By all accounts, Lin Zomgxiu and her husband Luo Tianhu were desperate.
Living in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan with their twenty-five year old daughter, they had been coping with the daughter's chronic psychiatric problems for the past seven years. The stigma surrounding mental illness remains especially strong in China, especially in the rural areas with few treatment resources available. In 2008, Lin Zomgxiu reportedly heard of a folk remedy for mental illness that involved feeding the victim a soup made from a man's head. Hoping to cure their daughter, the couple solicited the help of an acquaintance to find the necessary ingredients for the remedy.
Last December, the acquaintance attacked a passing 76-year old man who had been intoxicated. The body was beheaded and the upper part of the head was then boiled in a stew (apparently duck meat was added to mask the taste). Chinese authorities arrested the parents and their accomplice and has court has since sentenced the accomplice to death for committing the murder. The death sentence carries a two-year reprieve and may be commuted to life imprisonment. Lin Zomgxiu has been sentenced for destroying evidence, including the victim's bloody clothes and shoes.
The daughter's reaction on discovering the ingredients of the folk remedy her parents provided has not been recorded.
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