On June 9, 2017, Chinese visiting scholar Yingying Zhang disappeared at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Since then, the "Zhang Yingying case" has had ups and downs in the process of cracking down, from confirming her disappearance and filing a case, to determining that Zhang Yingying was in a black "Saturn Astra" car driven by a stranger before her disappearance, to locking the criminal suspect Christensen;
To Christensen's refusal to admit guilt, to the FBI to find evidence of Christensen's abduction of Zhang Yingying and arrest him, to the US federal grand jury to formally prosecute Christensen on suspicion of kidnapping Chinese visiting scholar Zhang Yingying;
From Zhang Yingying's confirmation of being killed by Christensen, to the federal grand jury formally indicting Christensen for "kidnapping to death", and finally to Christensen's sentence to life imprisonment and never released on bail, every step of the case touched the hearts of Zhang Yingying's family, friends, classmates and many Chinese compatriots who cared about Zhang Yingying's whereabouts.
Why would Yingying Zhang get into a stranger's car? How did the FBI find evidence of Christensen's crimes without pleading guilty? Why was Christensen in federal court and not in Illinois court?
Why did Christensen admit to kidnapping and killing Yingying Zhang, and the FBI confirmed that Yingying Zhang was dead, but the US police could not ask Christensen to reveal the whereabouts of Yingying Zhang's body? What twists and turns happened in the process of investigation and trial of the "Zhang Yingying case", and why wait until 2019 to announce the verdict?
Zhang Yingying, a girl known as "Xueba" by her friends, grew up with the top few grades, studied at Sun Yat-sen University with an undergraduate degree, graduated from the Shenzhen Research Institute of Peking University with a master's degree, and later studied at the Chinese Academy of Sciences for a year.
In 2017, Yingying Zhang received the opportunity to be an international visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with excellent results. For this hard-won opportunity to study abroad, Zhang Yingying cherished it.
Previously, she had the opportunity to study in Canada, but because her family was not rich, the cost of studying abroad was at least 80,000 yuan per year, which was undoubtedly a huge amount of money for Zhang Father, who only had a monthly income of two or three thousand, so Zhang Yingying, who was sensible, took the initiative to give up this opportunity.
This time, because of the support of the school, there are fewer places where Zhang Yingying needs to study in the United States at her own expense, so it is a rare opportunity for Zhang Yingying, who has always wanted to continue her studies, so she decided to seize this opportunity after consulting with her family.
On April 26, Yingying Zhang came to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States and began her study abroad career.
At this time, no one would have thought that just in the past month or so, Zhang Yingying, who came to the United States with full maturity and dreamed of returning to China after completing her studies, would suddenly suffer bad news and die in a foreign country.
On June 9, for Zhang Yingying's family, friends or Chinese compatriots who cared about Zhang Yingying, this day was destined to be sad and unforgettable, and Zhang Yingying disappeared on this day.
Some time ago, Zhang Yingying because of the expensive rent of the student apartment she lives in now, in order to save some money and reduce the burden on the family, she thought of switching to a four-person shared house, so that she could save 300 US dollars per month, and then she quickly found a satisfactory four-person shared house. On the day of her disappearance, she made a special trip to make time and made an appointment with the rental office manager to sign a rental contract at 2 p.m.
Zhang Yingying was scheduled to arrive at the rented apartment at 2 p.m. and sign a contract with the rental office manager, but because of some things at the school, Zhang Yingying delayed some time, because she felt that she could not catch up, and after informing the manager, she postponed the meeting time by 10 minutes.
However, because Zhang Yingying accidentally went in the opposite direction when crossing the intersection on the way to catch the bus, when the bus came, because she stood in the opposite direction of the bus stop, the bus driver did not stop, resulting in missing the bus.
After missing this bus, the next bus will have to wait at least 30 minutes, obviously it is impossible to wait until the next bus to go to the apartment to sign the contract.
So can't wait for the bus, where did Zhang Yingying go?
According to post-mortem surveillance, at 1:57 a.m., Yingying Walked North along North Goodwin Avenue to the intersection of West Clark Avenue and North Goodwin Avenue, and stopped in a shade in the southeast direction, where a bus stop was located. After stopping at the bus stop, she looked left and right, obviously thinking about playing here or finding someone familiar and passing by to take her to the apartment.
