Slain scholar Zhang Yingying may never be buried in China, father says after learning gruesome details of what happened to her body
- Killer Brendt Christensen told lawyers he had put remains in three bags and thrown them in garbage
- Family wants to create gravesite in US, as authorities say recovering remains from landfill would be expensive and difficult
The father of a slain Chinese scholar who begged his daughter’s killer to reveal what he did with her remains said on Wednesday that after learning her dismembered body might be in plastic bags buried in a landfill under mounds of garbage, he understood that his family may never get to bury her back home in China.
There is “nothing we want more than to find our daughter and bring her home, [but] we understand that may be impossible,” Zhang Ronggao said through an interpreter at his family lawyer’s Urbana office.
As he spoke, his wife, Ye Lifeng, sat weeping nearby, unable to bring herself to speak after just learning what had happened to the remains of her daughter, Zhang Yingying. The family had shielded her from the gruesome news for weeks, but their lawyer said she insisted on knowing.
“We have decided to follow the Chinese custom and create a gravesite here in America to honour Yingying’s memory,” said Zhang Ronggao, who had begged his daughter’s killer to reveal what he did with his daughter’s body.
The news conference came days after the family’s lawyer, Steve Beckett, announced that he had learned from Brendt Christensen’s defence team that Yingying’s dismembered body was somewhere in a landfill, giving the family a sliver of hope that it could be found.