“Man Pays for Ghost Marriage: Stealing Female Corpses for a Traditional Chinese Custom”

In some parts of the mainland, the custom of “ghost marriage” is flourishing. In addition, there are more men than women, and women’s corpses are rare goods to live in. This has led to frequent cases of stealing female corpses and killing female corpses for sale. In Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, a 76-year-old man surnamed Chen paid RMB 1,000 (approximately NT$4,500) to make up for the regret of his grandson’s unmarried untimely death. Then the girl was buried with her grandson, and finally sentenced by the court.

“Xiaoxiang Morning News” reported that Chen Weng’s adult grandson died unexpectedly in October last year, which caused a deep blow to him. Because he has been engaged in the funeral industry for a long time, the old man is more superstitious. When he thought of his grandson’s death before he got married, he felt sad. It matches the idea of ​​”yin marriage”. Chen Weng remembered that there was a girl in a nearby village who died unexpectedly 20 years ago. She was just the right age for her grandson, so he asked his acquainted relatives to ask the girl’s family, but was rejected.

Afterwards, Chen Weng found a man surnamed Pan, asked him to steal the bones, and promised to pay 1,000 yuan as a reward after the incident; Pan Nan contacted Yu Nan for help, and agreed to give him 300 yuan (about NT$1326) ). A few days later, the two successfully stole the bones and buried them with Chen Weng’s grandson. When the family members of the deceased discovered that the bones of their relatives had been stolen, they were so angry that they called the police. In November of the same year, Pan Nan was arrested by the public security organs; the other two voluntarily surrendered themselves.

After arriving at the case, Chen Weng reached a settlement with the victim’s family. Since the theft of bones is a crime of public prosecution, the Yueqing City Procuratorate concluded the investigation and prosecuted Chen Weng, Pan Nan and Yu Nan for the crime of stealing bones according to law. After the judgment of the first instance of the court, the three persons were found guilty of stealing bones and were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of 8 months to 1 year and 2 months, with probation applicable.