Mother and friends strangle son to death during ritual

By Binh Nguyen   May 9, 2016 | 06:24 pm PT
Mother and friends strangle son to death during ritual
The mother was sentenced three years imprisonment
A mother in Ho Chi Minh City and four friends strangled her 15-year-old boy to death during a ritual held to treat the child’s depression.

Four years ago, the child’s grandfather passed away. The boy subsequently became depressed and was prone to sporadically shouting out for no reason.

The mother resorted to the ritual to heal the child’s illness.

She placed many statues of Buddha around the house so her son could perform a ritual he had found on the internet.

Sometimes, she invited her friends to take part in the ritual practiced by the child. She believed that during the ritual, a ghost would enter the child’s body to contact the living world.

Two years ago, the boy tied a red rope around his neck and asked his mother’s friends to strangle him.

mother-and-friends-strangle-son-to-death-during-ritual

The mother and her four friends involved in the killing

As the child fainted, her friends were about to stop but the mother insisted they continued “so that the ghost cannot torture the child’s body”, the mother said in court.

On the following morning, the child was found dead and the mother rushed to hold a funeral and bury his body. However, her crime was reported to police and she was later arrested.

“I did not know it would harm my boy. I thought it would free him from depression,” the mother said.

Today, the HCM City Supreme People’s Court sentenced the mother to three years imprisonment and the four of her friends involved in the killing to between 24 and 30 months probation.

 
 
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