A man is suspected of repeatedly stealing female skulls from remote graves for treating his daughter’s mental illness to no avail, a reporter of jxnews.com learnt from Jinxian Police Station in Jiangxi on Monday.

Skulls began disappearing from graves in Meizhuang town in July. Scores of graves have been dug up, and nothing disappearing except the skulls. A villager said the graves were usually 30 to 100 years old. Rather bizarrely, all the missing skulls belonged to women. 

On Oct. 8, a villager found a middle-aged man carrying a sack, walking down from a hill. As local villagers rarely go to the hill where recent grave robbing had recently happened, the villager reported the man to the police. With the help of villagers, the police tracked the man down in a nearby field the same day and detained him.

The man is understood to have said, “I heard about a folk remedy where a medicine made of female skull can cure mental illness”. He added he had to take the risk in order to treat his daughter’s mental illness. “My daughter has been ill for 3 years and has seen lots of doctors. I began to rob graves this year after I learnt the folk remedy.” It is worth mentioning that his daughter did not improve after taking the medicine made of skulls.