This article is from WeChat official account: depth contour (ID: depthpaper) , of: Ni Shiu, Editor: Hao to, proofing: Zhai Jun , The title picture comes from: the original author’s photo
Ma Lekuan was sentenced, 12 years, charged with intentional homicide.
Six months ago, he committed an unforgivable crime: pushing his paralyzed biological mother into an abandoned grave pit-buried alive. Fortunately, his wife promptly called the police when she noticed the abnormality. With the help of the police, the horse mother, who had been buried for nearly 70 hours, was successfully rescued.
Because Ma Lekuan did not fill the tomb at the time, but only sealed the tomb, the horse mother was still alive after being rescued. After some treatment, the body is restored. But after all, she was old and sick, and a few months later, the horse mother died naturally.
A local official notice made this “mother buried case” quickly known to the outside world. In early November, the Jingbian Court pronounced on the case, and Ma Lekuan once again attracted the attention of the outside world.
He “buried” his mother alive. Behind this purely “personal behavior”, there are some other problems. It seems that Ma Lekuan’s fate is not personal.
The vegetation of the Loess Plateau in winter is scarce and desolate. Photo by Ni Zhaozhong, reporter of “Iso-Deep Line”
The incident
The course of the matter has become clearer.
At about 20 o’clock on May 2, 2020, Ma Lekuan lied to her mother that she was going to send her to her second son’s house, so she put her mother on her two-wheeled cart and pushed her mother to Jing. In the “10,000 Mu Forest” on the east side of Yulin Oil Refinery in Bian County.
According to local residents, the 10,000-mu forestland is a wasteland located on the edge of the county seat. Many nearby residents buried their dead relatives here, forming a graveyard. Later, the government promoted tree planting and afforestation, and local residents moved out their loved ones’ graves one after another.
Looking at this woodland now, there are sparsely distributed small trees, the ground is also uneven, and there are small raised mounds everywhere.
According to local residents, according to custom, after the tomb is moved, the vacated cave cannot be backfilled. So in that piece of woodland, there are leftover grave pits everywhere.
Ma Lekuan chose one of them. He had stepped on it before. It was a tomb with a height of about 1 meter and a depth of about 2 meters. Its opening was small, but it was deep.
According to the court’s investigation, after pushing his mother into the tomb, Ma Lekuan sealed the tomb with waste coffin plates, broken stone steles, and old thin quilts, and used a shovel to seal the tomb with sand. After being piled into a grave shape, leave.
According to media reports, at 2 am on May 3, Ma Lekuan pushed his cart home alone. His wife asked him where did the mother-in-law go? He replied that he was sent to Qingcheng, Gansu, and should be in the car now. Because Ma Lekuan once expressed the idea of abandoning his mother, his wife did not believe his words, so she took her family to the station to look for it, but returned without success.
At 9 o’clock on May 5th, Ma Lekuan’s wife saw that there had been no news about her mother-in-law, so she called the police, saying that her husband had not returned after pulling her mother-in-law out of the cart and asked for help.
At 11 o’clock that day, Ma Lekuan returned home. The police immediately returned Ma Lekuan to the Xinzhuang Police Station of Jingbian County Public Security Bureau after learning. Ma Lekuan confessed to the fact that his mother was buried alive and led the police to find the location of the crime. The police heard a voice during the excavation of the tomb. At about 17:10 that day, the weak horse mother was rescued and was sent to the hospital for treatment without trauma. After nearly a week of treatment, the horse mother got better and was discharged.
No outsider knows when Ma Lekuan’s idea of ”burying his mother alive” began. However, according to the court hearing, since September 2019, Ma Mu and Ma Lekuan have lived together. In the meantime, the horse mother suffered from cataracts and other diseases, her eyes were blurred, and she was old and weak and fell accidentally, causing inconvenience, incontinence, and unable to take care of herself. Ma Lekuan disliked her mother’s life and couldn’t take care of herself, and had the idea of murdering her.
“I went home, all the excrement and urine were on the bed, smelly, I can’t bear it.” According to media reports, this is the motive of Ma Lekuan to bury his mother alive.
Ma Lekuan, whose mother could not take care of herself, bury her alive, but in the eyes of the people around him, he is considered a good person. “Honestly” is when the reporter of “Contours” visited him, he heard the most comments.
According to neighbors, Ma Lekuan has never been in contact with others, even if he meets face-to-face, “If you ignore him, he will ignore you. If you say hello to him, he will simply respond.”
