(AP) – A prosecutor told a federal jury that convicted a former University of Illinois doctoral student last month in the kidnapping and killing a Chinese scholar deserves the death penalty because the crime was “cold, calculated, cruel and months in the making.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Nelson on the first day of the penalty phase of told the jury about how Brendt Christensen not only brutally killed Yingying Zhang in June 2017, he hid her body and has deprived her family the chance to give her a proper burial in China. He said “there will be no closure” for the family.
The jurors will be asked during the trial’s penalty phase that’s expected to last several days in Peoria whether they should follow the recommendation of prosecutors by imposing the death penalty or order Christensen to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole as his attorneys are expected to recommend.
To make its case, the defense called a court-appointed attorney who told the jury about Christensen’s lifelong struggle with mental health issues.
Earlier Monday, U.S. District Judge James Shadid ruled he will allow jurors to watch videos made by the mother and friends of the Chinese scholar he was convicted of kidnapping, torturing and killing. The ruling came during a hearing which took place ahead of the state of the penalty phase of the trial.
Shadid said prosecutors can play clips of calls that Christensen made from jail in which they say he asserts his innocence. The Champaign News-Gazette reports that prosecutors want to use the clips to show Christensen’s lack of remorse.
