The only logical explanation, as far as I can tell, is that the jurors were only thinking about violence outside prison, whether Christensen would be able to commit it himself (impossible) or persuade someone on the outside to (unlikely). ABC 20/20 brings into focus the kidnapping and murder of a Chinese scholar named Yingying Zhang who went missing on 9 June 2017. 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. ILLUSTRATION:JORDAN LEE. electronic edition via DOI; unpaywalled version; references . Western critics point to this as another example of the countrys abysmal human rights record, while Chinese officials and prominent academics claim that the legitimacy of capital punishment is ingrained in Chinese tradition and endorsed by its people. At the time of my disagreement with my mother, a former Ph.D. candidate in physics at the same university had been apprehended and charged with the kidnapping and death of Yingying. Ms Zhang's parents and . After nine days of trial and less than two hours of deliberations, the jury found Christensen guilty. She wanted to make a difference in the world.. 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 was 26. A grief stricken Lifeng Ye, second from right, the mother of slain University of Illinois scholar Yingying Zhang, is supported by a friend Lin Guiping and Yingying's brother Zhengyang Zhang, right . According to ABC 7, after Christensens trial, it was revealed that he told his lawyers that he put Yingyings remains in three separate garbage bags and placed them in a dumpster outside his Champaign apartment. Authorities think Zhangs body might be in multiple landfills, but thats never been determined for sure. Missing Since 06/09/2017. Yingyings family believed that Christensen should be executed. When Yingying Zhang went missing on June 9, 2017, the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign was thrown into chaos as people searched frantically for the visiting Chinese scholar. "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. On June 9, 2017, the day Zhang went missing, she was supposed to meet a leasing agent to sign for a new apartment where she planned to stay. Five years ago in April 2017, Yingying Zhang arrived at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an international student and a visiting scholar to pursue her doctorate. Shraman Mitra. "If you have any humanity left in your soul, please end our torment. Send it to The Daily Beasthere. 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.". Beckett planned to address the development at a news conference beginning at 3 p.m. CST, but that news conference was later postponed. 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. Friends offered up advice in the comments below. The defense attorneys opening statement shocked everyone in the courtroom. Yingying Zhang - update. The potential site was alleged to be a landfill in Vermilion County, along the Illinois-Indiana border. This greatly alarmed counselors, but they later deduced that he was not in immediate need of hospitalization. Yangyang Cheng is a postdoctoral fellow at Yale Law Schools Paul Tsai China Center and a particle physicist. Revisiting Yingyings story at this moment is not only relevant, but also necessary. Yingying Zhangs remains were never found. The case is being featured on 20/20 on November 15, 2019. Several lamented that while foreigners in China are showered with privileges, Chinese people overseas endure second-class status. In addition to this, a memorial stone with Zhangs name was placed on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Thus, Zhangs family continues to mourn Zhangs death without even the smallest comfort of being able to lay her body to rest. ABC reports that Bullis testified that she Christensen seemed excited and proud when he discussed killing Zhang. 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. While capital punishment has little effect in deterring criminal behavior, in the era of mass incarceration, vocal support of the death penalty has become an effective tool for elected officials, including judges and prosecutors, to signal their tough stance on crime, hence appealing to the nations racist impulses and the publics thirst for vengeance. Torture during detention is commonplace in China. Brendt Christensen has been convicted of the murder of 26-year-old doctoral student Yingying Zhang, whose body has never been found. The FBI placed Christensen under surveillance and monitored his conversations. Two months after Yingying went missing, her mother and younger brother arrived in the U.S. As seen about halfway through the film, the humble woman from Nanping weeps in the backseat of a car. That was just hours before Zhang was seen getting into Christensen's black Saturn Astra, the last time she was seen alive. The FBI approached Bullis, who was very confident about Brendts innocence. 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. Christensen stated that he brought Zhang back to his apartment, and otherwise held her in his apartment against her will, the affidavit alleges. Beckett said, after the trial, Zhang's family met with federal prosecutors on July 25, and were told what Christensen's defense attorneys had revealed about what he did with Zhang's remains. 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. "A lot of news coverage of . Previous Articles Next Articles The Empowerment of Rural Women through Digital Entrepreneurship: A Case of Typical Villages in Qianpai Town, Guangdong Province Zhang was remembered as intelligent and extroverted. Christensen is serving a life prison term. Yingying Zhang was a Chinese national enrolled at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign as a visiting student. My mother forwarded many of these reports to me. By this time, Zhangs family flew in from China and helped in the search. 