Some masters who worked with Ma Lekuan said that when they were waiting for work, other workers would laugh or play poker together. He never participated. Even if someone talked to him, he just smiled. Everyone has worked together for many years, and others know very little about him. Even a few workers did not start to think of Ma Lekuan until the incident occurred.
Service law
In Tianciwan Town, about thirty or forty kilometers south of Jingbian County, there is Chenghe Village, where Ma Lekuan’s hometown is. Ma Lekuan, who is not good at talking and speaking, has not a happy childhood.
He also has sister and brother, but his mind is a bit slow. When he was 10 years old, his father committed suicide due to unbearable illness. His mother remarried and his stepfather fled to the local area from Gansu. The mother and stepfather gave birth to another child. It was not long before the mother followed her stepfather to live in Gansu, and did not return to Jingbian until 2000.
According to local villagers, after Ma Mu left Jingbian, Ma Lekuan also visited Gansu with her sister. However, since the father’s death, the mother’s position is generally missing. And he has more contacts with his two uncles. Even his marriage was organized by his uncles. It is said that his mother did not show up.
When the horse mother returned to Jingbian again, Ma Lekuan was over 40 years old and had already married and had children. He had already passed the stage of needing his mother’s care. However, according to the local villagers, Ma Ma returned to Jingbian to live with her second son. At this time, Ma Lekuan also often visited and helped his mother and younger brother.
About 2004, the land of Ma Lekuan’s home was occupied due to the highway construction, and he received some compensation. With this money, he bought a house in the city, which is where he currently lives. Since then, the Ma Lekuan family has lived in the county seat and rarely returns to their hometown.
Ma Lekuan has three daughters and one son. The eldest daughter is married and the son works in a local factory. The other two daughters are studying and the other is still unmarried.
The Ma family did not disclose the financial conditions of their familyhow is it. Neighbors don’t know them very accurately. Some people say that his family’s financial situation is good. “My son is working to make money, Ma Lekuan is working, and his wife is also working. There are two houses in the city. “.
But some people say that his family’s economy is not well-off. Ma Lekuan and his wife are old and have limited earning ability, and the youngest daughter still needs money while studying, so that “His family is not a complete iron gate. It was built with bricks.”
Ma Lekuan’s door is closed. Photo by Ni Zhaozhong, reporter of “Iso-Deep Line”
Ma Lekuan’s mother and younger brother also went to the county town later. At first, Ma mother still lived with her second son, but did not live in Ma Lekuan’s house until September last year. The reason why the horse mother came to the eldest son’s house is different from the neighbors. Some said it was because the horse mother was inconvenient to move after wrestling and had to go to Ma Lekuan’s house, and some said that Ma Lekuan took the initiative.
But no matter what the details are, the horse mother’s body has gone from bad to worse. Especially after being unable to take care of himself in life, I have also expressed disgusting thoughts.
As for Ma Lekuan’s behavior of “burying his mother”, some neighbors in the surrounding area could not understand his specific behavior besides elusive motives. “If you really don’t want your mother to live, you can just fill the tomb without leaving space. “.
A neighbor who opened a store analyzed that Ma Lekuan might not want his mother to die elsewhere. Because he saw his mother’s physical condition, he had a premonition that his mother would not have much time, but he also wanted to be buried with his father after his mother died. According to local customs, it is unlucky if the dead parents are not buried together. But the mother had remarried, and the family may also wish to bury the horse mother.
The neighbor’s guess could not be confirmed by Ma Lekuan, but he firmly believed in his own opinion, because he had often noticed Ma Lekuan serving when the horse mother was seriously ill, and he did not see any disgust.
Although the son once wanted himselfDied, but the horse mother has been forgiving Ma Lekuan. When she was rescued from the grave, she had excused her son by saying that she had crawled in. Until later, she was worried that her son would be severely sentenced. The love of a child is evident.
barren
Ma Lekuan’s hometown belongs to the Loess Plateau.
There is almost no green vegetation in the Loess Plateau in winter. At first glance, most of the places are bare, and some places are planted with trees, but the leaves are gone, leaving only the branches that appear dry. In the few dry and yellowed arable land, there are still piles of corn stalks after the autumn harvest, which stand shortly into the ground.
There are ravines everywhere on the plateau, and the terrain has a wide range of heights. From the top of the slope to the valley, the straight-line distance is not far, but the drop is more than 100 meters.
The whole scene looks a bit vicissitudes and desolation.
Ma Lekuan spent the first half of his life here. Like other farmers, they can only feed their family by farming.
