FILE – This photo provided by the Macon County Sheriff’s Office in Decatur, Ill., shows Brendt Christensen. Attorneys for Christensen, accused of kidnapping resulting in the death of University of Illinois scholar Yingying Zhang from China, are asking a federal judge to dismiss the main charge against him and change the venue of his upcoming trial. Christensen’s attorney filed 12 pretrial motions Monday, Jan. 15, 2018, including six to suppress or exclude evidence they say was illegally or improperly obtained. (Macon County Sheriff’s Office via AP File)
PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — Closing arguments are set for the federal death penalty trial of a former University of Illinois doctoral student charged with kidnapping and killing a 26-year-old visiting scholar from China.
Monday’s closings follow a week and a half of testimony. If jurors convict Brendt Christensen, they must then decide whether he should be sentenced to die for beating Yingying Zhang to death with a baseball bat in 2017. The penalty phase could last weeks.
Defense attorneys began the trial by admitting Christensen killed Zhang. It’s part of a strategy to try to persuade jurors to spare Christensen’s life.
The case is being closely followed in China and by Chinese students in the U.S.
Champaign-based University of Illinois has more than 5,000 Chinese students, among the largest enrollments in the nation.
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