US Trial Begins In Case Of Missing Chinese Scholar
Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published June 04, 2019 | 01:10 AM
Peoria, United States, June 3 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Jun, 2019 ) :Jury selection began Monday in the trial of an American university student accused of kidnapping a visiting Chinese scholar who has been missing for two years and is presumed dead.
Zhang Yingying went missing in June 2017 when police say she got into a car belonging to Brendt Christensen near the campus of the University of Illinois. She was 26 years old at the time.
Police have not recovered Zhang's body but believe her to be dead.
The 29-year-old Christensen, who was a graduate student at the school in Champaign, a few hours south of Chicago, is charged with "kidnapping resulting in death." The Federal charge is eligible for the death penalty.
Jury selection at a courthouse in Peoria, Illinois was expected to take a week, with hundreds of people questioned to impanel 12 jurors and six alternates.
The missing student's parents, Zhang Ronggao and Ye Lifeng, attended the hearing.
Authorities claim they have audio of Christensen admitting to kidnapping and holding the young woman at his apartment.
Prosecutors intend to introduce testimony and evidence at trial that Christensen had expressed interest in serial killers, practiced bondage and sado-masochism and had attempted to arrange a "consensual kidnapping" via a fetishist website, according to a court filing.
They also intended to claim that Christensen had posed as a police officer and attempted to lure someone else into his car earlier on the day Zhang went missing.
Court filings say Christensen carried out the crime "in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner, in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse to the victim."Zhang was visiting the major US university to conduct research in photosynthesis and crop productivity. She went missing as she was on her way to sign a lease for a new apartment.
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