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 political catastrophes in the first half of the 20th century brought a new urgency and understanding to human rights and the necessity of constraining state power. Classification Endangered Missing. Brendt Christensen, the 29-year-old who was sentenced to life in . By the time they provided that information, it was almost 18 months after she would have been placed in the landfill, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Miller, ABC reported. 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. However, was Zhangs body ever found? According to the University of Illinois police, Zhang, a graduate student from China, disappeared on June 9, 2017. Its loss can never be repaid. The kidnapping and murder of Yingying Zhang occurred in Urbana, Illinois on June 9, 2017, when Zhang, a visiting Chinese scholar at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was abducted by Brendt Allen Christensen, a Champaign resident and former physics graduate student at the university. Investigation Discoverys See No Evil: Far from Home chronicles the disappearance and the horrifying ordeal Zhang had to endure before her untimely death. (AP/AAP) Zhang's mother, Lifeng Ye, cried . One says that I might have had an allergic reaction, which is the version I swear to because the alternative is unthinkable. Statement from family's lawyers: @WCIA3 pic.twitter.com/SaYqeuwE3h. Alpha was very healthy and energetic otherwise. However, just three minutes later, the car returned, and Zhang was seen getting into it. Its on the T-shirt Yingying wore in a photo shortly after arriving in the U.S. 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. / CBS Chicago. Its sadly ironic that prisons are called penitentiaries or correctional facilities, while theyre designed for neither repentance nor rehabilitation but segregation and retribution. Among the hundreds of exhibits used in the trial, theres a 90-second clip. Two days later, he put her personal belongings including her clothes, backpack, cell phone, and books into a duffel bag, and drove around the Champaign-Urbana area, throwing them in various dumpsters. Yingyings body has never been found. Cameras show her getting into a black car and authorities identified Brendt Christensen as the suspect. (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. Death penalty or life in prison: What if neither leads to justice? The Wisconsin native had just graduated from UIUC with a masters degree in physics, after deciding that a Ph.D. was not for him. By 9:24 p.m., an associate professor reported that Zhang was missing. If you are interested to know more about this specific case and where Zhangs killer is now, we have got you covered. I laugh. Christensen, 30, was sentenced to life without parole. The former girlfriend of accused killer Brendt Christensen, who recorded his alleged admission of brutally killing 26-year-old Chinese scholar Yingying Zhang, testified Wednesday that Christensen . Her death was not random. Im surprised, though perhaps I should not be, by how little awareness there is. Rights of a criminal suspect were seen as obtuse hurdles inhibiting a swift conviction. 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. He was recorded confessing to killing her and has an online history at FetLife re . Steve Beckett of the Beckett Law Office in Urbana said Friday that Zhang's family learned from prosecutors in the case that her remains could be in a landfill in Vermillion County. Photo: Matt Dayhoff/Journal Star via AP. Yingying Zhang was a visiting scholar from China at UIUC. My biggest concern is that the suspect wont get a severe punishment, Yingyings father says in the film. What happened to Yingying could never have happened in China, she insisted, echoing the talking points on state media that U.S. authorities were only paying attention to the case because China is strong. ABC '20/20' brings into focus the kidnapping and murder of a Chinese scholar named Yingying Zhang who went missing on 9 June 2017. Shes gone forever. Read More: Where is Brendt Christensen Today? A federal jury convicted Christensen in June. He even displayed a badge. 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.. 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. At present, Brendt Christensen is a federal prisoner serving his life sentence at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman II, in Florida. Her accusations were never presented to the jury. The 26-year-old visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, disappeared June 9, 2017. People from the FBI also testified that Zhangs DNA and her blood were found inside Brendts apartment, which unmistakeably linked him to the crime. Even as the family of Yingying Zhang acknowledges the near impossibility of her remains ever being found, . The defense was signaling to the jury that life in prison is already a very harsh sentence and sufficient punishment for this crime. The memorial garden for Yingying Zhang outside Campbell Hall on the UIUC campus, near where she was last seen. Zhangs family reportedly provided the first gift for the endowment. Verified email at umn.edu. Zhangs friends, too, had no idea about her whereabouts, and they were worried about the visiting student getting into trouble in an unfamiliar place. The sentencing phase of the trial took place two weeks later. 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. About. (Feature Image Credit: ABC 20/20). Powered by. 