After Wei's death, the practitioners produced fake evidence and kept the case hidden for months. A fellow practitioner finally told local police the truth in July, a judicial investigation has shown.

One witness, who took part in the hideous slaying, confessed that Lan and others bound Wei's hands and feet and read aloud Li Hongzhi's doctrines to expunge from her mind the evil of her beliefs. Wei struggled and shouted, so they taped up her mouth and nose.

"Wei was struggling at first and cried that she didn't want to be a disciple of Li Hongzhi anymore, so they sealed her mouth and nose to stop her," the witness told police. Then the practitioners read aloud until Wei stopped struggling and became comatose.

Wei's coma allegedly excited the Falun Gong mob. The witness said one, identified as Ou Yangjie, screamed, "It's OK, the evil is removed!" Wei never awoke again. Doctors said she died of respiratory failure.

Police revealed that Wei began questioning the Falun Gong creed after her mother-in-law, also a pious practitioner, died last year because she refused to see doctor for her illness. That is among the abhorrent teachings of the nefarious Li Hongzhi.

Wei continued to practice Falun Gong, but her questions overwhelmed her and she began to curse Li Hongzhi for his obvious role in her mother-in-law's death.

This honest difference of opinion was rejected by the closed- minded members of the cult, who refused to permit free dissent. Local cult leaders decided they must eradicate it in accordance to Li Hongzhi's dogma.

Wei's death stunned other practitioners in Shenzhen, a wealthy coastal city in South China's Guangdong Province.

Lan and his cronies immediately reported the death to Xu Xian, a cult superior who goes by the alias Da Shan, who told them repeatedly never to link the death to Falun Gong.

The participants were instructed to conceal the facts, and they conspired to make identical confessions to deal with the possible police investigation, police said.