About three minutes later, a black Saturn "Astra" sedan was driving from west to east, slowing down and stopping as it passed by Zhang Yingying. The driver was Christensen, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who at that time was a prominent figure at the University of Illinois, winning the title of "Best Teaching Assistant" every semester, and because of this, Zhang Yingying trusted him unreservedly and got into his car just by communicating with him for more than a minute.
According to the recollection of Zhang Yingying's friends afterwards, Zhang Yingying was actually very cautious, often telling them not to get into strangers' cars and to be careful when going out. The main reason why the cautious Zhang Yingying got into Christensen's car on the day of her disappearance was that Christensen was an assistant teacher at the school and he was also very popular with students from the honors he received.
Zhang Yingying instinctively thought that since the students liked him and he was the school's teaching assistant, then he could not be a bad person, and she was anxious to sign the rental contract on time, so she did not hesitate to get into the car.
At this moment, what Zhang Yingying didn't know was that Christensen was not as simple as it seemed on the outside, there was a demon living in his heart, and he was a murderous person with a human face and a beast heart.
According to Christensen's confession afterwards, he stared at Zhang Yingying before stopping, when he first passed by Zhang Yingying and did not stop but was always hesitating, hesitating whether to do anything to her, hesitating when he was always circling around, a few minutes later to see that she had no friends around and looked a little anxious, he made up his mind to do something to her.
When he circled back to Zhang Yingying's side, he stopped the car. Sitting in christensen's car, this is the last figure of Zhang Yingying in the world. Since then, relatives and friends have never been able to get in touch with her.
At about 9:24 p.m. that night, an associate professor who knew Zhang Yingying reported to the University of Illinois Police Department that Zhang Yingying was missing. The reaction of Teacher Zhang Yingying and her classmates cannot be described as not rapid, just in the past six or seven hours, they immediately reported the case as missing.
Some people may not understand why they would conclude that Zhang Yingying was missing in such a short period of time? First of all, Zhang Yingying in their eyes is a girl with regular work and rest, self-discipline in life, and simple friends, and has never returned to the dormitory so late.
Secondly, they knew that Zhang Yingying was going to sign a rental contract with the rental apartment manager this day, and the security in the area where the University of Illinois was located at that time was not very good, Zhang Yingying went to sign the contract alone and did not come back so late, they naturally worried about whether zhang Yingying was in trouble, so they reported the case to the police that night.
For the disappearance case, such a speed of alarm is already very timely, if the speed of the police to solve the case can also keep up with the speed of the alarm, Zhang Yingying may still be rescued, but the fact is counterproductive.
At that time, the University of Illinois police department did not take the report seriously, and casually said that she would wait any longer, maybe Zhang Yingying was just living outside temporarily, and would come back after dealing with things.
It was not until 12:30 noon on June 10, when nearly a day and a half after Zhang Yingying's disappearance had passed, that the US police hurriedly filed a case, but at this time, everyone did not think about Zhang Yingying's murder, but only investigated the disappearance.
▲Zhang Yingying's family
A day later, the US police announced that they had found the last footage of Zhang Yingying before her disappearance in a camera surveillance video on the bus platform opposite the bus stop where Zhang Yingying was last located, that is, she was sitting on a Saturn Astra Bridge car, and it had not yet been found that it was the Saturn Astra Bridge car driven by Christensen.
I have to say that the US police can find the picture of Zhang Yingying getting into the car from the surveillance is a blessing in misfortune.
Why?
You know, the small city of Champagne in the United States because of the sparse population and the local government does not have much money, not to mention that there are cameras all over the street, even the few cameras on the street are mostly broken, so coincidentally, there is such a camera opposite the place where Zhang Yingying is finally located and it is still intact, so it has to be said that this is a blessing in misfortune.
There is providence in the darkness, if it were not for this camera that can still be used, it would be far away to uncover the mystery of Zhang Yingying's disappearance.
After finding out the model of the car that Zhang Yingying finally sat on, the US police quickly retrieved the vehicle database registered in Illinois, and found that 18 Saturn Astra cars were registered in Champagne.
