The Brendt Christensen case is the 2017 kidnapping and murder of Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old Chinese visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, by a former physics graduate student at the same university. Christensen was convicted in federal court in June 2019 of kidnapping resulting in death and two counts of lying to the FBI. A jury deadlocked on whether to impose the death penalty, and he was sentenced to life in federal prison without the possibility of release. Zhang’s body has never been recovered.
Who Yingying Zhang Was
Zhang had arrived on the Urbana-Champaign campus in April 2017, about two months before her death, as a visiting researcher in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. She held a bachelor’s degree from Sun Yat-Sen University and a master’s in environmental engineering from Peking University, where she had been pursuing a doctorate. Her research at Illinois focused on photosynthesis and crop productivity, and she planned to become an agriculture professor.1The News-Gazette. For Yingying Zhang, Family Came First
How the Abduction Happened
On the morning of June 9, 2017, Christensen drove his black Saturn Astra through the area around campus. Around 9:00 a.m., he pulled up beside a woman named Emily Hogan at a bus stop, wore mirrored aviator sunglasses, and flashed a fake badge. He told her he was an undercover police officer and asked her to get in. She refused and walked away.2ABC News. Accused Killer of Missing University of Illinois Student Tried to Pick Up Another Woman
About four hours later, Zhang missed a bus on her way to an off-campus appointment. Surveillance cameras recorded her getting into Christensen’s car at a campus bus stop. The two had never met. It was the last time she was seen alive.3WTTW News. Brendt Christensen Sentenced to Life in Yingying Zhang Killing
How the FBI Identified and Arrested Him
Investigators cross-referenced the surveillance footage of the car with a list of Saturn Astra owners, a relatively uncommon model. They matched Christensen’s vehicle by details visible in the video, including a sunroof and a cracked hubcap. Agents also found that he had been searching online for news coverage of Zhang’s disappearance and that he had bought a large bottle of rum on the morning of the abduction, followed by Drano and garbage bags three days later.4ABC 7 Chicago. Video of FBI Interrogation Played on Day 2 of Brendt Christensen Trial
When the FBI first interviewed him, Christensen said he had been home playing video games. Confronted with the surveillance footage, he changed his account and claimed he had picked up an Asian woman and dropped her off shortly afterward. Both statements later became the basis for the false-statement counts.
Around the same time, agents approached Christensen’s then-girlfriend, Terra Bullis, and asked her to cooperate. She agreed to wear concealed recording devices disguised as a coffee mug and a Post-it note holder, and over several weeks she produced nine recordings of their conversations.5WTTW News. Former Girlfriend Testifies at Brendt Christensen Trial On June 29, 2017, at a vigil for Zhang, Christensen described to Bullis how he had raped, beaten, and decapitated Zhang in his Champaign apartment. He was arrested that same day, roughly three weeks after the abduction.
The Federal Charges
Christensen was charged in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. A superseding indictment returned October 3, 2017, charged him with kidnapping resulting in death under 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1) and two counts of making false statements to FBI agents under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2).6CourtListener. United States v. Christensen, Case No. 2:17-cr-20037 The kidnapping count alleged that he killed Zhang in an “especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner” involving torture or serious physical abuse.7Northern Public Radio. Arraignment Date Set for Kidnap, Murder Charges in Yingying Zhang Case On January 19, 2018, federal prosecutors filed notice that they would seek the death penalty, a decision noted because Illinois had abolished capital punishment at the state level.8Death Penalty Information Center. High-Profile Federal Death Penalty Trial of Brendt Christensen Ends in Life Sentence
The Trial and Guilty Verdict
The trial was held in Peoria before U.S. District Judge James Shadid and began June 12, 2019. Although Christensen had pleaded not guilty, federal defender George Taseff opened by telling the jury flatly that “Brendt Christensen is responsible for the death of Yingying Zhang.”9WTTW News. Defense Attorney: Brendt Christensen Killed Yingying Zhang The concession was a strategic bet on the penalty phase.
Prosecutors put on surveillance footage of Zhang entering the car; forensic testing that found Zhang’s DNA and blood on the underside of the carpet and carpet tackboard in Christensen’s apartment; a cadaver dog alert to the bathroom vanity; and a large bloodstain on Christensen’s mattress that DNA testing confirmed as Zhang’s.10WILL Illinois. Jury Gets Physical Evidence in Christensen Trial11ABC 7 Chicago. Jury Finds Brendt Christensen Guilty on All Counts
The most damaging evidence came from the Bullis recordings. Jurors heard Christensen describe taking Zhang to his bathroom, choking her for ten minutes, striking her in the head with a baseball bat, stabbing her in the neck, and decapitating her. On the recordings he compared himself to Ted Bundy, called Zhang his “13th victim,” and claimed he had been killing since age 19.12WCIA. Graphic Details Revealed in Wire Recording Evidence Bullis testified that he sounded “proud,” “excited,” and “boastful.”13Good Morning America. Brendt Christensen’s Girlfriend Says He Was Proud of Killing Yingying Zhang The defense argued the earlier-victim boasts were drunken exaggeration; Bullis said Christensen had been drinking during the recorded conversations but was not drunk, and investigators found no evidence linking him to any other crime.
