Death penalty sought for murder of ‘very smiley’ Chinese academic Zhang Yingying by ‘secretly struggling’ killer Brendt Christensen
- No ‘ordinary crime’ prosecutors tell Illinois court and relatives of slain academic: ‘It was cold, cruel and calculated.’
- Brother of victim leaves court in tears after hearing testimony from friends
US prosecutors argued on Monday that an Illinois man who raped and murdered a Chinese graduate student two years ago should be executed, and called on her heartbroken fiancé and friends to tell the jury about the victim’s kind, optimistic nature.
A federal jury in Peoria, Illinois found Brendt Christensen, 29, guilty last month of the abduction and murder of Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The jury is now in the penalty phase of the trial.
“This was not an ordinary crime,” James Nelson, a prosecutor in the US Department of Justice’s capital case division, told the jury. “It was cold, cruel and calculated.”
Christensen’s lawyers have asked the jury to spare his life, saying he had long struggled with substance abuse and mental illness and had a family history of both.
“No one who grew up with Brendt would have ever guessed that this is how his life would end up,” Julie Brain, one of his lawyers, insisted. “This was a man secretly struggling with mental health his whole life.”