YingYing Zhang was a student from China who was murdered in Illinois. Just imagine a woman opening a water tank and deliberately drowning herself in it. Brendt Christensen, 30, kidnapped, tortured and killed U of I scholar Yingying Zhang in 2018. CHICAGO (CBS) -- The family of slain Chinese scholar Yingying Zhang said Wednesday they now know where her body might have been dumped, but that it might be impossible to find her remains more than two years after her brutal murder. Beckett said the defense team for her killer, Brendt Christensen, disclosed the location of Zhang's body as part of a failed immunity agreement. He seemed like a normal physics grad student. My mind had filled in the rest of the plot. The memorial garden for Yingying Zhang outside Campbell Hall on the UIUC campus, near where she was last seen. I saw the film for the first time in the fall of 2020, after a summer of protests for Black lives was met with raging police brutality. A federal jury convicted Christensen in June. When she did not turn up on time for the lease signing, the agent sent her a text which went unanswered. Brendt Christensen, the 29-year-old who was sentenced to life in . According to Beckett, a follow-up investigation determined the dumpster where Christensen placed Yingying Zhang's body was picked up three days after her murder, and the contents were taken to a private landfill near Danville, where they were compacted at least twice. With over 6,000 Chinese students, accounting for 12 percent of its student body, UIUC is home to the largest Chinese community among U.S. universities. First published on August 7, 2019 / 6:12 PM. However, he soon broke down and told authorities that he had picked up an Asian girl, but she was not in his car for a long time. Yingyings grandfather is sitting next to him. "If you have any humanity left in your soul, please end our torment. (Zhang Family Photo via AP, File) PEORIA, Ill. (AP) The Latest on the trial of man charged in slaying . Zhang family attorney Steve Beckett said, based on information provided by federal prosecutors and attorneys for convicted killer Brendt Christensen, her body likely was taken to a landfill near Danville, Illinois, after Christensen placed her remains in three garbage bags and tossed them in a dumpster. However, was Zhang's body ever found? She was observed speaking with the driver through the passenger window for about one minute, before entering the car. 43 Issue (2): 234-246. doi: 10.13284/j.cnki.rddl.003620. This greatly alarmed counselors, but they later deduced that he was not in immediate need of hospitalization. Experiences: -- Graduate student at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University (2012-2018) -- Lab technician at Dana Farber Cancer Institute (2010-2012) -- Internship at . Zhangs father, Ronggao Zhang, said on Wednesday: If what that man said is true, it further confirms that he is a heartless and evil person. Classification Endangered Missing. On the 9 th of June 2017 a 26 year old Chinese scholar studying at the University of Illinois went missing. There, a young woman in a black dress and boots is shredding her voice to the beat. We are both mothers. Police searched her apartment and found nothing. The defense attorneys opening statement shocked everyone in the courtroom. The horrific details of her death were made public when Brendt Christensen was caught on an audiotape, talking about how he killed Zhang and then disposed of her body, stating that her family would never find her. The female entered his vehicle and attempted to show Christensen where she needed to go through her cell phone map app.. At this time, they think the most prudent thing to do is to allow the authorities to handle the situation and undertake the recovery of Yingyings remains if it is feasible, according to the statement. Three months before he kidnapped, raped, and murdered Yingying, Christensen had sought help at the universitys counseling center, where he admitted to suicidal and homicidal ideations. When the police questioned Brendt, he denied being involved in Zhangs disappearance. Forever.. Co-Authors. Its a potent concept, appealing to our instincts. 2021 | Journal article DOI: 10. However, just three minutes later, the car returned, and Zhang was seen getting into it. According to this unsealed motion, he was placed on suicide watch and isolated from the general population for several months. Im puzzled over this question to the judge, why the distinction was necessary. The Chinese government closely followed Brendt Christensens trial, and the prosecution was determined to seek the death penalty. Her body has never been found. The International Journal of Human Resource Management Informa UK Limited 1 - 25 0958-5192 2021/08 [Refereed] An Eco-Systematic View of Cross-Sector Fintech: The Case of Alibaba and Tencent. Without a body, prosecutors based their case on DNA evidence found at Christensen's apartment, and the defendant's own boasting of having killed Zhang in a conversation with his girlfriend. Yingying Zhang is seen entering a black Saturn Astra on the east side of Goodwin Avenue in Urbana. Deceased/Not Found IL - Yingying Zhang, 26, Urbana, 9 June 2017 #11 *GUILTY* Thread starter liltexans; Start date Jul 2, 2017; . Ive never felt as acutely aware of my identity as a Chinese woman in the U.S. My body is a constant reminder of the many ways society renders it vulnerable. From as far as I could remember, my mothers fervid fear of my sudden vanishing filled the air around her. Zhang was a visiting scholar at the university. Her life is frozen in time, while mine goes on. Rights of a criminal suspect were seen as obtuse hurdles inhibiting a swift conviction. 