Five alleged cult members have been arrested in connection with the murder of a 35-year-old woman beaten to death at a McDonald's in China.
"She is an evil and so we sought to beat her to death," one of the arrested, Zhang Lidong, 54, told state-run China Central Television,
The Huffington Post reported.
Wu Shuoyan, the married mother of a 7-year-old boy, was approached by a group believed to be part of Quannengshen ("Church of Almighty God") in Shandong province, asking for her phone number in an attempt to recruit her. After she refused, she was viciously beaten to death with chairs, a mop, and the mop handle after it broke.
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Shuoyan's husband, Jin Zhongqing, said of their son, "I don’t want to tell him the truth, but he seems to know everything. He kept comforting me, asking me to stop crying. He said Mom was looking at us in the heaven. My heart was broken."
In addition to murder charges, the five arrested suspects were also charged with organizing and using a cult to undermine law enforcement. Two are believed to be Lidong's daughters.
According to Bloomberg News, "The cult believes Jesus Christ was reincarnated as a woman surnamed Deng from central Henan province. Adherents also believe they are on a mission to fight and slay the 'big red dragon,' as it refers to China's ruling Communist Party, the Beijing News reported in December 2012."
China has had problems with radical religious cults in the past, famously jailing thousands of members of the Falun Gong movement in 1999. Many Chinese newspapers predicted the murder will usher in a new crackdown by the government.
A graphic video of the alleged murder has spread through Chinese and American social media sites, and could be used as court evidence in the likely prosecution of the arrested.
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