Guilty verdict rendered in student Zhang slaying

A federal jury in Illinois found Brendt Christensen guilty on Monday for the kidnapping, rape and brutal murder of Chinese visiting scholar Zhang Yingying.

After less than two hours of deliberations, the 12-member jury in US District Court in Peoria determined that Christensen was guilty of kidnapping resulting in the death of the 26-year-old Zhang and of two counts of making false statements to the FBI.

Starting July 8, the jury will decide if the 29-year-old former University of Illinois (UI) graduate student should be sentenced to death, which could be the first death sentence handed down in Illinois since the state abolished capital punishment in 2011. Federal law permits the death penalty for certain offenses.

The jury must be unanimous if it decides Christensen should face execution. Otherwise, he will be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In the penalty phase of the trial, prosecutors are expected to present reasons why Christensen deserves the death sentence, including how he brutally killed Zhang.

She was a top student who had graduated from Sun Yat-sen University and Peking University, arriving in the US in April 2017, to research photosynthesis and crop productivity at the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.

The defense team will argue why Christensen's life should be spared, by broaching his mental health issues.

"On the behalf of Yingying, our beloved daughter, and for my wife, my son and myself, I thank the jury for this step towards justice," Zhang Ronggao, the father of Zhang Yingying, said in a statement after the verdict on Monday.

He also expressed appreciation to the federal prosecutors, FBI, campus police and people who helped in the investigation and trial.

"We have missed Yingying tremendously in the past two years," he said. "As of today, we still could not imagine how we will live the rest of our lives without her."

"There is no language that can describe our pain and suffering," Zhang added. "We hope and believe that this trial will eventually bring justice to Yingying and us."

He said the family's wish has always been to find Yingying and bring her home.

"He kidnapped her, he murdered her, and he covered up his crime after months of planning and premeditation," assistant US attorney Eugene Miller told the jury during closing statements on Monday.

Miller also said that the case has "always been about the search for Yingying", according to The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois. "There is only one person that is responsible, and he sits right there, the defendant Brendt Christensen."

In the past week, the jury listened to several recordings of the conversation between Christensen and his then-girlfriend, in which he described in graphic detail how he sexually assaulted and killed Zhang — choking her, beating her with a baseball bat, stabbing her and ultimately decapitating her.

During a recording made as Christensen and his girlfriend took part in a memorial walk for Zhang in late June 2017, Christensen said Zhang was his 13th victim and bragged that the last serial killer "at his level was Ted Bundy", prosecutors argued.

They also presented evidence showing that Zhang's DNA was found in Christensen's bedroom and on the bat with which he claimed he struck her.

However, the verdict was largely expected because defense attorneys admitted Christensen killed Zhang in their opening statement on June 12. They also stated that again in closing statements on Monday.

"I expect that you will [find Christensen guilty]," said assistant federal defender Elisabeth Pollock.

"It's Brendt's fault," Pollock said. "It's nobody's fault but his.

"But we're going to move on after that," Pollock added, according to The News-Gazette. "You have to go into the next phase of the trial."

The defense team also described Christensen as a once happily married and successful student at UI who became consumed with dark thoughts and struggled with alcohol, the News-Gazette reported.

She also said Zhang's DNA and blood were found only inside Christensen's bedroom, not in the bathroom where he claimed he had actually beaten and killed her.

The defense team also said Christensen had been drinking heavily before the vigil, where he said Zhang was the 13th victim, but said that there was no evidence to show Christensen had killed anyone before Zhang.

On Friday, Christensen's ex-wife testified for the defense, describing the marital issues they had stemming from Christensen's abuse of alcohol, according to The News-Gazette.

Pollock said she wasn't making excuses for Christensen's actions, but trying to paint for jurors a better picture of his mental state in the weeks and months surrounding Zhang's death.

Zhang, who was last seen on June 9, 2017, has never been found.