WGN-TV reported that he raped and beheaded Zhang, and implied he had 12 other victims, but this was never proven. Yingying Zhang. Previous Articles Next Articles The Empowerment of Rural Women through Digital Entrepreneurship: A Case of Typical Villages in Qianpai Town, Guangdong Province On June 12, 2017, they went to the 2500 block of W. Springfield Ave. in Champaign and saw the car registered to Christensen. The answer is no. The case was dismissed. 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. Yingying Zhang is seen entering a black Saturn Astra on the east side of Goodwin Avenue in Urbana. Im one year older than Yingying. In addition to this, a memorial stone with Zhangs name was placed on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. T. TEB Active Member. That summer was a particularly low point in my strained relationship with my mother, and I had turned to social media for validation of my moral superiority. However, calls and texts to Zhangs phone went unanswered, and the worry heightened with time. The public execution, according to Michel Foucault, was not only a judicial but also a political ritual, through which the state manifested its absolute power. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. And there's plenty of other news articles about . 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. I pursued physics, the same discipline as her killer. And thus, even though they said that the FBI is probably looking into it, they did state that it would be quite challenging a process. Main text. (MORE: Man found guilty of killing visiting Chinese scholar Yingying Zhang) Mike Christensen believes Zhang's killing could have been avoided if counselors took action then and there. Alpha was very healthy and energetic otherwise. Then came the break in the case: The Saturn. From Yangtze to Mars: The Fiery History of Chinas Space Program, The US Is Building Walls Around Science, and Were All Poorer for It. Cameras show her getting into a black car and authorities identified Brendt Christensen as the suspect. In a flurry of anguished messages, she told me to stop wearing high-heels so I could run faster in case of danger. Its generally estimated to be in the thousands and accounts for 80 percent or more of state executions globally. While Zhang was waiting at the bus station, cameras caught a black Saturn Astra pass her by. Christensen stated that he brought Zhang back to his apartment, and otherwise held her in his apartment against her will, the affidavit alleges. With trucks taking their loads to landfills across the city, authorities figured that her remains might have been spread around several landfills by the time Brendt was convicted. Yingying Zhang. At the sentencing phase of the Christensen trial, one of the aggravating factors the jury agreed with was Yingyings particular vulnerability due to her small stature and limited ability to communicate in English. Ten thousand years of civilization and were still relying on physical size for protection. The black sedan that picked up Yingying was quickly identified as belonging to one Brendt Christensen. 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Christensen's defense attorneys admitted at trial that he killed Zhang, and focused on convincing the jury to spare him from the death penalty. 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 played in a band and had ambitions of becoming a professor in China. They dont. In a string of angry messages, I picked apart her arguments and refuted them one by one. According to his lawyers, Christensen placed her butchered body in three separate garbage bags, which he tossed in a dumpster outside his Champaign apartment before disposing of her personal items among trash receptacles around the Champaign-Urbana area. Brendt Christensen, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in Yingying Zhangs murder, said he put her body in three separate trash bags and threw them in a dumpster. Police said that, on June 9, 2017, Zhang went to UIs Turner Hall where she conducts research and then returned to her apartment for lunch. (2021 Rerelease) 02.01. . According to the University of Illinois police, Zhang, a graduate student from China, disappeared on June 9, 2017. With the defense already admitting that Brendt killed Zhang, the jury did not take long to find him guilty of the crime. She was last seen on surveillance video at her . Yingyings family believed that Christensen should be executed. Steve Beckett, Zhangs family lawyer, Yingyings father, Ronggao ZhangIf, upon hearing this, later, In addition to this, a memorial stone with Zhangs name was placed on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After the trial ended and public attention moved on, Yingyings disappearance has stayed with me like a needle floating in my veins. posted in All, Life Thoughts on 03/22/2021 by yingying 0 Comments. 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. Yingying Zhang is from a small city in South east China called Nanping (a prefectural city in the Fujian province). As an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Christensen worked briefly on the Large Hadron Collider, the worlds largest particle physics experiment where I spent over a decade of my career. Sep 2017 - Dec 20225 years 4 months. After moving to the U.S., I would soon realize how my body is perceived differently here and slowly learn how to navigate space with unwanted attention. The defense attorneys opening statement shocked everyone in the courtroom. Body found later in a water tank at the top of the hotel, the coroner stated that she died by drowning. At the end of the verdict form, the jury added a mitigating factor: Mr. As the FBI listened on, Brendt revealed a terrifying truth to his girlfriend. Publications. The sentencing phase of the trial took place two weeks later. 