On Sunday, Cambodian officials say black magic may be to blame after a Cambodian couple bites off their daughter's thumb nails and suck her blood.

The Associated Press

After hearing her screams, neighbors rushed to the couple's house and rescued the girl.

After being treated at a hospital in Kampong Cham, the girl was placed in the custody of other villagers. Relatives took her parents to a black magic healer to drive out the evil spirit believed to have possessed them.

"We, the police, just have no idea what offense to charge them with," Keo Norea Phy said.

Preap Nhim, a local official, says the couple sold noodles in their village and had never before acted in a strange manner. He said they may have been driven by the spirit guarding the altar they kept inside their house.

Cambodia is a Buddhist country, but many people in the countryside are deeply superstitious. Some claim to possess the ability to communicate with the dead and cure the sick by exorcising evil spirits from their bodies.