Wang Xiuyun, formerly a worker at the Tangshan Knitting Mill in Hebei Province before her early retirement due to illness.
Early in 1998, Wang Xiuyun heard that practicing Falun Gong could help cure sickness. Intending to have a try, she joined a training group. No one imagined she would quickly become addicted to it. She stopped taking any medicine and doing any housework. She did nothing but meditated or read books on Falun Gong, asserting that she had "karma" owing to her bad relationship with her mother-in-law when she was young. Only after she had the "karma" dispelled could her family be rescued. Scarcely a month later, she began to show signs of mental abnormality. Her words lacked coherence, and she slept less and less. Her increasing loss of weight worried her family and they tried to talk her out of Falun Gong. But Wang told them that they were ignorant and that she was going to become the Buddha and ascend to Heaven. On January 24, 1998, Wang had a breakdown and jumped down from her home on the fourth floor, killing herself instantly.
Zhang Shunxi, Wang's husband, said, "After she lost her mind, I could no longer go to work normally. She tried to kill herself in varied ways. At 1 p.m. on January 24, she broke the window pane and jumped out while I was on the phone.