37. Christensen is still in a downstate jail, awaiting assignment to a federal penitentiary where he will spend the rest of his life. If even one juror opposed, then the life sentence was applied. Incarceration does not stop or reduce harm in society; it relocates individual harm to places outside public view and promulgates institutional harm in the name of justice. I replay this clip and reckon that Im again at fault for over-intellectualizing. Her remains have never been found. Chemistry and biochemistry instructors must help students to develop the ability to visualize and manipulate 3D biomolecular structures and critically analyze them and their relationship to their functions. Yingying was still missing. By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. Paradoxically, it also offers a primal sense of security. The 26-year-old visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, disappeared June 9, 2017. In England and colonial America, as legal historian Stuart Banner writes, the death penalty circa 1700 was the equivalent of prison todaythe standard punishment for a wide range of serious crimes including arson, theft, and counterfeiting. However, was Zhang's body ever found? Her body never found, the family still hoping to someday bring her . Dated June 1, 2017, it concludes with a line in English, Life is too short to be ordinary!. For me, for myself, the result today seems to tell me that I can kill anyone and I can kill anyone with any kind of cruel method and I will not need to die for it, Yingyings partner of eight years speaks to the press after the verdict. In 2013, Zhang graduated from Sun Yat-sen University at . Over eggs and coffee, we shared our impressions of criminal justice from growing up in China and how a life for a life was presented as axiomatic. The family also said they are working with the University of Illinois to create a gravesite in her memory. Her name was Yingying Zhang. Author pages are created from data sourced from our academic publisher partnerships and public sources. Berkeley host: Professor Dan Portnoy Research Summary. We now understand that finding her may be impossible," he said. Publications 10. h-index 3. Apr 7, 2021 She is singing a song about youth, where time is all future, brimming with possibilities. Yingying majored in environmental engineering. Its worth cannot, and should not, be measured by the extent of state-sponsored punishment exacted on the man who took it. A minute later she gets in the car and it drives off. 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. Speaking through an interpreter at Christensen's sentencing, Zhang's father, Ronggao Zhang, appealed to him to reveal where her body is so that the family can take her remains back to China. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. According to ABC News, Law enforcement believes the bags were then taken to a landfill in Danville, Illinois. But it was too late to recover her body. Superior Unidirectional Water Transport and Mechanically Stable 3D Orthogonal Woven Fabric for Human Body Moisture and Thermal Management. He was found guilty in the kidnaping, torture and murder of foreign student Zhang. Her disappearance was big news in China as well as the United States as the Urbana-Champaign community mobilized to find the promising young environmental engineer who was researching crop production. As per Zhangs family lawyers statements, the contents of the dumpster were taken to Danville, where it was compacted twice. At 2:38 p.m,, the apartment manager sent Zhang a text message and received no response. Zhang's family said they believe the best thing to do at this point is allow federal, state, and local authorities to determine the feasibility of recovering her body. Born 12/21/1990, she grew up in the Jianyang District, Nanping City, Fujian Province, China. 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. When the police searched his car, nothing stood out of the ordinary at first glance. The judge has denied bail for Christensen. On the left is a grim, gray facility with barbed wires and a watch tower. All rights reserved, WATCH: Procession Escorts Body of Fallen Chicago Officer From Hospital, Storm System Could Bring Rain, Snow, and Gusty Winds to Chicago Area Friday, Chicago Police Officer Shot and Killed on Southwest Side, Secret Service, Police Seen Investigating Business in Suburban Lisle. ABC reports that Bullis testified that she Christensen seemed excited and proud when he discussed killing Zhang. The U.S. is the only Western democracy that regularly executes people. Its clear from an affidavit in the case that authorities thought they had their man, but they needed more evidence to seek an arrest, especially because they did not know where Zhangs body was. Zhang's father, Ronggao Zhang, said if the information Christensen gave prosecutors is true "it further confirms that he is a heartless