'Finding Yingying' Preview: Who was Yingying Zhang? Chinese student's killer boasted of torturing, decapitating her
Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old Chinese student, comes to the US to study. In her detailed and beautiful diaries, the aspiring young scientist and teacher is full of optimism, hoping to also be married and a mother someday. Within weeks of her arrival, Zhang disappears from the campus. Through exclusive access to Zhang’s family and boyfriend, the latest documentary out in virtual cinemas, 'Finding Yingying' closely follows their journey as they search to unravel the mystery of her disappearance and seek justice while navigating a strange, foreign country.
What happened to Yingying Zhang and did her family find out who was responsible for it?
Who was Yingying Zhang?
Yingying Zhang was a 26-year-old agriculture researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She was born in the city of Nanping, Fujian Province, to Ronggao Zhang and Lifeng Ye. Zhang has one younger brother, Zhengyang. She played in a band and had ambitions of becoming a professor in China. Yingying graduated from Sun Yat-sen University at the top of her class in 2013, and three years later, she graduated from Peking University. In April 2017, she traveled to the United States to research photosynthesis and crop productivity for one year in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, within the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES), at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was considering entering a doctoral program at the University of Illinois.
At the time of her death, Yingying was planning to marry her boyfriend of eight years, Xiaolin Hou.
Yingying's disappearance
In June 2017, Yingying, on running late to an appointment with a realtor to sign a new apartment lease, was last seen traveling on a bus. She had sent a text message to the leasing agent at 1:39 PM local time to inform them that she would arrive in approximately half an hour. Later, when she did not return, Yingying's friends alerted authorities. On analyzing security cameras on campus, police learned that Yingying got into a black Saturn Astra after missing the bus. The Astra was seen passing by her as she waited at a bus stop, then circling back and stopping in front of her.
The University of Illinois Police Department and Urbana Police Department worked with FBI agents to locate Zhang, offering a reward of US$10,000 for information leading to her location. Shortly after her disappearance, her father, Ronggao Zhang, her boyfriend, Xiaolin Hou, and her maternal aunt, Liqin Ye, arrived from China to aid in the search, saying they would not leave the country until she was found. Her mother and brother arrived in the United States two months later.
Kidnapped and tortured
A local resident, Brendt Allen Christensen, was identified as the owner of the Saturn Astra that picked Yingying up. Christensen, a former Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois, was questioned by the police, and at first, insisted he did not know the woman and that he did not remember what he was doing at the time of her disappearance. Christensen was in an open marriage and had a girlfriend, Terra Bullis, at the time. Investigators then approached Bullis, who agreed to wear a wire after Christensen revealed shocking details.
When Christensen met Bullis during a march for Yingying on campus, he told her that the march was for him. “It’s 6:46 on Thursday, June 29th,” Bullis is recorded as saying. “We’re at the benefit for the walk and Brendt has a thing of alcohol and he is drinking while he is here, so, I’m thinking I’m just gonna turn this on right now so that it’s on while we walk,” she said. “Thirteen,” Christensen said cryptically on the recording. He took out her phone and opened the Notes app, writing four lines and then deleting them, according to the News-Gazette. “It was me. She was No. 13. She is gone. Forever,” he wrote. Christensen claimed to Bullis he killed 13 people, a claim the FBI could not corroborate. Later in the transcript, Christensen claimed he started killing people when he was 19. Investigators were unable to find any other victims and doubted this claim
“They have no idea what happened,” he is heard saying while laughing on the recorded audio. “Nobody knows what happened.”
He described in detail the brutal murder, saying he choked her, beat her with a baseball bat, and decapitated her. The details of Zhang’s cause of death could not be proven because Zhang’s body was never found.
Conviction and sentencing
Following his confession to Bullis, the FBI arrested Christensen and charged him with kidnapping under federal law. At Christensen’s trial, his defense team argued that Yingying’s murder did not involve substantial planning and premeditation. Instead, he was in a downward spiral and, at the same time, happened to be introduced to the dominant-submissive lifestyle. Bullis testified she had introduced him to BDSM and to the social network FetLife. She also said she introduced him to flogging and showed him a video of a flogging demonstration.
Christensen's lawyers also admitted that he killed Yingying Zhang. “Brendt Christensen is responsible for the death of Yingying Zhang,” federal defender George Taseff told a packed court Wednesday inside the Peoria federal courthouse. “Brendt Christensen killed Yingying Zhang.” The stunning opening line from Christensen’s defense team came after prosecutors spent 45 minutes outlining the gruesome details of Zhang’s death.
In 2019, Christensen was convicted of kidnapping resulting in death and two counts of making false statements to the FBI and he was sentenced to life in prison (for the kidnapping resulting in death) and two consecutive five-year terms (for making false statements to the FBI), without the possibility of a release. Yingying's family, however, was disappointed with the verdict as they had hoped for the death penalty.
Were Yingying Zhang's remains ever found?
To date, Yingying Zhang's remains have never been found. According to his lawyers, Christensen placed her butchered body in three separate garbage bags, which he tossed in a dumpster outside his Champaign apartment before disposing of her personal items among trash receptacles around the Champaign-Urbana area. The remains are believed to be in a landfill in Vermilion County along the Illinois-Indiana border. The area where her remains are is some 50 yards wide and was covered with at least 30 feet of garbage from other dumpster collections. Any excavation would involve removing tons of garbage from the scene entirely – which could expose workers to hazardous materials and cause possible environmental issues.
'Finding Yingying' is available in virtual cinemas on Friday, December 11. Details for booking can be found here.