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Yingying Zhang Memorial Garden.
Jim Meadows/Illinois Public Media

News Local/State

Divided Jury Means Life In Prison For Christensen

A former University of Illinois doctoral student was spared the death penalty Thursday and sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and killing of a 26-year-old scholar from China. Her parents, disappointed he was not sentenced to death, publicly begged for the killer to reveal where her remains are so they can be returned home.

Federal courthouse in Peoria.
Tanya Koonce/Illinois Public Media

News Local/State

Jury Begins Deliberations On Life Sentence Or Death Penalty For Brendt Christensen

Jurors received Brendt Christensen’s capital case for a second time about 1:40 P.M. Wednesday. A few weeks earlier, the same jury found Christensen guilty of the 2017 kidnapping and murder of University of Illinois visiting scholar Yingying Zhang. This time, the question is the sentence for Christensen’s crime: life in prison or death by lethal injection.

Federal Public Defender George Taseff.
Tanya Koonce/Illinois Public Media

News Local/State

Closing Arguments Set For Wednesday in Christensen Trial Sentencing Phase

The sentencing phase of Brendt Christensen’s federal death penalty trial will go to the jury Wednesday. There’s only one question the jury at the federal courthouse in Peoria needs to answer, and that’s whether Christensen will receive the death penalty or life in prison, for the 2017 kidnapping murder of University of Illinois visiting scholar Yingying Zhang.