CHICAGO—Lawyers for a former University of Illinois doctoral student who could face the death penalty for killing a visiting scholar from China have said he offered after his arrest to plead guilty and divulge where her remains are in exchange for a life sentence.
The revelation came in a late Tuesday filing, a day after jurors convicted 29-year-old Brendt Christensen in the death of 26-year-old Yingying Zhang. Prosecutors said Christenen abducted her at a bus stop on June 9, 2017, then raped, tortured and killed her in his apartment in Urbana, 140 miles southwest of Chicago.
