Prosecutors: Kidnapping suspect marched in victim’s vigil
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CHICAGO — The suspect in the kidnapping of a University of Illinois scholar from China marched in a vigil for the victim a day before his arrest last week, federal prosecutors said Wednesday, adding that he also spoke about what makes an ideal victim and talked about how she fought and resisted.
The new details surrounding 26-year-old Yingying Zhang’s June 9 disappearance arose at a detention hearing for Brendt Christensen in U.S. District Court in Urbana, not far from the central Illinois school, a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in Springfield said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Eric Long ordered that Christensen, 28, remain jailed pending trial. Long said the recent graduate student at the university’s physics department poses a danger to the community and is a flight risk.
Last Thursday, which was the day before Christensen was arrested, hundreds of people gathered on campus and walked to a street where Zhang was last seen. Prosecutors say Christensen was in the vigil group. Zhang’s father, a factory driver who travelled to Illinois from China for the search, also attended.