According to the website of Jingbian County Government, local specialties include pumpkins, mung beans, carrots, etc. But according to farmers, the main crops are still corn and potatoes, and vegetables are generally grown in summer for their own consumption.
The living conditions of local farmers are not good. Photo by Ni Zhaozhong, reporter of “Iso-Deep Line”
“Rely on the sky for food”, this is the most spoken word by farmers who plant the land. The semi-arid continental monsoon climate allows only one type per year here, and farmers’ planting activities are also very regular, sowing in spring and harvesting in autumn.
But how much you can harvest in autumn depends on God’s will. If it catches up with severe weather like hail, the harvest will be greatly reduced.
On the way to Ma Lekuan’s house, a similar urban communityThe three elderly people are chatting in the warm sun. The sun hits their faces, looking peaceful and comfortable. But when they talked about income and life, they all changed their appearances, but they kept lamenting the poor harvest and low income.
There is no way out for farming. More and more people leave the village. Chenghe Village and surrounding villages have almost become hollow villages. Although the roads in the village have been hardened, many houses have been abandoned along the road, and the dilapidated courtyard is quickly integrated with the surrounding wasteland, making it even more desolate.
It’s surprising that there are people living in one of the dilapidated houses. The house is built on the hill, with earthen walls on three sides, only two small houses, and the roof is covered by a few agricultural films. The hostess of the house is nearly 60 years old. She told reporters that, like other farmers, their family mainly grows corn and potatoes.
A local farmer’s annual crop income is only this little corn. “Contours” reporter Ni Zhaozhong photo
My son works in the county town, and my daughter-in-law also takes care of his grandson to school in the county town. Only the old couple stayed behind in the rural hometown. After a hard year, there is no harvest. She pointed to a pile of hundreds of catties of corn outside the house and said that it was the harvest of this year. These corns are small and dry, and can only be used to feed chickens.
About two to three hundred meters away from her home, there is a jujube forest. The jujube trees were planted by Uncle Wang. In comparison, Uncle Wang had a good time in the village. He has reached 60 years old this year. When he was young, he had some income from working outside. Several children in his family got out of this plateau by studying.
Uncle Wang responded to the call for afforestation two years ago and planted this jujube forest. The jujube can bring in several thousand yuan a year. He and Ma Lekuan have known each other since they were young. According to him, Ma Lekuan’s family had been the same as everyone before. It was only after the repair of the highway that year that Ma Lekuan’s conditions improved. However, only a few of the villages were occupied at the beginning.
Uncle Wang’s family also raised sheep before. People in northern Shaanxi love to eat mutton, and mutton oftenDozens of yuan per catty, so raising sheep can have a good income. However, sheep eating grass will destroy the roots of the grass. If there is no grass, they will gnaw branches, which will damage the vegetation. The vegetation on the Loess Plateau is already sparse, and now the government is calling for tree planting and afforestation, so raising sheep is prohibited. Uncle Wang’s family no longer raises sheep, and now only a few villagers raise them in secret.
On the desolate plateau, animal husbandry is the only animal husbandry that can greatly increase farmers’ income. However, due to the unfavorable natural environment, farmers can only look at the sheep. The countryside has become more and more barren, and farmers have flocked to the cities.
After entering the city
When you enter the city, you must first have a place to stay.
For farmers with low incomes, cheap housing is the best place to live. More than ten years ago, due to gaps in the development process, Jingbian County was relatively developed on the west side of the river, and relatively backward on the east side of the river. However, housing and land prices were also much cheaper.
The Jinhua Road community where Ma Lekuan currently lives is located in Hedong. The development of this community is to some extent a microcosm of local urbanization.
According to the staff of Jinhua Road Community, the community covers an area of only 4.7 square kilometers, but there are more than 21,000 people living in it. There are 5 kindergartens in the community. This population size is also unique in the entire Jingbian County. of. The people who live here are basically the same as Ma Lekuan, who came to the city from the countryside. It’s just that some of them bought a house here, and some rented here.
Ma Lekuan’s house is a small single-family courtyard, surrounded by walls, and there is a large iron gate at the door. Every house here is like this. One house is next to each other. There is a roadway about two to three meters wide in the middle. The roadway is paved with bricks, so it is rugged. In addition to passing people, these narrow lanes have to pass cars. When the two cars meet, at least one of the cars must give way as far away as possible, otherwise they cannot be staggered. Wherever the laneway was slightly wider, the private car was stopped.
