Son’s body stays in river until parents pay a hefty recovery fee

（BOXUN） A young man drowned himself after his parents were unable to loan him the money for a cab contract. Then his body remained immersed in the river for a week because they couldn’t afford the fee demanded to recover it.
Deng Shuchao, 25, from Panzhihua in Sichuan Province, on Monday November 30, 2015 committed suicide by drowning himself in the Yangtze River. Three days later his body was discovered. His parents went to the river, and the fishermen who found their son’s body demanded ¥18,000 (US$2,880) to bring it to shore. After negotiating, the price was reduced to ¥8,000 (US$1,280). His parents still couldn’t afford that price, so their son’s body stayed immersed in the river.

On the afternoon of Sunday December 6, 2015, after intervention by the police, Mr. Deng borrowed money from relatives and paid ¥5,400 to have his son’s body recovered from the river. It had remained in the water for seven days. Mr. Deng felt that the fishermen asked too much money and shouldn’t have used his son’s body to extort money from him. The fishermen argued that recovering a corpse from the river is extremely bad luck, and that it was very hard work and the price was justified.

Deng Shuchao drove a taxi for a living. The day he died he was supposed to pay a ¥6,000 cab contract fee. He asked his family for ¥5,000, but they couldn’t afford it. So he left home and, dejected, jumped in the river and drowned.