The Fablieaux

If you’ve ever doubted that mental illness can be passed from parent to child, a woman in China’s Sichuan province just proved you wrong.

Who knows where Lin Zongxiu’s information came from, but someone, somewhere had informed her that soup made from a man’s head was a remedy for psychiatric problems.

Not only did Ms. Lin believe this nugget of folk wisdom, but she decided to put it to the test.

On the one hand, you can’t blame her: She was presumably desperate to help her 25-year-old daughter, who had suffered from mental illness for years. On the other hand, well, let’s just say you don’t pop into your corner grocery and buy a man-head. The implications are obvious.

Lin Zongxiu’s and her husband did what they had to do, namely, hire a hitman to “gather ingredients” for the medicinal soup. This consisted chiefly of knocking out a passing 76-year-old drunk and amputating his top bit, that is, the part containing the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Into the pot it went, for a thorough cooking (Sichuan style?).

Unfortunately, the couple did not get away with their crime, nor did their employee. The killer was caught and has been sent to jail for the rest of his life, and Ms. Lin will do time for concealing the evidence.

As for the daughter, any benefit she may have gotten from drinking the soup surely went up in smoke when her mother informed her what was in it.

Lin Zongxiu, from the southwestern province of Sichuan, heard in 2008 that soup made with a man’s head could help cure her daughter who had suffered from psychiatric problems for years, the Chengdu Commercial newspaper reported.

Lin and her husband decided to enlist the help of a man in December who knocked unconscious a drunk 76-year-old passer-by before beheading him, the paper claimed.

The couple then gave their 25-year-old daughter soup made from the man’s head, and duck.

A local court sentenced the murderer to death with a two-year reprieve on Monday, and Lin was convicted of helping to destroy evidence that included the culprit’s bloody clothes and shoes, the paper said.

The murderer’s reprieve means that his sentence will likely be commuted to life in prison as long as he commits no further offences in the next two years.

(original account here)

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