At the same time, on June 12, as the disappearance of Zhang Yingying gradually attracted the attention of the people of China and the United States, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, which we know as the FBI, took over the investigation and began to fully investigate the case.
After the FBI took over the case, with the rich experience of agents and the advanced investigation technology and equipment of the FBI, only 2 days had passed, and on June 14, they found the Saturn Astra sedan that Zhang Yingying was sitting in and locked the suspect Christensen.
On June 15, based on all the evidence currently available to it pointing to Christensen, the FBI struck decisively to take Christensen back to the police station for questioning and tow his crime vehicle back to the lab.
According to the content of the inquiry released by the FBI later, Christensen said in the first question that he stayed at home and played games that day, and went to sleep after the game, let alone knowing Zhang Yingying, and even never met.
However, later, during the second questioning, when the FBI put the video and other evidence in front of Christensen, he changed his mouth to say that he did carry her on the day of Zhang Yingying's disappearance, but he put her down a few streets later.
When the FBI asked him exactly where he put Zhang Yingying down, he couldn't say an exact location, and then asked why he didn't say it when he first asked, he explained that he had confused the date. Later, lying to the FBI became one of his crimes.
Since the FBI did not obtain conclusive evidence during the search of Christensen's home or during the interrogation, it was found that the co-pilot position of the vehicle that Christensen was driving had been deliberately cleaned several times, and on the computer christensen used, it was found that he had logged on to a sexual abuse enthusiast website and discussed with others on the website how to achieve the perfect kidnapping.
However, these evidences can only prove that Christensen may have kidnapped Zhang Yingying, but it cannot prove that Christensen is the person who kidnapped Zhang Yingying. "Evidence" is the basis for any country to convict a suspect, and if there is no conclusive evidence to prove that the suspect has indeed committed the case, then he can only be a suspect but cannot be identified as a criminal.
Therefore, in the absence of conclusive evidence to prove that Christensen was the one who kidnapped Zhang Yingying, the FBI could only release Christensen home. However, although the FBI ostensibly released Christensen home, it secretly began to monitor and monitor Christensen, because they believed that Christensen was the biggest suspect in kidnapping Zhang Yingying, and releasing him home was only to let him relax his vigilance and let him expose himself.
The FBI's approach worked, And Christensen saw the police let him go, thinking that he had lied and got rid of the suspicion, so he could sit back and relax, so he slowly let down his vigilance, and finally the FBI found conclusive evidence that he kidnapped and killed Zhang Yingying.
Christensen was able to be sentenced thanks to one person, and that was his ex-girlfriend Bliss.
On June 16, perhaps unable to bear to see Zhang Yingying, who was the same age as her, disappear inexplicably, or perhaps unable to bear the cruelty of her boyfriend Christensen, Bliss agreed to cooperate with the FBI and recorded 9 conversations with her boyfriend in the next 13 days, providing important evidence for Christensen's prosecution and conviction.
On June 17, Christensen told Bliss that he had shipped a "big present" in a large duffel bag. Two days later, he told Bliss he wanted to tell her everything he had done, but he couldn't.
On June 23, perhaps for self-hypnosis or perhaps to find something wrong with his girlfriend, Christensen first admitted that he had picked up Zhang Yingying by car, but did not admit that he had kidnapped and killed Zhang Yingying, but said that he quickly put Zhang Yingying off the car, he did not do anything illegal, and said that he was afraid of being framed by the police. For the next five days, Christensen didn't say much useful information to Bliss until June 29, when things took a turn for the better.
On June 29, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign held a "Pray for Zhang Yingying to Return Home Safely Campus Walk and Concert" for Yingying Zhang, with the aim of raising the public's attention to the disappearance of Yingying Zhang and continuing to search for Yingying.
At this time, everyone did not know that Zhang Yingying had been brutally killed by Christensen. On this day, the murderer Christensen was also in the parade and participated in the candlelight party in search of Zhang Yingying.
Perhaps with a perverted sense of accomplishment, or perhaps with the sense of luck that time has passed so long and not been discovered, Christensen confessed to his girlfriend Bliss on this day that he killed Zhang Yingying and described to her how he killed Zhang Yingying.
