Zhang's father said if his daughter's remains are ever found, her family plans to take her body back to China. She was diagnosed with Pyothorax (causes unknown). 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. Calls to her cell phone went unanswered. One student who had Christensen as a TA wrote on Reddit, I had him 3 years ago for physics 212 TA. HER BODY HAS NEVER BEEN FOUND. It opens with a pair of photos. Cops are also more likely to commit domestic abuse than the general population. Ive never felt as acutely aware of my identity as a Chinese woman in the U.S. My body is a constant reminder of the many ways society renders it vulnerable. 13. 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. All Rights Reserved. However, was Zhangs body ever found? Sex Female. Every person deserves safety, but when does justice bleed into vengeance, and how may our desires for protection embolden the systems that harm us? About. 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. Prosecutors indicated in court filings that Christensen may have destroyed the remains. Beckett said, so far, no search has begun at the landfill for Zhang's body. However, calls and texts to Zhangs phone went unanswered, and the worry heightened with time. University of Minnesota. Co-Authors. Body found later in a water tank at the top of the hotel, the coroner stated that she died by drowning. With no news of the Chinese student for several hours, university authorities decided to approach the police and file a missing person report. The Chinese government keeps the total number of executions per year classified. She was 26. The answer is no. I work in in the Team for Economic Evaluation and Health Technology Assessment (TEEHTA). The case is being featured on 20/20 on November 15, 2019. Author pages are created from data sourced from our academic publisher partnerships and public sources. When we turn away from the face of the condemned, were in fact refusing to look at ourselves, to confront our culpability in systems of oppression, to recognize the glimmer of humanity in the darkest corner. 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. 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. 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.. He could have been a colleague, a classmate, someone I encountered at a conference: a white guy who takes whiteness and manhood for granted, who uses nonchalance to mask his insecurity, who can act polite but will never see me as his equal. The only emotion I sensed during those hours of paralysis was an eerie calmness akin to closure, like I had spent my entire life treading the edge of a cliff and finally had to surrender to the air. When the police searched his car, nothing stood out of the ordinary at first glance. A federal jury convicted Christensen in June. Got a tip? Both the darkness and the light are part of what makes us human. Wenbing Luo, Jian Wang, Yingying Zhang: Software Quality Evaluation Model based on Multiple Linear Regression and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method. Christensen is not a social, charismatic person, and so is unlikely to recruit others to commit violent acts on his behalf. Five jurors agreed with this point. Yet historically, the Middle Kingdom was not any more punitive than its Western counterparts, and recent surveys show a two-thirds support rate for the death penalty in China, roughly the same as those from the U.S. over the same time period. Bottom: Brendt Christensen (Courtesy Macon . He also claimed he choked Zhang for 10 minutes as she fought for her life. Citations 15. The family of murdered Chinese scholar Yingying Zhang has finally learned what happened to the body of their beloved daughter. At present, Brendt Christensen is a federal prisoner serving his life sentence at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman II, in Florida. Shes gone forever. I replay this clip and reckon that Im again at fault for over-intellectualizing. People line up outside the federal courthouse for the first appearance of Brendt Christensen on July 3, 2017. In fact, the details of how Zhang died, which came out during trial, were awful. She called Christensen a demon. He later advised, however, he must have been either sleeping or he was playing video games at his residence all day. He admitted the car belonged to him, the affidavit said. My friends suggest that I was drugged. I had known this before, but seeing the words displayed on his page invoked an intense nausea that I doubled over. But as I research this story, she appears so young to me, like a distant reminiscence. Yangyang Cheng is a postdoctoral fellow at Yale Law Schools Paul Tsai China Center and a particle physicist. They also found evidence of a part of the car being cleaned extra thoroughly, which hinted towards Brendt hiding something. 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. June 16, 2021. Very new to the country, Zhang still hadnt settled down properly when a devastating state of affairs snuffed out her wonderful life. Previous research data suggested that Anemoside A3 (A3), a monomeric component of Pulsatilla Chinensis, could prevent and treat TNBC by converting M0 macrophages into M1 immunogen phenotypes. Police continue search for missing person, We are releasing this video as we continue our search for Yingying Zhang, missing since Friday, June 9. Her remains have never been found. We were the same age. She wanted to make a difference in the world.. Zhang, circa 2017; Brendt Christensen. Ms Zhang's parents and . Its generally estimated to be in the thousands and accounts for 80 percent or more of state executions globally. He was found guilty in the kidnaping, torture and murder of foreign student Zhang. 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. And there's plenty of other news articles about . "There is nothing in the world that we want more than to find our daughter and bring her home. Yingying never made it to the leasing office. The fund had already amassed more than $30,000 by Wednesday morning. That evening, unable to reach her, Yingyings Chinese colleagues reported her missing to the police. Ive spoken with many friends and colleagues in physics about this case. I too came to the U.S. for my Ph.D., and studied at the University of Chicago, a two-hour drive from UIUC, where many of my colleagues and friends work. 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. 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. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. Beckett said Christensen's defense attorneys told federal prosecutors what he did with Zhang's body in November 2018, but the information was provided under a grant of immunity, so prosecutors could not disclose the information to anyone until after the trial. Yingyings body has never been found. Yingying Zhang (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Zhng Yngyng) (December 21, 1990 - June 9, 2017) was born in the city of Nanping, Fujian Province, to Ronggao Zhang and Lifeng Ye.Zhang has one younger brother, Zhengyang. MRS Proceedings 1753 . A jury convicted Christensen of all charges in her death after 90 minutes of deliberation in June. Yingying ZHANG, Professor (Full) | Cited by 438 | of China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou | Read 47 publications | Contact Yingying ZHANG . Christensen is serving a life prison term. He was convicted two years later. Please let us bring Yingying home," Ronggao Zhang said. Now, among the familiar sight and through the familiar sound, I also see Yingying. Zhang's father said if his daughter's remains are ever found, her family plans to take her body back to China. 