Although the judicial trial of Zhang Yingying's case has come to an end, Yingying's body has not yet been found. After the second trip to the United States failed to achieve her wish, Zhang Yingying's family returned home with regret
The wish to take my daughter home failed again
After three months of waiting, the parents and family of Chinese visiting scholar Zhang Yingying returned to China again with sadness.
Zhang Yingying's parents Zhang Ronggao, ye Lifeng and brother Zhang Xinyang returned to China from Chicago on August 29, the world daily reported. Although the judicial trial of the case has come to an end, the second time in order to find his daughter's Zhang family, his wish to take his daughter 'home' finally failed again.
Previously, Zhang Yingying's family had repeatedly expressed their wish to 'take her daughter home'. At Zhang Yingying's memorial meeting on August 9, his father Zhang Rong recalled in his speech that his daughter was clever and clever since childhood, 'what I heard at the parents' meeting was the teacher's praise of my daughter.' He said: 'as a father, it is difficult to describe the thoughts and grief in my heart when I think of my daughter! Now the biggest wish is still to find YingYing and take her home. "
On August 19, at the founding meeting of 'Yingying fund', Hou Xiaolin, Zhang Yingying's former boyfriend, also expressed the same wish in the letter: 'our greatest wish is always to find YingYing and take her home. Despite all kinds of difficulties and little possibility, we will continue to try various methods and will not give up any possibility. I still believe that one day, we will find her. "
The possibility of finding the remains is very small, police said
According to local media WICS / WCCU news on the 28th, Zhang Yingying's family is very tangled between staying locally and waiting for the body to be found and returning to China. But police said it was almost impossible to find the body at the moment. Unable to decide whether to launch the search, Zhang Yingying's family finally made a difficult choice and returned to China.
Zhang Yingying's family first came to the United States two years ago because of her daughter's disappearance. They returned to China after waiting for several months without obvious progress. At the end of May this year, he again arrived in the United States to participate in the judicial trial of his daughter's case. His family participated in the whole process of the trial from early June to July 18.
Although the prosecution tried hard to impose the death penalty on the defendant Christiansen who kidnapped and killed Zhang Yingying, the defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment without bail according to law because 12 juries could not reach an agreement.
After the trial, the Zhang family obtained information from the prosecution that after the criminal killed Zhang Yingying on June 9, 2017, the criminal put his body into three garbage bags and threw it in the dustbin outside the rented apartment. The federal, state and local law enforcement departments also verified this information respectively. It was learned that the garbage in the dustbin had been compressed at least twice before being transported to a private landfill in the adjacent area. Also, due to the compression procedure, the volume of Zhang Yingying's remains could become extremely small. This also means that the possibility of finding Zhang's remains is very small.
Case review
On June 9, 2017, Chinese female scholar Zhang Yingying disappeared at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. A surveillance video on the campus showed that Zhang Yingying entered the car driven by the suspect Christensen, and then her whereabouts were unknown. In July 2017, the prosecutor formally filed a complaint against Christensen. If he is convicted of kidnapping and homicide, he will face death penalty or life imprisonment. However, Christensen has always refused to plead guilty and has been putting forward various refutations and questions through lawyers.
On June 12, 2019, the defendant's lawyer said in his opening statement that Christensen admitted killing Chinese visiting scholar Zhang Yingying, and said that Zhang Yingying had been raped and tortured before her death. Although he admitted the facts of the crime, he still did not change his position of upholding his innocence defense.
At 5 a.m. Beijing time on July 19, 2019, the Central District federal court of Illinois officially announced that Christensen, the murderer of Chinese visiting scholar Zhang Yingying in June 2017, was sentenced to life imprisonment and will never be released on bail.
On August 2, Christensen's defense team disclosed the whereabouts of Zhang Yingying's body to the prosecution. He said: 'this information was provided to the prosecution under the exemption agreement. The information comes from the defense lawyer, and the information shows that Zhang Yingying's body can be found in the landfill in vermilyn county. "