According to local residents, not all people who live here are looking for cheap, and there are also many people who are not used to living in buildings and prefer this kind of single-family courtyard.
The staff of Jinhua Road community said that more than ten years ago, this place was still a wasteland, so the price of land was cheap, and some people began to buy land here to repair houses. Later, more and more people came to the city from rural areas, and the number of houses built here gradually increased. Some were built by residents themselves, and some were built by developers, but these houses were unable to obtain title certificates.
People of different ages enter the city for different reasons. Young people mainly see that there is no way out in the countryside, and it is neither easy to earn money nor convenient. Even if they rent a house in the city, they are more willing to live in the city.
And people like Ma Lekuan’s age come to the city, and without a skill, they can only earn money by working hard. Under the huge billboard of the Hedong Turntable, a “labour market” has spontaneously formed there for many years, where workers looking for work and employers who hire workers gather. Ma Lekuan usually finds work there.
Migrant workers waiting to work at the highway roundabout. Photographed by Ni Zhaozhong, reporter of “Iso-Depth Line”
Every morning, dozens of hundreds of jobs wait there early, and when employers come, they will rush in. These migrant workers told reporters that under normal circumstances, workers’ wages are 200 yuan a day. Sometimes a job can be completed in two or three hours. If you are lucky, the worker can take another one after finishing the job. If some jobs are too intensive, the asking price of workers may be more than 200 yuan.
The workers introduced that Ma Lekuan is also active in his work. Sometimes when he needs a lot of manpower, the workers will take the initiative to call him. Ma Lekuan is nearly 60 years old. Judging from the current situation, he has to act as a complete labor force.
The outside world cannot know whether he was also affected by these factors when he decided to “bury his mother alive.” But this seemingly accidental case is actually a reflection of many problems.
In the Jinhua Road community where Ma Lekuan lives, there are also many elderly people who were taken to the city by their children. When the reporter visited here a few days ago, more than a dozen elderly people were gathering together to chat and sunbathe. Most of them were in their 70s. They prefer to live in cities rather than living in the countryside.
In the evening, a group of elderly people chatting in Jingbian County. They come from the countryside. Photo by Ni Zhaozhong, reporter of “Iso-Deep Line”
The advantage is obvious. They said that there are many people in the city, and it is easy to find a group of elderly people to chat, but it is difficult to see one person in the countryside, and the children are not around, and the feeling of loneliness is too strong. Life in the city is also more convenient. If you need to buy something, you can do it when you go out. More importantly, the medical conditions in the city are good. Even if the body is abnormal, it can be sent to the hospital as soon as possible.
But for them, there is also a huge obstacle in the city that is difficult to overcome-money is needed everywhere. They already have no income, and even if they are struggling, they can hardly ask their children for money.
The only public pension institution in the local area, far away from the county seat. Photographed by Ni Zhaozhong, reporter of “Iso-Depth Line”
The national pension insurance policy has been implemented, and the elderly in Jingbian can also enjoy this policy. According to the staff of the Jingbian County Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, in Jingbian County, urban and rural residents who are over 60 years old and have no unit to pay pension insurance before can receive corresponding pensions every month. The amount is composed of a national account and a personal account. The national account is 143 yuan per month, and the personal account is determined based on the previous payment amount. It is calculated that the amount of most elderly people is one hundred and fifty sixty yuan.
Now, Ma Lekuan is in jail, and the Ma family has not directly interviewed him. No one knows whether Ma Lekuan planned to send his mother to a nursing home. But he went out in an unrecognized wayThe world informed his choice.
The only local institution for the elderly. Photo by Ni Zhaozhong, reporter of “Iso-Deep Line”
With the pronouncement of the case, the popularity of the “embedded mother case” has gradually decreased, and the public will follow other hot spots for leisure after dinner.
In the eyes of everyone, the problem of this “case” is only with Ma, and the prying into his personal life experience is enough to complete a moral “critique”. As for the impact of “urbanization” and “aging” reflected behind him on the lives of individuals, it is not clear.
The great wheel of the trend of the times runs over different soils, always splashing different flowers.
Ma Lekuan was sentenced to 12 years, and he did not appeal. When he was released from prison, he was already in his seventies. His name will gradually be forgotten by the world, and the stories surrounding him will also be forgotten. As for the “trend” that once ran over him, it will be forgotten, because it is hardly ever mentioned.
This article is from WeChat official account: depth contour (ID: depthpaper) , of: Ni Shiu, Editor: Hao Cheng, proofreading: Zhai Jun