and evil person.". Prosecutor Eugene Miller alleged that Zhangs blood was found on a bat that Christensen used to strike Zhang, as well as in other places in his apartment, according to WTTW-TV. The memorial garden for Yingying Zhang outside Campbell Hall on the UIUC campus, near where she was last seen. They also found evidence of a part of the car being cleaned extra thoroughly, which hinted towards Brendt hiding something. A black sedan circles around the block and stops in front of her. Video showed her at an Urbana, Illinois, bus stop getting into a black Saturn vehicle, and, after that, she vanished without a trace. The driver, to his credit, took me to my friends place. I had known this before, but seeing the words displayed on his page invoked an intense nausea that I doubled over. There were also statements from Christensen's wife at the time of the investigation in the newly unsealed records. 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 . Im surprised, though perhaps I should not be, by how little awareness there is. Since then, they've likely been covered by at least 30 feet of landfill. 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. "If you have any humanity left in your soul, please end our torment. Brendt Christensen is a former Ph.D. student researcher from Champaign who was convicted by a federal jury of kidnapping in the death of Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old University of Illinois visiting scholar from China. To date, Yingying Zhang's remains have never been found. Its sadly ironic that prisons are called penitentiaries or correctional facilities, while theyre designed for neither repentance nor rehabilitation but segregation and retribution. 224. Thats because, not only was Christensen convicted in Zhangs death, but his lawyer revealed in court that he admits to murdering her. Im puzzled over this question to the judge, why the distinction was necessary. Prosecutors and Zhang's family had pushed for the death penalty , but a jury decision . 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. its incredibly painful, Bullis said in court, according to CBS Local. 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. He was convicted two years later. Christensen, a former physics Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois, raped, choked, and stabbed 26-year-old Zhang before beating her with a baseball bat and decapitating her in June 2017. ABC 20/20 brings into focus the kidnapping and murder of a Chinese scholar named Yingying Zhang who went missing on 9 June 2017. Jul 2021; Xu Junhao; Yingying Zhang . However, the jury was divided over the decision for the death penalty, as a result of which Brendt was awarded life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2018. Since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic caused by a new beta . He was arrested on June 30, his 28th birthday. "There is nothing in the world that we want more than to find our daughter and bring her home. Zhang was a visiting scholar at the university. 116313 (2021) [j53] view. CHICAGO (WLS) -- The ABC7 I-Team on Friday obtained never-before-heard information in case of murdered University of Illinois Chinese scholar Ying Ying Zhang. To date, no search has been undertaken. Deceased/Not Found IL - Yingying Zhang, 26, Urbana, 9 June 2017 #11 *GUILTY* Thread starter liltexans; Start date Jul 2, 2017; . U. of I. The affidavit filed after Christensens June 2017 arrest provides chilling details; it says that authorities examined Christensens phone and alleges that he accessed a website entitled Abduction 101 and sub-threads that were called things like perfect abduction fantasy and planning a kidnapping. He had also worked as a Physics class teaching assistant. The potential site was alleged to be a landfill in Vermilion County, along the Illinois-Indiana border. If Yingyings remains are ever found, we will return to take her home to China where she belongs, her father said, according to ABC 7. Yingying ZHANG | Cited by 11,350 | of Tsinghua University, Beijing (TH) | Read 163 publications | Contact Yingying ZHANG Show more detail . Photo: Matt Dayhoff/Journal Star via AP. The surveillance video was provided by University of Illinois police. Zhang's father said if his daughter's remains are ever found, her family plans to take her body back to China. She stands by the bus stop beneath a tree. When the police questioned Brendt, he denied being involved in Zhangs disappearance. By defending features in the U.S. judicial process, I was in fact defending the life I had worked so hard to achieve. Murderer Brendt Allen Christensen. My height makes me more visible. He does not have to be beaten, my mother wrote. The zonules may directly participate in the formation of cataract via the immune mechanism. The fund had already amassed more than $30,000 by Wednesday morning. The same jury who convicted him later split on the death penalty. This study showed . My mother who lives in China believes that criminal suspects should be tortured till they confess, my 2017 self wrote, that innocent until proven guilty is a frightening flaw of the U.S. justice system., The post concluded with a hashtag, #help., I read the words now and am startled by the casual cruelty. Zhang was remembered as intelligent and extroverted. About. 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