Emily Hogan identified Christensen from a photo lineup and testified about the fake-badge encounter that morning. A former cellmate, Charles Hill, testified that Christensen had claimed to have a badge, a police radio, and zip ties in the car when Zhang got in.
On June 24, 2019, after roughly 90 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Christensen guilty on all three counts.8Death Penalty Information Center. High-Profile Federal Death Penalty Trial of Brendt Christensen Ends in Life Sentence
Why He Was Not Sentenced to Death
The penalty phase opened July 8, 2019. The defense offered 49 mitigating factors, including his mother’s history of alcohol abuse and depression, his childhood night terrors, his own mental illness, and his disclosure of homicidal thoughts to university counselors three months before the murder who did not intervene effectively. The defense abandoned a planned formal mental-health defense to avoid a mandatory psychiatric evaluation by prosecution-hired experts, and the court then barred it from arguing that mental illness affected Christensen’s conduct at the time of the crime.
On July 18, 2019, the jury told Judge Shadid it could not unanimously agree on death. Federal law requires unanimity to impose a death sentence, so the result was an automatic sentence of life in prison without release.14WCBU. Killer of Yingying Zhang Sentenced to Life in Prison At the sentencing hearing about 80 minutes later, Shadid told Christensen that the jury’s mercy reflected “their humanity, not your character” and cited his “complete and total lack of remorse.” The judge added consecutive five-year sentences on each false-statement count and ordered Christensen to pay $250,000 for each of the three convictions.3WTTW News. Brendt Christensen Sentenced to Life in Yingying Zhang Killing
Why Zhang’s Body Was Never Found
Under an immunity agreement reached in late 2018, Christensen told federal prosecutors that on June 10, 2017, he placed Zhang’s dismembered remains in three garbage bags, discarded them in a dumpster outside his apartment, and dumped her belongings in various trash receptacles around Champaign-Urbana.15WTTW News. Brendt Christensen Offers Information on Yingying Zhang Remains Investigators believe the dumpster’s contents were hauled to a private landfill in Vermilion County and compacted at least twice.16CBS News Chicago. Yingying Zhang Body Remains, Vermilion County
Attorneys for the Zhang family said any search would require removing tons of material from an area roughly 50 yards wide and covered by at least 30 feet of debris, and that decomposition and compaction could have reduced the remains to something smaller than a cellphone. The family’s attorneys and investigators have acknowledged that recovery may be impossible. Zhang’s father, Ronggao Zhang, has said publicly that the family still hopes to bring her home to China.17VOA News. Body of Chinese Scholar Murdered in Illinois May Never Be Found, Family Says
The Counseling Center Warnings and the Lawsuits
In March 2017, three months before the murder, Christensen visited the University of Illinois Counseling Center. He reported abusing prescription antidepressants and sleep medication, described the breakdown of his marriage, and disclosed suicidal and homicidal thoughts. His intake scores reached at or near the highest severity on measures of depression, anxiety, family distress, substance abuse, and overall distress.18WTTW News. Lawsuit Against University of Illinois Counseling Center Employees In sessions with counselors Thomas Miebach and Jennifer Maupin, he spoke of a fascination with serial killers, said he was “pretty far along” in planning to kill someone, and claimed to have bought items to transport and dispose of a body.19WILL Illinois. Mental Health Counselors Testify About Treatment for Brendt Christensen
Dr. Susan Zoline, an expert for the Zhang estate, later testified that the combination of homicidal and suicidal ideation should have raised his risk classification to “serious,” and criticized the center for not consulting with his psychiatrist. Miebach testified that he did not mandate a follow-up because Christensen had come in voluntarily and had scheduled his own next appointment, which he never kept.
The Zhang estate sued Miebach and Maupin in federal court in June 2019, alleging “deliberate indifference” to Christensen’s homicidal ideations. U.S. District Judge Colin Bruce dismissed the case in December 2019, finding that the counselors had not created a “specific danger” to Zhang and that her death was too remote a consequence of their actions.20WTTW News. Yingying Zhang Lawsuit Against U of I Counselors Tossed by Judge The estate refiled in Champaign County state court in January 2020. Circuit Judge Jason Bohm called the situation “unconscionable” but dismissed that lawsuit as well, holding that the law does not require mental health professionals to break patient confidentiality based on the type of revelations Christensen made.21CBS News Chicago. Judge Dismisses Lawsuit by Slain Chinese Scholar Yingying Zhang’s Family Against U of I Counselors
Where Christensen Is Now
After his conviction, guards at the Macon County jail found a suicide note Christensen had written soon after his 2017 arrest. He was placed on suicide watch and isolated from the general population for several months; the jury never heard about the note.22ABC 7 Chicago. Suicide Note Penned by Brendt Christensen By December 2019 he had been transferred to the McCreary United States Penitentiary in southern Kentucky, where he is serving life without the possibility of release.23WTTW News. Brendt Christensen Moved to Kentucky Prison to Serve Out Life Sentence