He first confessed to Bliss that he had kidnapped Zhang Yingying and imprisoned her in his apartment, because of her fierce resistance, he chose to brutally kill her, and without remorse and madness repeatedly boasted that "so many people have come, all because of me." ”
Later, he described to his girlfriend the process of kidnapping and killing Zhang Yingying, saying that Zhang Yingying was "the most fierce resistance among the people he has killed." But when Bliss asked where he hid Zhang Yingying's body, Christensen refused to reveal where it was hidden.
At the same time, Christensen also told Bliss that although she was the only one who knew about it, he would not kill her because she was too fat and too troublesome to handle, and claimed that he was looking for the next object and was ready to do it again.
Bliss was terrified when she heard such inhuman words from her boyfriend.
That night, Bliss quickly handed over the recording to the FBI under the pretext of going home. On June 30, the FBI arrested Christensen.
Since article 5 of the U.S. Bill of Rights stipulates that "no one may be forced to become a witness against himself", the suspect is given the right to remain silent when questioned, that is, the suspect does not want to answer or not to answer, and if he wants to be silent, he can be silent. After Christensen's arrest, he remained silent in the face of police questioning, neither acknowledging his crimes nor denying his crimes.
This is also why even if Christensen later admitted to kidnapping and killing Zhang Yingying, the US police could not ask Christensen to say the whereabouts of Zhang Yingying's body, because US law gave Christensen a legal right to silence, as long as he did not say the whereabouts of Zhang Yingying's body, no one could force him to say.
Of course, some people will say why didn't the police use offensive tactics against Christensen to make his psychological defenses collapse and obtain the whereabouts of the victim's body? In fact, in the United States, it is difficult for the American police to adopt this seemingly simple method.
U.S. law provides that criminal suspects have the right not to make statements about self-prosecution and have the right to hire a lawyer or have the court assign a lawyer to them, and once a suspect asks for a lawyer, then in all subsequent inquiries, whether the police agree or disagree, the defense lawyer will be present to accompany the suspect to the police questioning.
Therefore, when the US police take acts that do not comply with the law to force the suspect to tell the truth or the suspect's psychological defense line collapses and wants to tell the truth, the defense lawyer will definitely stand up to stop it and inform the suspect that if he says the wrong thing, he will bear serious legal responsibility and consequences, and then the suspect will basically remain silent again.
At that time, after Christensen was arrested, he immediately asked for a defense lawyer for himself, so at that time, the US police had no opportunity to use other means to force him to tell the whereabouts of Zhang Yingying's body.
It is precisely because the US law grants Christensen various rights, including the right to legal silence, the right not to self-prosecute, and the right to ask for defense lawyers, etc., that Christensen has obviously admitted to killing Zhang Yingying and convicted him, and the US police cannot ask Christensen to tell the whereabouts of Zhang Yingying's body when Christensen resolutely does not reveal the whereabouts of Zhang Yingying's body.
Fortunately, although Christensen initially refused to admit guilt, under the complete and tight chain of evidence, the US federal grand jury formally indicted Christensen on July 12, 2017, on suspicion of kidnapping Chinese visiting scholar Zhang Yingying.
Many people here may have such a question:
Why was Christensen in federal court and not in Illinois court? Why did He, who had already learned from Christensen that Zhang Yingying had been killed, prosecute him on charges of "allegedly kidnapping China visiting scholar Zhang Yingying"?
First of all, we all know that the United States is a federal state, and each state has its own state law, so the United States has two parallel court systems: one is the state court system, the other is the federal court system, and the two sets of court systems are completely independent.
According to common sense, Christensen should have been tried in Illinois court when he committed a crime in Illinois, but because the car he was driving was a state-wide means of transportation, and the website he landed that taught others how to kidnap someone else was also out of state, Christensen was eventually charged with criminal charges in federal court responsible for interstate crimes.
In addition, another important reason why the "Zhang Yingying case" was heard in the federal court was that the state law of Illinois did not have the death penalty, and the maximum penalty was life imprisonment, while the federal law used by the federal court had the death penalty.
