Three "wizards" and the three brothers who hired them to treat their ailing mother were arrested in Ledong Li autonomous county, Hainan province, after the six men allegedly beat the woman to death.

The Nanguo Metropolis Daily reported on Wednesday that the mother — Chen Zuoshan, 61, of the county's Yongyi village — had rheumatoid arthritis.

On June 8, Chen's youngest son, Hu Wensheng, 27, asked fellow villager Gao Yongchuan, who called himself a wizard, to treat the woman.

Gao brought his two disciples, Gao Yongming and Zhou Fudong, to the woman's house and ordered Hu and his two elder brothers to force their mother to drink a large quantity of white liquor to kill the devil inside her body. The six men then beat the woman to death and buried her in a graveyard outside the village.

Police in the county's Qianjia police station arrested the six the night of June 8 after a tip from a villager.