abstract

According to a New China News Agency report, an exceptionally serious case of homicide, in which superstition was used as a means to defraud the victims of money and property and which ended with the killing of the victims to keep them from talking, took place not long ago in Zhijin County, Guizhou Province. The chief culprit in this murder case is one Xie Xianji, a young man 24 years old. The two main victims were Zhang Shenghong, a secretary at the Alie commune in Zhijin County's City Gate district, and Zhang Qinghong, a fitter in team No. 142 of the Guizhou Provincial Coal Field & Geological Survey Corporation. The families of both victims were wiped out: One victim lost ten of the eleven members of his family, the only survivor being his eldest son, who lived apart from the family; and the other family had three of its four members killed—only one escaped death. The culprits employed extremely brutal methods to commit their crimes. Of the 13 victims, two were stabbed to death with a dagger, six were blown up with explosives and then further mutilated, and five were trussed up with ropes attached to stones and pushed into a river to drown. The victims, meanwhile, died with expressions of joy on their faces, believing they were casting off their mortal bodies to ascend to heaven and become immortals.