Christensen was found guilty on June 24, 2019, of kidnapping resulting in death and two counts of lying to investigators. How Christensen may cause harm, or be harmed, within prison walls did not appear to be of concern. While the countrys Criminal Procedure Law forbids extorting confessions or collecting evidence by illegal means, the regulations contain many loopholes and are poorly enforced. He was recorded confessing to killing her and has an online history at FetLife re . We share the same feelings. 10. 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. I laugh. 37. Murderer Brendt Allen Christensen. Yingying Zhangs remains were never found. Today, over 140 countries have abolished the death penalty by law or in practiceat times against popular support for retentionincluding every country in Europe with the exception of Belarus and nearly half of the countries in Africa. Yingying's body has never been found. Brendt Christensen was convicted of visiting Chinese scholar Yingying Zhang's 2017 murder. With a confession on hand, the FBI arrested Brendt Christensen and charged him with the murder of Yingying Zhang. Her body was never found. (Matt Masterson / WTTW News) She exited the bus and tried to flag down another one, but it continued past her without stopping. ABC reports that Bullis testified that she Christensen seemed excited and proud when he discussed killing Zhang. My mother forwarded many of these reports to me. Brendt was also ordered to pay a hefty fine of $250,000 for each conviction. Most of them would not have known the context behind my post. Forever.. Prosecutors and Zhang's family had pushed for the death penalty , but a jury decision . 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Her life is frozen in time, while mine goes on. Many in the comment section praised the efficiency of Chinese police and the capabilities of the countrys Skynet surveillance system. The portion of that private landfill that was being actively used at the time was about half a football field in width, and, by the time Christensens attorneys informed authorities about the remains, they would have purportedly been covered by at least 30 feet of fill from later garbage hauling., It is evident that any attempt to recover Yingyings remains would be complicated and expensive, would require government oversight and the cooperation of the landfill owners and would have no certainty of success, said the statement. Both the darkness and the light are part of what makes us human. But as I research this story, she appears so young to me, like a distant reminiscence. He then confessed that he decapitated Zhangs body and disposed of the parts separately to reduce the chances of discovery. By the penalty phase, Christensen had already been found guilty. Facebook reminds me that I have a memory from four years ago. "We condemn his brutal and malicious actions and we hope that he suffers for the rest of his life as he made Yingying suffer in the final moments of her life," he said through an interpreter. 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. Ying Ying Zhang, Her Name Means "A Twinkle Of Light," But Her Light Was Taken Away; who Was Yingying Zhang? Shraman Mitra. With the defense already admitting that Brendt killed Zhang, the jury did not take long to find him guilty of the crime. A black sedan circles around the block and stops in front of her. posted in All, Life Thoughts on 03/22/2021 by yingying 0 Comments. The jury was not told about his death wish. Its generally estimated to be in the thousands and accounts for 80 percent or more of state executions globally. The same jury who convicted him later split on the death penalty. (2021 Rerelease) 02.01. . By defending features in the U.S. judicial process, I was in fact defending the life I had worked so hard to achieve. I have seen this logo before. 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. (. Christensen was accused of saying on tape: Shes gone. Co-Author. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get day-to-day video coverage of what's going on in China and beyond!Three years have passed since the kidnapping and mur. Who, or what, keeps a community safe? Tropical Geography 2023, Vol. He could have been a colleague, a classmate, someone I encountered at a conference: a white guy who takes whiteness and manhood for granted, who uses nonchalance to mask his insecurity, who can act polite but will never see me as his equal. A jury convicted Christensen of all charges in her death after 90 minutes of deliberation in June. Given the size of the landfill, the amount of time that has passed, and the amount of additional garbage since dumped in the landfill, Beckett said any attempt to find the body would be very costly. Yingyings disappearance affirmed my mothers long-held belief that a foreign country is too dangerous for a Chinese woman like me. Tragically, and . Zhang was remembered as intelligent and extroverted. Yingying Zhang, Clinical Social Work/Therapist, Chicago, IL, 60640, (872) 274-4302, As a first generation immigrant, I recognize the unique experience individuals face in life. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. 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. To date, no search has been undertaken. According to the affidavit, authorities allege that he admitted to driving around the UI campus when he observed an Asian female with a backpack standing at a corner appearing distressed. "It is evident that any attempt to recover Yingying's remains would be complicated and expensive, would require government oversight and the cooperation of the landfill owners, and would have no certainty of success," he said. 29 Nov - Zhang Yingying and Wang Xiaofei's mother Zhang Lan seem to be butting heads when it comes to the mainland businessman, after the actress seemingly decided to declare that they are dating.. As reported on CTWant, the 26-year-old actress, who has been romantically linked to Wang for months and was even accused of being the third party in his previous marriage with Barbie Hsu, recently . 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. That alleged admission built on previous statements that Christensen made to the FBI in which he allegedly confessed that Zhang had been in his car, although he claimed she left it voluntarily, the affidavit says. Prosecutors and Zhang's family had pushed for the death penalty, but a jury decision on that had to be unanimous. Associate Professor, Tsinghua University - Cited by 8,825 - Nanomaterials - Nanochemistry - Carbon nanotubes 3.2.Expression profiles of HMGB1, and TLR4 signaling molecules during APAP-induced liver injury. Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) exhibits the characteristics of strong metastatic ability and a high recurrence rate, and M2-type macrophages play an important role in this process. Zhang's body has not been found. Brendt Christensen, the 29-year-old who was sentenced to life in . He seemingly boasted about choking, sexually assaulting, and beating Zhang to death with a baseball bat. Several lamented that while foreigners in China are showered with privileges, Chinese people overseas endure second-class status. My friends meant well. They also found evidence of a part of the car being cleaned extra thoroughly, which hinted towards Brendt hiding something. I pretended that our discussion was an academic exercise because I could not bear the thought that in the fragile mind of my mother, who had raised me as a young widow, Yingying was me and I was her. They have since divorced. The Terrifying Right to Remain Silent60 Days after Yingying Zhang's Disappearance. She told police that her husband was a psychopath and that she was 80% certain he had kidnapped and killed the Chinese scholar. A woman who testified during the trial said Christensen showed her a silver sheriff's star when he asked her to get into his car. In the previous study, we revealed that SMA/CORM2, through releasing CO induced macrophage reprogramming toward M2 polarization fulfills the anti-inflammatory effect and promotes liver regeneration (Song et al., 2021).However, besides the macrophage-mediated inflammatory process, other inflammation . 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. 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. She gets off the bus. However, even with massive searches and attractive cash rewards announced, the few leads the police got led to nothing. The documentary ' Finding Yingying ,' chronicles the disappearance of Zhang and bringing her justice while capturing the devastating impact on her . To her, supporting capital punishment in this case is not an abstract position; its about thinking through what true justice is for a family that has lost so much. Since Zhang was last seen in the video entering the car, said the news release issued by authorities, the FBI, the University of Illinois Police Department and the Illinois State Police and local law enforcement have worked around the clock to locate Ms. Zhang and to investigate her disappearance., Please review our privacy policy here: https://heavy.com/privacy-policy/, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. It was labeled Government Exhibit 1A and shown on the first day of the trial. It's June 12, 2019, two years and three days after Yingying went missing, the first day of the jury trial in the United States v. Brendt Christensen. 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. It doesnt reveal whom Christensen was allegedly speaking with at the time. 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. An officer met with the professor and other colleagues of Zhang, who said they had not been able to contact her for several hours. Its sadly ironic that prisons are called penitentiaries or correctional facilities, while theyre designed for neither repentance nor rehabilitation but segregation and retribution. Ph.D., 2016, Xiamen University. Christensen lured Zhang into his car at a bus stop on campus posing as a police officer with the . Zhang's father said if his daughter's remains are ever found, her family plans to take her body back to China. He told authorities that he was at home around the time in question. For a woman, the most dangerous place is often the home. Yingying Zhang was a visiting scholar from China at UIUC. Attorney Steve Beckett, who represents Zhangs family, said last week that defense lawyers provided the information about Zhangs remains as part of an immunity agreement in November 2018, telling prosecutors that Zhangs body was likely in a landfill in Vermilion County in Illinois. Christensen is not a social, charismatic person, and so is unlikely to recruit others to commit violent acts on his behalf. Five jurors agreed with this point. Copyright 2023 WLS-TV. 224. Yingying Zhang-Zhang; Sylvia Rohlfer; Jay Rajasekera . Main text. University of Minnesota. Verified email at umn.edu. Would love your thoughts, please comment. Yingying ZHANG | Cited by 11,350 | of Tsinghua University, Beijing (TH) | Read 163 publications | Contact Yingying ZHANG The 26-year-old visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, disappeared June 9, 2017. Christensen stated that he brought Zhang back to his apartment, and otherwise held her in his apartment against her will, the affidavit alleges. 43 Issue (2): 234-246. doi: 10.13284/j.cnki.rddl.003620. Eager to clear her boyfriends name, Bullis agreed to wear a wire for the FBI and accompany her boyfriend on a memorial walk for Zhang. She refused. The defense was signaling to the jury that life in prison is already a very harsh sentence and sufficient punishment for this crime. My height makes me more visible. Students grouped together to find her, while the FBI was brought on to help the local police department. 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. 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. Previous Articles Next Articles The Empowerment of Rural Women through Digital Entrepreneurship: A Case of Typical Villages in Qianpai Town, Guangdong Province Brendt also had a masters in Physics but dropped out from his Ph.D. program and instead claimed that he was searching for employment. Deceased/Not Found IL - Yingying Zhang, 26, Urbana, 9 June 2017 #11 *GUILTY* Thread starter liltexans; Start date Jul 2, 2017; . But the Zhang family understands that the authorities are still considering an attempt to locate and recover Yingyings remains.. Yingying Zhang. She was a brilliant scholar and had won numerous laurels in China before coming to the US in April 2017, where she was supposed to stay for a year. The heart of this question is not about measuring the harms of specific conduct but mapping the contours of state authority. This greatly alarmed counselors, but they later deduced that he was not in immediate need of hospitalization. Also part of the case that was sealed: a motion to exclude evidence of a lost Illinois State Police badge found on the roadway four days after the disappearance of Yingying Zhang. Christensen is still in a downstate jail, awaiting assignment to a federal penitentiary where he will spend the rest of his life. its incredibly painful, Bullis said in court, according to CBS Local. When the police questioned Brendt, he denied being involved in Zhangs disappearance. One of her favorite songs was The Rose, a hit in 1980 for American singer Bette Midler, reported The Chicago Tribune. 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