Therefore, for this reason, under the impetus of people from all walks of life in the United States who sympathized with Zhang Yingying, the case was finally referred to the federal court for the purpose of having a chance to sentence him to death.
Second, many people do not understand why Christensen has clearly admitted to killing Zhang Yingying, and why the federal grand jury would prosecute Christensen only for kidnapping and not kidnapping to death?
This is to talk about the "jury system" in the United States, which simply means that the charges to prosecute suspects in the United States are decided by the grand jury, not by the judge or prosecution.
At that time, because Zhang Yingying's body was not found and Christensen refused to admit the fact that he killed Zhang Yingying, and the members of the grand jury were from all walks of life and not from professional background, most of the judgments were subjective, at that time, the members of the grand jury finally decided to prosecute Christensen for "suspected kidnapping of China visiting scholar Zhang Yingying" based on their own judgment based on uncertainty that Zhang Yingying had died.
Later, as the chain of evidence became more and more complete and tight, and more and more evidence pointed out that Christensen had killed Zhang Yingying, the federal grand jury charged the suspect with additional charges on October 3, 2017, and formally decided to indict Christensen for "kidnapping to death", because they believed that Zhang Yingying had died and was killed by Christensen.
During the trial of the case, Christensen's wife (later divorced) Miller, girlfriend Bliss and dozens of other witnesses appeared in court to testify, or testified or corroborated that Christensen kidnapped and killed Zhang Yingying. Miller confessed in court what Christensen told her, saying that Christensen kidnapped Yingying Zhang back to his apartment, raped her in the bedroom, stabbed her with a knife, strangled her throat for about 10 minutes, then brutally killed her with a baseball bat and eventually dumped her body somewhere.
At the same time, prosecutors also submitted the evidence gathered by the police to the federal court, including stains found in the master bedroom of Christensen's home, a roll of strong tape, two articles about the serial killer's criminal psychology and human decomposition, and records of suspects who requested repairs to the apartment after Zhang Yingying's disappearance.
As the chain of evidence becomes more and more perfect, and more and more witnesses appear in court to testify or support Christensen's kidnapping and killing of Zhang Yingying, Christensen's chances of being convicted are increasing.
It was at this time that Christensen's defense attorneys began to do everything in their power to prevent the federal court from continuing to hear the case, trying to delay Christensen's sentence in this way, hoping to think of ways to exonerate him during this time.
On August 28, 2017, Christensen's defense attorney filed a motion to adjourn the trial of the case, and the federal court prosecutor agreed to Christensen's motion to postpone the trial of the case, taking into account the large amount of evidentiary information available and the need to sort it out, and the case was postponed to February 27, 2018;
On October 3, 2017, Christensen defense attorneys again postponed the trial to April 2019 for a number of reasons. During this period, Christensen's defense attorneys wanted to exonerate Christensen on various grounds such as challenging the evidence of the federal prosecutor, making a mental health defense, challenging the prosecution's access to audio recordings, and arguing that the case should be governed by state law rather than federal jurisdiction.
It is precisely because Christensen's defense lawyers used various loopholes that the "Zhang Yingying case" was postponed to July 18, 2019.
However, just as the so-called legal net was restored and not leaked, no matter how Christensen and his defense lawyer struggled, in the face of ironclad evidence, Christensen could only admit guilt, and his defense lawyer admitted in court: "Christensen killed Zhang Yingying." ”
On the afternoon of July 18, the U.S. Federal Court for the Central District of Illinois officially announced that Christensen, the murderer of China visiting scholar Zhang Yingying in June 2017, had been sentenced to life in prison and never released on bail. Regrettably, Christensen was spared death after a 12-member jury that could not agree on the death penalty after a day of closed-door deliberations.
On August 2, 2019, christensen defense attorneys revealed to prosecutions that Yingying Zhang's body may be inside a landfill in Vermilion County, central Illinois.
However, because it was not personally admitted by Christensen, and its defense lawyer only said that it may not be sure that it must be there, and the time has passed a long time, the landfill does not know how much new garbage has been piled up or buried, and it is undoubtedly a needle in a haystack to find it, so Zhang Yingying's body has not been found until today.