An Illinois man convicted of killing Yingying Zhang, a Chinese international student studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 2017 has been sentenced to life in prison.

Brendt Christensen, 29, avoided the death penalty after a 12-person jury reportedly could not reach a unanimous verdict on the sentence Thursday. The jury deliberated on the sentencing for more than eight hours over the course of the past two days.

In July 2017, Christensen was charged with kidnapping Zhang after law enforcement discovered he had visited an online forum called “Abduction 101” and engaged in “perfect abduction fantasy” threads weeks before the student disappeared. At the time, state prosecutors assumed the student had been killed and her remains have still not been found.

Zhang was on a yearlong residency at the University of Illinois with the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences when she was abducted. She graduated the year before from Beijing’s Peking University with a master’s degree in environmental engineering.

