Brendt Christensen (pictured) is accused of torturing and killing of 26-year-old Yingying Zhang in June 2017
U.S. prosecutors told a judge Friday they will seek the death penalty for a 28-year-old man charged with the kidnapping and killing of a University of Illinois scholar from China.
During the same proceedings, prosecutors took the opportunity to raise new allegations that the suspect choked and sexually assaulted someone five years ago.
Federal prosecutors filed a notice Friday with the U.S. District Court in central Illinois. It cites, among other factors, that Brendt Christensen’s alleged killing of 26-year-old Yingying Zhang involved torture.
In a new revelation, the filing accuses Christensen of other serious acts of violence in the past, saying he ‘choked and sexually assaulted’ someone in central Illinois in 2013. The filing adds that he ‘expressed (a) desire to be known as a killer.’
Christensen is charged in the kidnapping and death of Zhang, who disappeared June 9 on her way to sign an apartment lease.
Federal prosecutors claim that Zhang, who arrived on campus last April, had missed a bus when Christensen lured her into his car.
Prosecutors also took the opportunity to raise new allegations that the suspect choked and sexually assaulted someone five years ago (Pictured: Christensen and Yingying Zhang)
Christensen also allegedly tried to lure another student into his car on the day Zhang went missing
Surveillance video showed her getting into the front seat of a black Saturn Astra the FBI alleges was cleaned in a way to conceal evidence.
Zhang’s body hasn’t been found, but authorities say that have evidence she’s dead.
Christensen’s trial is slated to begin Feb. 27. He has pleaded not guilty.
Friday’s five-page filing also cites as factors in seeking capital punishment the ‘heinous, cruel, or depraved manner’ of the crime and that it involved ‘planning and premeditation,’ as well as what the document says is Christensen’s ‘lack of remorse.’
‘A message seeking comment from Christensen’s attorney, Robert Tucker, wasn’t immediately returned.
In October, the Justice Department filed a new, superseding indictment against him saying the kidnapping directly resulted in her death.
Earlier this week, lawyers revealed that Christensen’s girlfriend wore a wire to record hours of their conversations in the weeks which followed Zhang’s disappearance.
Among the conversations was one in which Christensen allegedly confessed to the killing and described how Zhang fought back when he attacked her.
Christensen’s lawyers did not reveal how the FBI contacted his girlfriend.
The suspect’s lawyers pleaded with a judge not to allow the taped conversations, recorded over a two week period, into evidence at his trial, claiming the girlfriend was pressured into wearing the wire because she feared charges herself.
On one occasion, she was apparently so nervous about wearing it in front of him that she fainted, his lawyers claimed.
Christensen also allegedly tried to lure another student into his car on the day Zhang went missing.
That student told investigators that he pretended he was a cop to try to get her into his vehicle. She identified him through photographs shown to her by police.
In October, the Justice Department filed a new, superseding indictment against him saying the kidnapping directly resulted in her death.
He is also charged with making false statements to the FBI, after he told them he had picked her up in his car and dropped her off.
Zhang’s family traveled to the US from her native China after she disappeared.
Her grieving father was still in the country in November last year after authorities said she was presumed dead.
He walked the route to her apartment from campus every day, he said, because it gave him comfort.
At the time, her mother said: ‘We don’t know where she is, and I don’t know how to spend the rest of my life without my daughter.
‘I can’t really sleep well at night. I often dream of my daughter, and she’s right there with me.
‘I want to ask the mother of the suspect, please talk to her son and ask him what he did to my daughter. Where is she now? I want to know the answer.’
Lawyers revealed that Christensen’s girlfriend wore a wire to record hours of their conversations in the weeks which followed Zhang’s disappearance