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. Christensen was found guilty on June 24, 2019, of kidnapping resulting in death and two counts of lying to investigators. Brendt Christensen, a former Ph.D. student at the same university, was convicted of Zhangs murder in 2019. (Zhang Family Photo via AP, File) PEORIA, Ill. (AP) The Latest on the trial of man charged in slaying . On Friday, June 9, Yingying left the office during lunch hour to sign a lease for a new apartment across town. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Yingying Zhang was born on December 21, 1990 in China. 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. Ph.D., 2016, Xiamen University. August 7, 2019 / 6:12 PM As per Zhangs family lawyers statements, the contents of the dumpster were taken to Danville, where it was compacted twice. Christensen, 30, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison last month in the June 2017 kidnapping and killing of Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old University of Illinois graduate student who had . 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. The I-Team has also learned that soon after Christensen's arrest, he wrote a letter saying he wanted to end his life. Would UIUC be a safer place if some of its resources for policing and surveillance went toward mental health services and supporting international students? In one of the audio recordings, according to ABC, Christensen described how Zhang fought back, saying, that it was supernatural almost how [Zhang] just didnt give up. He then claimed he attacked Zhang with a baseball bat before decapitating her. In a string of angry messages, I picked apart her arguments and refuted them one by one. Based on this, and other facts uncovered during the investigation of this matter, law enforcement agents believe that Ms. Zhang is no longer alive, the affidavit contends. Her body never found, the family still hoping to someday bring her . HER BODY HAS NEVER BEEN FOUND. 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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. When she did not turn up on time for the lease signing, the agent sent her a text which went unanswered. Lifeng Ye, mother of slain University of Illinois scholar Yingying Zhang, cries out in grief as her husband, Ronggao Zhang, left, addresses the media after a jury found Brendt Christensen guilty . 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. Do It Right 2021' . Prisons cannot solve the problem of prevalent harm in society and are in fact part of the problem, as they perpetuate the logics of power and domination, of segregation and dehumanization, which are also the logics of patriarchy and white supremacy. Some documents remain sealed, including Christensen's medical and mental health records, and those of his entire family. 1 hospitalized after fire in West Town, CFD says, Jupiter and Venus appear to 'kiss' in the sky, Belvidere Jeep assembly plant shut down indefinitely. A world safe and free means that no one is left behind. I download it and press play. The image was used in the missing person bulletin by the police and the FBI. 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. Beckett said the defense team for her killer, Brendt Christensen, disclosed the location of Zhang's body as part of a failed immunity agreement. I go back to the video and let the clock rewind. 116313 (2021) [j53] view. He was arrested on June 30, his 28th birthday. To be a Chinese student or scholar in the U.S. is to chart a lonely existence. Its worth cannot, and should not, be measured by the extent of state-sponsored punishment exacted on the man who took it. Race Asian. 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. 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. Yingying is on stage with her band. When the police began looking into black Saturn Astras around the area where Zhang was last spotted, they came across one Brendt Christensen, who owned the same kind of car. 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. Yingyings disappearance affirmed my mothers long-held belief that a foreign country is too dangerous for a Chinese woman like me. However, soon, through the lenses of CCTVs, the police learned that the answer might be a lot closer to home than people thought. 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. A new documentary, Finding Yingying, premiered at film festivals last year to critical acclaim and is now available on streaming platforms. "There is nothing in the world that we want more than to find our daughter and bring her home. If someone is deemed prone to violence as a free man, then hes likely to become more so in prison, where violence is the norm. I eventually regained some mobility and dialed a friend. 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. Zhang's father said if his daughter's remains are ever found, her family plans to take her body back to China. Her name was Yingying Zhang. I am passionate . A bilingual memorial service for Zhang will be held on Friday in Savoy, Illinois. The alternative for a crime of this nature is life in prison. The night ended with me being helped into an Uber, where I stayed for the next three hours. 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. The Chinese government keeps the total number of executions per year classified. 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. A minute later she gets in the car and it drives off. 2021 | Journal article DOI: 10. Who, or what, keeps a community safe? Yingying Zhang, 26, a visiting scholar doing research at the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, went missing on June 9, 2017 in Champaign, and her body was never found . Having seen how much Yingyings family has suffered, Shi, the director, narrates in the film, I really hoped for the death penalty. We met for breakfast in Chicago and I asked about this statement. Many in the comment section praised the efficiency of Chinese police and the capabilities of the countrys Skynet surveillance system. 