0000-0003-3769-079X; 0000-0003-3819-5467; . The spectacle at the scaffold routinely attracted larger crowds than any other public event. In this security video from the B-4 parking garage on North Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, just after 2 p.m. Friday, Ms. Zhang is seen standing on the east side of Goodwin Avenue as a black Saturn Astra (unknown, According to the University of Illinois police. Christensen's attorneys told prosecutors that the day after he killed Zhang, Christensen placed her body in three garbage bags, and put the bags in the dumpster outside his apartment building, Beckett said. Cultural difference makes for a convenient excuse to validate the self and exoticize the other. The menacing images appear to come alive, two monsters manifesting the paucity of our moral imagination. The chest infection was so severe that her heart did not respond to CPR during surgery. Unfortunately, no. Reports also claim that Brendt claimed to be a serial killer, but that claim has never been substantiated and is believed to be false. Brendt Christensen, a former graduate student, has been charged with kidnapping and killing her. She told police that her husband was a psychopath and that she was 80% certain he had kidnapped and killed the Chinese scholar. The case was dismissed. It was found during a search of his Macon County jail cell. I too came to the U.S. for my Ph.D., and studied at the University of Chicago, a two-hour drive from UIUC, where many of my colleagues and friends work. Her phone was disabled moments later. Christensen's defense attorneys admitted at trial that he killed Zhang, and focused on convincing the jury to spare him from the death penalty. I watched it again this spring, when haunting images from the mass shooting in Atlanta were still in the news, and every day seemed to bring fresh reports of harassment or assault against people who look like me. With the defense already admitting that Brendt killed Zhang, the jury did not take long to find him guilty of the crime. The U.S. Attorney for Central Illinois, John Milhiser, as he spoke, Zhang's mother, Lifeng Ye, sobbed and the woman standing next to her appeared to be holding her upright. A journalism student at Northwestern University at the time of Yingyings disappearance, Shi had assisted in the search efforts and witnessed the familys pain from the very beginning. She was the first in her family to graduate from college in 2013 and to go on to finish a master's degree in 2016 in the field of agricultural sciences at . Cameras show her getting into a black car and authorities identified Brendt Christensen as the suspect. Yingyings body has never been found. conference about Yingying Zhang's body at Steve Beckett's . She was diagnosed with Pyothorax (causes unknown). She refused to let me out of her sight, and I refused her suffocating love by leaving China as soon as I could. The black sedan that picked up Yingying was quickly identified as belonging to one Brendt Christensen. Beckett said, so far, no search has begun at the landfill for Zhang's body. With no news of the Chinese student for several hours, university authorities decided to approach the police and file a missing person report. Yangyang Cheng is a postdoctoral fellow at Yale Law Schools Paul Tsai China Center and a particle physicist. Her death was not random. The affidavit provides a detailed accounting of the last moments Zhang is seen. The answer is no. Body found later in a water tank at the top of the hotel, the coroner stated that she died by drowning. One says that I might have had an allergic reaction, which is the version I swear to because the alternative is unthinkable. Red with rage, the old man exclaims: If the U.S. does not address this case properly, well kill one or two American students in China.. Wenbing Luo, Jian Wang, Yingying Zhang: Software Quality Evaluation Model based on Multiple Linear Regression and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method. Prosecutors said Christensen raped, choked and stabbed Zhang before beating her to death with a bat and decapitating her. One of her favorite songs was The Rose, a hit in 1980 for American singer Bette Midler, reported The Chicago