Doctoral candidate found guilty of murdering Chinese scholar
By Zhang Mengxu
People's Daily app
1561404832000

Students.jpg

Brendt Christensen (left) and Yingying Zhang.  (Photo: AP)

WASHINGTON (People's Daily) - Jurors deliberated less than 90 minutes before returning a guilty verdict Monday at the federal death-penalty trial of a former University of Illinois doctoral student who killed a visiting scholar from China after abducting her at a bus stop as she headed to sign an off-campus apartment lease.

The quick verdict was expected after Brendt Christensen’s attorneys acknowledged from the start that he raped and stabbed Yingying Zhang in June 2017.

Prosecutors said he beat her to death with a baseball bat and decapitated her.

The presiding judge ordered a one-week break or more before the penalty phase begins, a sort mini-trial of sorts that could last a month or longer.

Illinois does not enforce capital punishment but because Christensen was convicted in a federal court he could be sentenced to death.