A US former doctoral student has been spared the death penalty for kidnapping and murdering a 26-year-old Chinese scholar, prompting widespread anger in China.

Last month, 30-year-old Brendt Christensen was convicted for abducting Zhang Yingying from a bus stop, then raping, choking and stabbing her before beating her to death with a bat and decapitating her.

Prosecutors had called for the death penalty, which Zhang’s family also supported, but after eight hours of deliberation, a jury in Peoria, Illinois, was unable to reach a unanimous decision. Christensen will automatically receive a sentence of life behind bars without the possibility of parole.

News of Christensen’s sentencing spread quickly in China, where it was widely reported. On the microblog Weibo, details of the case were among four of the top trending topics, with many cursing the jury and the US legal system.

Zhang’s boyfriend Hou Xiaolin has said that he does not accept the court’s decision. Speaking to media after the sentencing on Thursday, he said: “The result today seems to tell me that I can kill [anyone] … with all kinds of cruel methods and I will not die for it … I’d better act as a loner and then people will not think I’m a dangerous [person].. The result today encourages people to do crimes and [I] will never agree with that.”

One user said: “In prison he will be taken care of for the rest of his life. He intentionally killed someone and yet the jury still does not sentence him to death. What are they thinking?” One commentator posted: “This is proof the American justice system is not fair”.

Brendt Christensen Photograph: AP

Others reflected on how Christensen would have been treated in China, where thousands of prisoners are believed to be executed each year. “Now I think the death penalty is at the very least a way to comfort the victim’s family,” another said, in a comment that was liked by users more than 19,000 times.

Zhang’s case has shocked families in China, where many send their children to study abroad in the US. In 2018, there were more than 300,000 Chinese students in the country, according to the US Department of State’s bureau of educational and cultural affairs.

On 9 June 2017, Christensen posed as an undercover officer and lured Zhang into his car. Prosecutors said he most likely forced Zhang into a duffel bag that he bought online days earlier and carried her up to his apartment. Once inside, he raped and killed her.

Upon hearing the sentencing, Christensen lowered his head and smiled at his mother when he heard that his life would be spared.

Zhang’s parents, who travelled from China to attend the trial, pleaded with Christensen to reveal what he did with their daughter’s remains so that they can be taken back to their home country. Prosecutors indicated in court filings that Christensen may have destroyed Zhang’s body.

Speaking through an interpreter, her father, Ronggao Zhang, said: “If you have any humanity left in your soul, please end our torment. Please let us bring Yingying home.”

Among the most poignant testimony during the penalty phase came from Zhang’s mother, Lifeng Ye. She told jurors how the family was devastated by the loss of her beloved daughter, who had aspired to become a professor and to help her working class family financially.

Yingying Zhang’s mother Lifeng Ye, second from left, is supported by family members outside the court in Peoria. Photograph: Matt Dayhoff/AP

“How am I supposed to carry on living?” she said in testimony by video. “I really don’t know how to carry on.”

Ye said Christensen dashed the dreams of Zhang, who was doing post-graduate research in agricultural science at the University of Illinois, and those of her family. Yingying was killed months before she had planned to get married.

“My daughter did not get to wear a wedding dress,” Lifeng Ye said. “I really wanted to be a grandma.”



Christensen’s parents took the witness stand, too, and appealed to jurors to spare their son’s life. Both said they loved him unconditionally.

Michael Christensen said the thought of his son being executed was unbearable, prompting Brendt Christensen to break down crying in a rare display of emotion.

Ellen Williams, his mother, told jurors that Christensen’s crime was “horrible” and that she thinks about Zhang’s family “at least five times a day and how horrible this must be for them”. She said her son was extremely bright, kind and considerate.

Brendt Christensen was raised in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. He began his studies in Champaign at the University of Illinois’s prestigious doctoral program in physics in 2013.

Despite his academic achievements, Christensen had suffered mental health problems for years, the defence said, and had tried to get help in dealing with homicidal fantasies in the months before killing Zhang.

“What happened next was a ... battle between Brendt and his demons that little by little, he lost,” his lawyer Julie Brain said.