After his conviction and trial, the fate of Yingying Zhangs body came to light. One popular response claimed that the situation would have been better had Yingying been Black, Hispanic, or Muslim as these minority groups wield more political power in the U.S. than Asians, especially in a blue state like Illinois. ABC '20/20' brings into focus the kidnapping and murder of a Chinese scholar named Yingying Zhang who went missing on 9 June 2017. The Terrifying Right to Remain Silent60 Days after Yingying Zhang's Disappearance. 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. They have since divorced. Her life is frozen in time, while mine goes on. Explore Scholarly Publications and Datasets in the NSF-PAR. 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. On the right, a strapped gurney. In August 2019, Zhangs family was notified of the potential site of Zhangs remains by the prosecutors. Yingyings family believed that Christensen should be executed. 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. Every person deserves safety, but when does justice bleed into vengeance, and how may our desires for protection embolden the systems that harm us? With Zhang reported missing, there was a massive uproar in the university. During a follow-up investigation, authorities determined that the contents of Christensens dumpster were picked up on July 12, 2017, compacted at least twice, and taken to a private landfill near Danville, Illinois, the statement said. 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.. My friends suggest that I was drugged. The federal government was seeking the death penalty. Yingying Zhang is seen entering a black Saturn Astra on the east side of Goodwin Avenue in Urbana. 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. U. of I. Police searched her apartment and found nothing. Christensen is still in a downstate jail, awaiting assignment to a federal penitentiary where he will spend the rest of his life. It just adds to the tragedy, Miller said, because Zhangs family doesnt have her body back. In my proximity to both the victim and the perpetrator, Ive felt, however presumptuously, a particular responsibility: to bear witness to the case as it unfolded, and to try to wring some sense out of this senseless tragedy. I argued that its safer for me because Im tall. 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. Unfortunately, no. One of them, a law student, noted that the presumption of innocence is a first principle and a literally foundational American value.. The surveillance video was provided by University of Illinois police. It doesnt reveal whom Christensen was allegedly speaking with at the time. During the trial, several people, including Terra Bullis, testified against Brendt. Her phone was disabled moments later. 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 . My height makes me more visible. Photo: Stephen Haas/The News-Gazette via AP. Claim Author Page. That I had emerged unscathed made everything seem surreal. Yingying Zhang; Liangtao Li; Jiarui Guo; Yang Zhang; Xufeng Niu; Yang Wang ; Liang Hu et al. 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. The affidavit provides a detailed accounting of the last moments Zhang is seen. With a confession on hand, the FBI arrested Brendt Christensen and charged him with the murder of Yingying Zhang. Apr 7, 2021 I go back to the video and let the clock rewind. With the defense already admitting that Brendt killed Zhang, the jury did not take long to find him guilty of the crime. She was even decapitated. YingYing Zhang was a student from China who was murdered in Illinois. Japan Web Proxy Server*****Jiang Yuzhou was silent for a moment before saying: "You are still young, I can understand that you don't want to be bound by marriage early, but I think we are very suitable, if you want, we can not talk about marriage and talk about a relationship like other couples, you don't have to Just find someone to deal with."In his opinion, Gu Nai suddenly had a boyfriend . Yingying is an incredible young lady. However, theres no doubt, sadly, that Zhang is dead. My mothers idea of a safe space shifted with my departure, from the immediacy of our home to the territorial bounds of a homeland. He then confessed that he decapitated Zhangs body and disposed of the parts separately to reduce the chances of discovery. 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. The female entered his vehicle and attempted to show Christensen where she needed to go through her cell phone map app.. Brendt Christensen, 30, kidnapped, tortured and killed U of I scholar Yingying Zhang in 2018. 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. The documentary ' Finding Yingying ,' chronicles the disappearance of Zhang and bringing her justice while capturing the devastating impact on her . Of course Yingying's Charley Project casefile has the basics. Brendt Christensen, the 29-year-old who was sentenced to life in . A minute later she gets in the car and it drives off. New information is expected to be provided on the search for her body in a . Beyond the immediacy of war, when is a state justified to kill? Sep 2017 - Dec 20225 years 4 months. 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. 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. 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. By defending features in the U.S. judicial process, I was in fact defending the life I had worked so hard to achieve. The attorney argued he had mental health issues and the case was essentially to set up the next phase of the trial, Christensens sentencing. MRS Proceedings 1753 . People from the FBI also testified that Zhangs DNA and her blood were found inside Brendts apartment, which unmistakeably linked him to the crime. June 16, 2021. She gets off the bus. Its sadly ironic that prisons are called penitentiaries or correctional facilities, while theyre designed for neither repentance nor rehabilitation but segregation and retribution. Most sexual assaults are never reported and fewer than three percent lead to a conviction. Prosecutors said Christensen raped, choked and stabbed Zhang before beating her to death with a bat and decapitating her. 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 . 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. Christensen was accused of saying on tape: Shes gone. She walks over and leans in the passenger side window. I eventually regained some mobility and dialed a friend. At 2 p.m., a black Saturn Astra, driven, police say, by Christensen was observed on video passing Zhang at the bus stop and then circling back to her location, according to the affidavit. She exited the bus and tried to flag down another one, but it continued past her without stopping. China Central Television ran a feature: The Terrifying Right to Remain Silent60 Days after Yingying Zhangs Disappearance. When Yingying Zhang went missing on June 9, 2017, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was thrown into chaos as people searched frantically for the visiting Chinese scholar. 