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Brendt Allen Christensen was sentenced to life in federal prison without release, plus 10 years, after a jury in Peoria, Illinois, convicted him of kidnapping visiting scholar Yingying Zhang resulting in her death and making two false statements to the FBI.

Zhang, 26, was from Nanping in Fujian province, China, and was a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She arrived in the United States on April 24, 2017, intending to pursue a doctorate. Christensen, 27, was a physics doctoral student at the same university and had been married four years.

On the afternoon of June 9, 2017, Zhang was traveling to an off-campus apartment complex in Urbana to sign a lease when she missed a bus transfer and waited on North Goodwin Avenue. Surveillance video showed a black Saturn Astra pass her at 2 p.m., circle back and stop. She spoke to the driver for about a minute and entered the car at 2:03 p.m. Friends reported her missing at 9:24 p.m. Prosecutors said Christensen took her to his Champaign apartment, raped her, beat her with a baseball bat and killed her. Her body has never been recovered.

The FBI, Champaign police and University of Illinois police identified 18 Saturn Astras registered in Illinois. Investigators interviewed Christensen on June 12, 2017, and inspected his car. He said he could not recall what he was doing when Zhang disappeared and was probably asleep or playing video games. The interview lasted about nine minutes, and he was released. Investigators later saw that the car in the surveillance footage had a cracked hubcap matching his.

An FBI agent collected Christensen from his home late June 14. Shortly after midnight on June 15, 2017, Special Agent Anthony Manganaro and University of Illinois police detective Eric Stiverson began a second interview at the FBI's Champaign office. It was described on tape as voluntary and opened with a rights advisement. Christensen again said he had been sleeping or gaming. After about 20 minutes of being confronted with the surveillance work, he said he might have mixed up the dates and had picked up a girl, but insisted he dropped her off in a residential area minutes later. He ended the interview, saying the usual advice was to get a lawyer and that he had helped enough. Both accounts were later charged as false statements. His then-girlfriend, Terra Bullis, agreed to record him for investigators. At a vigil for Zhang on June 29, 2017, he described the abduction and killing in detail. He was arrested the next day.

A superseding indictment returned October 3, 2017, charged kidnapping resulting in death and two counts of making false statements to the FBI, one for each interview account. The government sought the death penalty. At trial before U.S. District Judge James Shadid, the defense conceded in opening statements that Christensen had kidnapped and killed Zhang and contested only the sentence. On June 24, 2019, the jury convicted him on all counts after less than two hours. Evidence included the video, Zhang's DNA in his apartment, a blood stain on his mattress and the Bullis recordings.

During the penalty phase, the defense offered 49 mitigating factors, including Christensen's history of mental illness and homicidal thoughts reported to counselors before the killing. Jurors deliberated about nine hours without agreeing, requiring a life sentence under federal law. Shadid imposed the sentence on July 18, 2019. Christensen's lawyer later told the U.S. attorney that Zhang's remains were most likely in a private landfill in a neighboring county, under roughly 10 meters of refuse by then. No recovery was attempted. As of August 2023 reporting, Christensen remained in federal custody, the remains had not been found, and Zhang's family had received no civil compensation. No appellate ruling disturbing the conviction or sentence has been reported. Federal sentences carry no parole.

The video is a narrated analysis using police interview-room footage and runs about 45 minutes. It covers the second interview described above rather than presenting the footage without analysis.