224. Missing Since 06/09/2017. The music starts and a dam breaks in me. If Yingyings remains are ever found, we will return to take her home to China where she belongs, her father said, according to ABC 7. Yingyings disappearance affirmed my mothers long-held belief that a foreign country is too dangerous for a Chinese woman like me. However, just three minutes later, the car returned, and Zhang was seen getting into it. Brendt Allen Christensen, a physics graduate student, will appear in federal court on Monday, on charges of abducting 26-year-old Yingying Zhang in June. Facebook reminds me that I have a memory from four years ago. He confessed to posing as an undercover police officer and picking Zhang up before bringing her back to his apartment. 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. I have seen this logo before. The heart of this question is not about measuring the harms of specific conduct but mapping the contours of state authority. The Terrifying Right to Remain Silent60 Days after Yingying Zhang's Disappearance. Last edited: Feb 8, 2021. The federal government was seeking the death penalty. For those opposed to the death penalty, is replacing the needle with a cage the only option? Beyond the immediacy of war, when is a state justified to kill? To date, no search has been undertaken. Zhang's body has not been found. 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 body has never been found. 10: 2021: The Vacancy Effect on Thermal Interface Resistance between Aluminum and Silicon by Molecular Dynamics. Murderer Brendt Allen Christensen. As the FBI listened on, Brendt revealed a terrifying truth to his girlfriend. I also recommend this Washington Post article, which links to a partial transcript of the trial. Even as the family of Yingying Zhang acknowledges the near impossibility of her remains ever being found, . 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. The song is Avril Lavignes Complicated. If I look back on the early aughts, when life revolved around school and heartbreak was about boys, Avrils voice will accompany those reels of memory. Her body was never found. A bilingual memorial service for Zhang will be held on Friday in Savoy, Illinois. Ph.D., 2016, Xiamen University. YingYing Zhang was a student from China who was murdered in Illinois. The affidavit provides a detailed accounting of the last moments Zhang is seen. My height makes me more visible. 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. Follow Author. Ph.D. student at Unversity of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Weeks before, a 26-year-old visiting scholar from China went missing on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She stands by the bus stop beneath a tree. I laugh. While a teenager in China, I had many fraught conversations with my mother about who should run errands after dark. 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. 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. 0000-0003-3769-079X; 0000-0003-3819-5467; . Was her body ever found? 2021. The family also said they are working with the University of Illinois to create a gravesite in her memory. 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. I was too heavy! I joke with my friends. 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. Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. 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. Former US doctoral student Brendt Christensen, 29, has been found guilty of the violent abduction and slaying of Chinese scholar Yingying Zhang in 2017. The documentary ' Finding Yingying ,' chronicles the disappearance of Zhang and bringing her justice while capturing the devastating impact on her . 15. I argued that its safer for me because Im tall. The potential site was alleged to be a landfill in Vermilion County, along the Illinois-Indiana border. Y Zhang, X Qian, Z Peng, N Yang. 216-228)Shanghai JiaoTong University Press (in . It was invaluable. The chest infection was so severe that her heart did not respond to CPR during surgery. Police searched her apartment and found nothing. Most of them would not have known the context behind my post. Chemistry and biochemistry instructors must help students to develop the ability to visualize and manipulate 3D biomolecular structures and critically analyze them and their relationship to their functions. The judge confirmed that its the former. Yingying is on stage with her band. A prosecutor told the court on July 5, 2017, that Christensen was recorded at a rally for Zhang by authorities and explained the characteristics of his ideal victim and, according to CNN, pointed out those in the crowd who matched them at a vigil he attended for the missing woman. The person helping authorities record Christensen was his then-girlfriend Terra Bullis. I pursued physics, the same discipline as her killer. 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. Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old Chinese scholar, traveled to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in April 2017 to pursue research in agriculture. Video showed her at an Urbana, Illinois, bus stop getting into a black Saturn vehicle, and, after that, she vanished without a trace. Would UIUC be a safer place if some of its resources for policing and surveillance went toward mental health services and supporting international students? After a mistrial, Hernandez, 56, was convicted at a second trial in 2017. With over 6,000 Chinese students, accounting for 12 percent of its student body, UIUC is home to the largest Chinese community among U.S. universities. April 02, 2022. I pretended that our discussion was an academic exercise because I could not bear the thought that in the fragile mind of my mother, who had raised me as a young widow, Yingying was me and I was her. Powered by. This is based on the information given by Christensens defense lawyers. 116313 (2021) [j53] view. 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. My mothers idea of a safe space shifted with my departure, from the immediacy of our home to the territorial bounds of a homeland. But I also knew the real point of tension between us in relation to this case had nothing to do with criminal procedure. Thats because, not only was Christensen convicted in Zhangs death, but his lawyer revealed in court that he admits to murdering her. Days after the murder, Christensen said he put Yingyings clothing, backpack, cell phone, books and other personal items into a large duffel bag and then distributed them in dumpsters throughout the Champaign-Urbana area. After the trial ended and public attention moved on, Yingyings disappearance has stayed with me like a needle floating in my veins. Prosecutors and Zhang's family had pushed for the death penalty , but a jury decision . First published on August 7, 2019 / 6:12 PM. However, Mike refused to divulge any information about the location of Zhangs remains. . 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. 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