Chinese scholar Zhang Yingying’s killer Brendt Christensen escapes death penalty, gets life in prison

A former University of Illinois doctoral student is facing life in prison for the rape and murder of a 26-year-old scholar from China whom he abducted from a bus stop near campus in 2017, after a federal jury said on Thursday that they failed to agree on sentencing him to death. The jurors returned their decision against Brendt Christensen, 30, on their second day of deliberations. The same jurors took less than 90 minutes to convict Christensen last month in the killing of Zhang Yingying. Prosecutors and Zhang’s family had pushed for the death penalty, but a jury decision on that had to be unanimous. If even one juror opposed, then the life sentence was applied. Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011, but Christensen was prosecuted under federal law. If he had been sentenced to death, he would have been executed in neighbouring Indiana. Prosecutors said Christensen raped, choked and stabbed Zhang before beating her to death with a bat and decapitating her. Christensen has never revealed what he did with her remains. Zhang’s family, who travelled from China to Peoria, Illinois, for the trial had hoped he might explain in court where he left her, but Christensen’s lawyers did not call him to testify. FBI investigates claims Zhang was Christensen’s 13th victim Among the most poignant testimony during the penalty phase was from Zhang’s mother, Ye Lifeng. She told jurors how the family was devastated by the loss of her beloved daughter, who had aspired to become a professor and to help her working class family financially. “How am I supposed to carry on living?” she said in testimony by video. “I really do not know how to carry on.” She said Christensen dashed Zhang’s dreams and those of her family. Yingying was killed months before she had planned to get married. “My daughter did not get to wear a wedding dress,” Ye said. “I really wanted to be a grandma.” The victim’s father, Zhang Ronggao, cried when shown a photo of the two of them at a railway station as she left for the United States. “My life without her will not be complete,” he told jurors. Her boyfriend, Hou Xiaolin, testified that the family’s only hope was that Zhang’s body would be found so they could bury her in China. Prosecutors indicated in court filings that Christensen may have destroyed the remains. Christensen’s parents also took the witness box and appealed to jurors to spare their son’s life. Both said they loved him unconditionally. Michael Christensen said the thought of his son being executed was unbearable, prompting Brendt Christensen to break down crying in a rare display of emotion. Ellen Williams, his mother, told jurors that Christensen’s crime was “horrible” and that she thought about Zhang’s family “at least five times a day and how horrible this must be for them”. She said her son was extremely bright, kind and considerate. ‘She’s gone forever’: suspect told girlfriend he killed Chinese scholar The defence sought to humanise Christensen by showing home videos of him playing the piano and opening Christmas gifts as a child. Brendt Christensen is a native of Stevens Point, Wisconsin. He began his studies in Champaign at the university’s prestigious doctoral programme in physics in 2013. His sister, Andrea Christensen, told jurors that her brother had been her role model and that he was never aggressive to anyone when they were growing up. “Brendt was a very gentle person,” she said. Those depictions jar with Christensen’s actions on June 9, 2017. Prosecutor Eugene Miller said Christensen posed as an undercover officer and lured Zhang into his car when she was running late to sign a lease on an apartment. The muscular Christensen likely forced Zhang into a duffel bag that he bought online days earlier and carried her up to his flat in Urbana, 225km (140 miles) southwest of Chicago, Miller said. Once inside, he raped and killed her. Zhang had been in Illinois for just three months – her only time living outside China. To avoid death penalty, Zhang’s killer offered to locate her body Prosecutors said Zhang was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that Christensen, who had fantasised about killing, was determined to take someone’s life that day. They said he had approached a different woman earlier, posing as an officer, but that she refused to get in the car. Defence lawyer Julie Brain told jurors that Christensen had struggled with mental health issues for years and had tried to get help in dealing with homicidal fantasies in the months before killing Zhang. “What happened next was a … battle between Brendt and his demons that little by little, he lost,” she said.

Chinese scholar Zhang Yingying’s killer Brendt Christensen escapes death penalty, gets life in prison

Illinois man to spend life behind bars after jurors fail to reach unanimous decision on sentence Christensen was earlier found guilty of kidnapping and beheading Zhang in 2017

Illinois man to spend life behind bars after jurors fail to reach unanimous decision on sentence

Christensen was earlier found guilty of kidnapping and beheading Zhang in 2017