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Zhang Yingying's family's civil lawsuit was rejected. New progress in Zhang Yingying's murder in the

Recently, the murder of Chinese visiting scholar Zhang Yingying in the United States has made new progress. A federal judge in Illinois ruled on the civil lawsuit filed by Zhang Yingying's family against the University of Champaign, rejecting the lawsuit filed by Zhang Yingying's family against two psychological counselors of the University.

According to the associated press, world daily and other media, on December 30 local time, Illinois federal judge Bruce ruled to reject the lawsuit of Zhang Yingying's family asking the school to provide reasonable compensation to her. Zhang Yingying's family filed a civil lawsuit against UIUC in June 2019, hoping that the school would provide reasonable compensation for the serious negligence of its psychological counseling center.

Court documents show that Christensen, the criminal who kidnapped and killed Zhang Yingying, sought counseling from the University's psychological counseling center because of his repeated idea of "trying to kill and then escape" in the months before Yingying's disappearance. He even frankly bought tools and supplies for killing and destroying the body, but later returned them.

On the 9th day after seeking psychological counseling for the first time, Christensen went to the counseling center to talk with another psychologist and showed that he was willing to accept the risk assessment of himself and others. However, the center did not develop an adequate treatment and safety plan, nor did it provide referral treatment.

For this lawsuit, Wang Zhidong, the legal aid lawyer of Yingying's family, once told the overseas network that the school has an inescapable connection with Yingying's death, and the communication and support between the school and Yingying's family have been very disappointing since the early stage of the case. Judge Bruce believes that blaming the death of Zhang Yingying on psychological counselors' has a great distance from the facts' is not enough to investigate their responsibility according to the federal civil rights law of the United States. In this 36 page ruling, Bruce supported the motion put forward by the school lawyer and held that the social workers could not be legally responsible for the incomprehensible behavior taken by Christensen who met only once more than two months later.

In June 2017, Zhang Yingying, 26, studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. On the afternoon of June 9, she disappeared in a black car. The FBI announced the arrest of Christensen on June 30 of the same year. Zhang Yingying did not know the murderer before. After a long trial, on June 24, 2019, the jury convicted Christensen of kidnapping and death. On July 18, 2019, the jury sentenced him to life imprisonment. Christensen is currently serving his sentence in a heavily guarded prison in Kentucky. Source: overseas network