Murder of Yingying Zhang

Christensen, born June 30, 1989, is a former Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois.

Yingying Zhang (December 21, 1990 – June 9, 2017) was born in the city of Nanping, Fujian Province, to Ronggao Zhang and Lifeng Ye.

Zhang had one younger brother, Zhengyang.

She played in a band and had ambitions of becoming a professor in China.

Christensen married in March 2011, and started graduate school in 2013.

In 2013, Zhang graduated from Sun Yat-sen University at the top of her class.

He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013 with a bachelor's degree in math and physics and graduated with a master's degree in physics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in May 2017.

In 2016, she received a master's degree from Peking University.

Zhang was a visiting scholar in the Chinese Academy of Sciences before travelling to the United States.

On June 9, 2017, Yingying 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 lured Zhang into his car at a bus stop on campus posing as a police officer with the promise of a ride after she missed a bus, but then took her to his apartment where he raped and murdered her while his wife was out of town for the weekend.

On June 30, 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested and charged Christensen in federal court.

Christensen was tried and convicted of one count of kidnapping resulting in death and two counts of making false statements to agents of the FBI, but the jury deadlocked on whether or not to impose the death penalty.

She arrived in the United States in April 2017 to conduct research on photosynthesis and crop productivity for one year in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, within the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES), at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

She was considering entering a doctoral program at the University of Illinois.

Zhang planned to marry her boyfriend, Xiaolin Hou, in October 2017.

On the afternoon of June 9, 2017, Zhang was traveling on a Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (MTD) bus in Urbana, Illinois, to an off-campus apartment complex where she was planning to sign a new apartment lease.

She was running late and sent a text message to the leasing agent at 1:39 p.m. to inform them that she would arrive at approximately 2:10 p.m. After riding on one bus, she exited at 1:52 p.m. and tried to transfer to another.

However, because she was on the wrong side of the street for boarding, the bus did not stop after she attempted to flag it down.

The MTD stated it is against company policy to stop for pedestrians on the wrong side of the street, as to do so would encourage them to run into oncoming traffic.

Zhang then walked to another bus stop a few blocks away at the corner of North Goodwin Avenue and West Clark Street, directly in front of the university's PBS radio and television station, WILL.

Surveillance video cameras showed that a black Saturn Astra passed by her at 2:00 p.m. as she waited at the bus stop, and then circled back around the block and stopped where she was waiting at 2:03 p.m. She spoke to the driver for approximately one minute, and then entered the car.

The leasing agent sent a text message to her at approximately 2:38 p.m., but received no reply.

As the hours passed, Zhang's friends, aware of her errand and expecting her to return quickly, grew increasingly worried.

At 9:24 p.m., an associate professor called police to report her missing.

The University of Illinois Police Department and Urbana Police Department worked with FBI agents to locate Zhang, offering a reward of US$10,000 for information leading to her location.

The university's large Chinese student population helped coordinate search efforts on and around campus.

On June 17, Zhang's father, a paternal aunt (her father's sister-in-law), and her boyfriend arrived in Champaign to confer with authorities and to aid in the search.

On June 19, the University of Illinois in conjunction with Champaign County Crime Stoppers, announced a reward of $40,000 for information leading to the arrest of the individual or individuals responsible for the apparent kidnapping of Zhang.

This reward is the largest offered in the 31-year history of the Champaign Crime Stoppers organization.

On July 14 the reward was increased to $50,000.

Zhang's family said they would not leave the country until she was found.

On August 19, Zhang's mother and younger brother also flew to the United States.

Several citizens had reported seeing an Asian woman matching Zhang's description in Salem, Illinois, on June 16.

Zhang's family traveled to Salem to follow possible leads and the FBI investigated the reports, but it was later determined that the woman was not Zhang.

The university announced that they planned to install additional, high-definition, security cameras throughout the campus.

Investigators were unable to discern the license plate number of the vehicle from security camera footage.

However, they determined that there were 18 four-door Saturn Astras registered to owners in the Champaign County area.

One of these vehicles was registered to Brendt Allen Christensen, a Champaign resident.

Christensen was thus sentenced on July 18, 2019, to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole plus 10 years.