On September 9th, it was reported that the kidnapping case of Zhang Yingying, a visiting scholar in China, University of Illinois, USA, was reopened on September 8th, 20 17. The judge approved the request of Bruno, the lawyer of the suspect Brandt Christensen, and his two sons to withdraw from the defense. The reason is that the suspect is unable to pay the lawyer's fee, and the federal prosecutor will file an additional lawsuit. The suspect's future lawyer will be appointed by the federal court.
YINGYING ZHANG, female, was born in Jianyang District, Nanping City, Fujian Province in 1990. She graduated from Sun Yat-sen University in 20 13, graduated from Peking University in 20 16, and visited China Academy of Sciences in 20 17.
On April 20 17, I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, located in Illinois, USA) for exchange and study. On June 9, he disappeared in the middle of signing a rental contract. The FBI has included this matter in the "kidnapping case". The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an announcement on the kidnapping of YINGYING ZHANG, a visiting scholar in China at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On June 27th, the FBI announced that it had found the car that YINGYING ZHANG was riding before he disappeared. On June 30th, the FBI arrested Brendt Christensen, a 27-year-old male suspect suspected of kidnapping YINGYING ZHANG, a visiting scholar in China, and will charge the suspect with kidnapping. On July 3rd, the Federal District Court of Urbana County, Illinois, USA held a hearing on the disappearance of YINGYING ZHANG, a visiting scholar from China. US District Judge Eric ruled that the suspect should not be released on bail until the next hearing. 12 in July, the United States federal grand jury formally charged Brendt Christensen, the suspect who kidnapped YINGYING ZHANG, and the preliminary hearing scheduled for 14 in June was cancelled.
If convicted, the suspect Brendt Christensen will face the maximum life imprisonment. At present, the US police are still investigating the case. On the same day, the federal prosecutor's office in central Illinois announced that, based on various evidences, the law enforcement officers in charge of investigating the case believed that YINGYING ZHANG had died.