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 . Both the darkness and the light are part of what makes us human. According to Bullis, who testified during Christensens trial, she felt very conflicted because she still cared for Christensen, but she also cared about what had happened to Zhang. Superior Unidirectional Water Transport and Mechanically Stable 3D Orthogonal Woven Fabric for Human Body Moisture and Thermal Management. its incredibly painful, Bullis said in court, according to CBS Local. It was invaluable. 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. 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. He was recorded confessing to killing her and has an online history at FetLife re . 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. He does not have to be beaten, my mother wrote. Referenced Authors. I was too heavy! I joke with my friends. The lens zonule is the elaborate system of extracellular fibers, which not only centers the lens in the eye but also plays an important role in accommodation and lens immunity, maintains the shape of the lens, and corrects spherical aberration. 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. Yingying Zhang-Zhang; Sylvia Rohlfer; Jay Rajasekera . 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. I have seen this logo before. "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. To be a Chinese student or scholar in the U.S. is to chart a lonely existence. Zhang went missing on June 9, 2017, as she was headed to sign a lease for an off-campus apartment in Urbana. Penculikan dan pembunuhan Yingying Zhang terjadi di Urbana, Illinois, Amerika Serikat pada tanggal 9 Juni 2017 ketika Zhang, seorang sarjana tamu di Universitas Illinois Urbana-Champaign, diculik oleh Brendt Allen Christensen, seorang warga kota Champaign dan alumni jurusan fisika di universitas yang sama. Yingying Zhang. Cruel as his act was, to cast Christensen as a uniquely-depraved individual would be to ignore all the historical and contemporary acts of mass violence, of wars, genocides, slavery, and colonization. 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. In 2017 she went missing on her way to sign a lease, and after missing a bus. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. 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. The driver, to his credit, took me to my friends place. . It was labeled Government Exhibit 1A and shown on the first day of the trial. Who, or what, keeps a community safe? Authorities interviewed Christensen who allegedly told authorities that, between 2 and 3 p.m. on June 9, 2017, the day that Zhang disappeared, he could not initially recall his whereabouts. The apartment was off-campus, and thus, Zhang had to travel quite a bit from her university to get to it. 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. Paradoxically, it also offers a primal sense of security. The badge was found by a motorist about two-and-a-half miles from Christensen's apartment. He was arrested on June 30, his 28th birthday. The potential site was alleged to be a landfill in Vermilion County, along the Illinois-Indiana border. 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. One student who had Christensen as a TA wrote on Reddit, I had him 3 years ago for physics 212 TA. Can we find that guys mother? she asks. A new documentary, Finding Yingying, premiered at film festivals last year to critical acclaim and is now available on streaming platforms. 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. The sentencing phase of the trial took place two weeks later. Christensen was convicted of kidnapping and killing Zhang at trial in June, and later was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release. Brendt Christensen, 30, kidnapped, tortured and killed U of I scholar Yingying Zhang in 2018. 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. Was her body ever found? Yingying Zhang. She was last seen on surveillance video at her . On the other hand, law enforcement also learned that Brendt was in an open marriage with Michelle Zortman while dating Terra Bullis at the same time. On the 9 th of June 2017 a 26 year old Chinese scholar studying at the University of Illinois went missing. Alpha, our German Shepherd dog, left us forever on Feb 28, 2021. "An attorney whos been representing the family is evidently holding a news conference this afternoon in Urbana to discuss information the government provided the family following trial based on statements Christensen made to his attorneys late last year and prior to trial," a spokesperson for the attorney's office said in a statement. 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 replay this clip and reckon that Im again at fault for over-intellectualizing. She played guitar and sang in a band called Cute Horse in China. On the other hand, the threat of sexual violence is effectively sanctioned as a condition of incarceration, and 60 percent of sexual assaults in prison or jail are committed by staff. After this, he allegedly disposed her personal items, around the Champaign-Urbana area. 224. At the end of the verdict form, the jury added a mitigating factor: Mr. In one recording, Christensen is accused of saying that Zhang fought him, and that he took her back to his apartment and held her there against her will last month, CNN reported. The heart of this question is not about measuring the harms of specific conduct but mapping the contours of state authority. Steve Beckett, Zhangs family lawyer said, 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(Federal investigators) described for us that at this stage, with decomposition and then compaction, the size of the remains could be smaller than a cellphone.. Zhangs family reportedly provided the first gift for the endowment. However, was Zhangs body ever found? She told police that her husband was a psychopath and that she was 80% certain he had kidnapped and killed the Chinese scholar. Yingying Zhang Zhang; Zhonghua Gao (Contributorpp. "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. . 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. ? or IF he was free? Christensen allegedly claimed that he believed he made a wrong turn because the female became panicked. He initially claimed that he then let the female out of the vehicle in a residential area a few blocks away from where he picked her up. Her name was Yingying Zhang. Photo: Matt Dayhoff/Journal Star via AP. However, soon, through the lenses of CCTVs, the police learned that the answer might be a lot closer to home than people thought. 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. 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 . Yingying Zhang's father, Ronggao Zhang, reads a statement in Chinese outside the federal courthouse in Peoria, Illinois, on Monday, June 24, 2019, moments after a 12-person jury found Brendt Christensen guilty of her kidnapping and death. When she did not turn up on time for the lease signing, the agent sent her a text which went unanswered. Police noticed that the Saturn in video footage had a sunroof and cracked front passenger hubcap, as did Christensens car, alleged the affidavit. 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