UNSETTLING

Attorney Says Slain Chinese Scholar’s Body May Be Buried in Illinois Landfill

The former University of Illinois student who killed Yingying Zhang has said, “They will never find her.”

The family of a slain Chinese scholar studying in the U.S. has been told their daughter’s body may be sitting in a landfill, The Champaign News-Gazette reports. Steve Beckett, an attorney for the family of Yingying Zhang, said the information was provided by defense lawyers as part of an immunity agreement, and it indicates Zhang’s remains could be in a landfill in Vermilion County in Illinois. The family was given this information following the trial of Brendt Christensen, who was sentenced to life in prison for Zhang’s murder. Zhang’s body was never found, and prosecutors offered to avoid seeking the death penalty if Christensen provided information on the body’s whereabouts. “I won’t tell you where she is. I won’t tell anyone. They will never find her,” Christensen previously said. Zhang was a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2017 when Christensen, a former University of Illinois doctoral student, kidnapped, raped, and killed her. A news conference with Beckett is scheduled for next week.