Tribune. Revisiting Yingyings story at this moment is not only relevant, but also necessary. The music starts and a dam breaks in me. 216-228)Shanghai JiaoTong University Press (in . Brendt Christensen, the 29-year-old who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in Zhangs murder, informed his attorneys that after killing and decapitating Zhang, he put her body in three separate garbage bags, then disposed of those bags in the dumpster outside his Champaign, Illinois, apartment. The driver, to his credit, took me to my friends place. The image was used in the missing person bulletin by the police and the FBI. Author pages are created from data sourced from our academic publisher partnerships and public sources. Yingying Zhang was a 26-year-old visiting Chinese scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who went . Murderer Brendt Allen Christensen. He was convicted two years later. Friends offered up advice in the comments below. Two ABC news teams tell the tale of two families, tragically connected by the 2017 murder of U of I scholar Yingying Zhang. Previous Articles Next Articles The Empowerment of Rural Women through Digital Entrepreneurship: A Case of Typical Villages in Qianpai Town, Guangdong Province Investigators believe Zhang is dead . Christensen is still in a downstate jail, awaiting assignment to a federal penitentiary where he will spend the rest of his life. Zhang's body has never been found. This detail is particularly heartbreaking as members of law enforcement are frequent perpetrators of sexual violence, especially toward women of color, but are rarely held accountable. I was furious at my mother, who appeared oblivious to the cruelty and repeatedly defended the inhumane practice. The drive from the airport is the longest distance in the world. It was labeled Government Exhibit 1A and shown on the first day of the trial. 1007/S11426-021 . I have seen this logo before. Photos of Yingying Zhang on a tree on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana, Ill. Photo: Stephen Haas/The News-Gazette via AP, This is the last entry in Yingyings journal. As the case progressed, public discourse in China shifted from critiquing the skills of U.S. law enforcement to questioning the logic of its justice system. She refused. In June 2017, Yingying Zhang, a young scholar from China went missing from a bus stop near the University of Illinois.The entire encounter was caught on nearby surveillance cameras. Claim Author Page. That evening, unable to reach her, Yingyings Chinese colleagues reported her missing to the police. The horrific details of her death were made public when Brendt Christensen was caught on an audiotape, talking about how he killed Zhang and then disposed of her body, stating that her family would never find her. However, even with massive searches and attractive cash rewards announced, the few leads the police got led to nothing. On June 12, 2017, they went to the 2500 block of W. Springfield Ave. in Champaign and saw the car registered to Christensen. Federal prosecutors have said Christensen posed as an undercover officer to lure Zhang, 26, into his car on June 9, 2017. The defense was signaling to the jury that life in prison is already a very harsh sentence and sufficient punishment for this crime. Its on the T-shirt Yingying wore in a photo shortly after arriving in the U.S. She walks over and leans in the passenger side window. He then took her to his apartment, where he raped, choked, and stabbed her in his bedroom; then dragged her into the bathroom, and beat her to death with a baseball bat before decapitating her. Four days after the news broke, a post went viral on Chinese social media, If the Yingying Zhang case took place in China, with attention from the entire country, whats the probability that it would be solved within 48 hours?. He was recorded confessing to killing her and has an online history at FetLife re . Zhangs family reportedly provided the first gift for the endowment. Yingying Zhang was born in 1990 in China and by the time she was 27, she had graduated with a Master Degree and had traveled to the United States to conduct research on photosynthesis at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The remains of Yingying Zhang, a Chinese scholar at University of Illinois who was murdered in 2017, could be in a landfill in central Illinois, according to multiple reports, though her body has . It was revealed that Brendt had dismembered her body and put it into separate garbage bags, which he kept outside his apartment only to be picked up by garbage trucks. Her boyfriend, Xiaolin Hou, testified that the family's only hope was that Zhang's body will be found so they can bury her in China. The badge was found by a motorist about two-and-a-half miles from Christensen's apartment. Brendt was also ordered to pay a hefty fine of $250,000 for each conviction. 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yingying zhang body found 2021