Photo provided by the Macon County Sheriff's Office in Decatur, Ill.
PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — As federal prosecutors on Wednesday shared with jurors grisly details of how they claim a former University of Illinois doctoral student kidnapped a visiting scholar from China, then brutally beat and killed her, defense attorneys intent on sparing their client a possible death penalty offered an exceptional claim: He did it.
Opening statements began in the federal death-penalty trial of Brendt Christensen, a case that is being closely watched by Chinese students across the U.S. Christensen is accused of luring 26-year-old Yingying Zhang into his car in June 2017 as she headed to sign a lease off campus.