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. Associate Professor, Tsinghua University - Cited by 8,825 - Nanomaterials - Nanochemistry - Carbon nanotubes 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. But he can be interrogated day and night until he confesses.. 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. A black sedan circles around the block and stops in front of her. According to News Gazette, she testified that Christensen typed the following, showed it to her, and then deleted it: It was me. Amidst a global pandemic caricatured as a product of Asian pathology, my birth country has descended further down the abyss of authoritarianism, my adopted home teeters on the brink of fascism, and relations between the two superpowers are at their lowest point in decades. Yingying Zhang. The following month, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. On the left is a grim, gray facility with barbed wires and a watch tower. 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. Christensen was accused of saying on tape: Shes gone. "Due to the compaction process, Yingying's bodily remains may be very, very small in size," Beckett said. A US former doctoral student has been spared the death penalty for kidnapping and murdering a 26-year-old Chinese scholar, prompting widespread anger in China. In a flurry of anguished messages, she told me to stop wearing high-heels so I could run faster in case of danger. The last public execution took place in Kentucky in 1936, when 20,000 people gathered to watch the hanging of a young Black man convicted of rape. Yingying Zhang-Zhang; Sylvia Rohlfer; Jay Rajasekera . She was even decapitated. Cultural difference makes for a convenient excuse to validate the self and exoticize the other. He told authorities that he was at home around the time in question. To date, no search has been undertaken. As per Zhangs family lawyers statements, the contents of the dumpster were taken to Danville, where it was compacted twice. It creates and reinforces a binary: us versus them, good versus evil, the deserving versus the unwanted. The same jury who convicted him later split on the death penalty. He seemingly boasted about choking, sexually assaulting, and beating Zhang to death with a baseball bat. 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. And there's plenty of other news articles about . Nanoscale thermal transport. 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. 2021. Christensen is still in a downstate jail, awaiting assignment to a federal penitentiary where he will spend the rest of his life. April 27, 2022. Now, among the familiar sight and through the familiar sound, I also see Yingying. Yingying is an incredible young lady. 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. Earlier this week, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign created an endowment, called Yingyings Fund, that is aimed at helping international students during times of hardship, when they need it most, according to the funds donation page. I feel sorry that Ive brought knowledge of this gruesome crime to people dear to me, but Ive always felt responsible for Yingyings death, that Im complicit by my profession. "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. According to this unsealed motion, he was placed on suicide watch and isolated from the general population for several months. In that split second of irrational fear, I took solace in the fact that he is behind bars. . Body Discovered Date Never Found. Calls to her cell phone went unanswered. Zhang was a visiting scholar at the university. 3.2.Expression profiles of HMGB1, and TLR4 signaling molecules during APAP-induced liver injury. A large media contingent awaiting the start of the Yingying Zhang news conference at @Beckett6Steve's office in Urbana. At 1:39 p.m., she sent a text message from her cell phone to a manager of a different apartment complex in Urbana, Illinois, where she intended to sign a lease. It has been shown that a low BCAA diet can lead to dramatic changes in metabolism, including an increase in energy expenditure, enhancement of ketogenesis, upregulation of Fgf21, and a decrease in body weight in mice (Newgard et al, 2009; Lotta et al, 2016; Cummings et al, 2018; Karusheva et al, 2019; Zhou et al, 2019; Richardson et al, 2021 . Authorities narrowed their search down to 18 four-door Saturn Astra vehicles registered in Champaign County and interviewed the owners. 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 . During the trial, several people, including Terra Bullis, testified against Brendt. While a teenager in China, I had many fraught conversations with my mother about who should run errands after dark. After his conviction and trial, the fate of Yingying Zhangs body came to light. Yingying never made it to the leasing office. 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. University of Illinois PoliceYingying Zhang. Deceased/Not Found IL - Yingying Zhang, 26, Urbana, 9 June 2017 #11 *GUILTY* Thread starter liltexans; Start date Jul 2, 2017; . 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. Last edited: Feb 8, 2021. Illinois has outlawed the death penalty, but the case was tried in federal court. Police searched her apartment and found nothing. However, Mike refused to divulge any information about the location of Zhangs remains. There were also statements from Christensen's wife at the time of the investigation in the newly unsealed records. Every person deserves safety, but when does justice bleed into vengeance, and how may our desires for protection embolden the systems that harm us? On Friday in Savoy, Illinois our daughter and bring her home a lease for a new,! 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