Brendt Christensen said he placed visiting University of Illinois visiting scholar Yingying Zhang’s remains in garbage bags and threw them away in a dumpster at his apartment. According to information released at a news conference this morning, Christensen told his attorneys he killed Zhang on June 9th and placed the bags with her remains in the dumpster the next day.
On June 12th, he said he placed Zhang’s clothing and other belongings into a duffel bag. He also put cleaning materials he used to try and cover up the murder into the large duffel bag. He told lawyers he placed those items in various dumpsters around town.
According to what the Zhang family was told, the contents of the dumpster were reported to have been taken to a private landfill in the Danville area. It is believed that the contents of the dumpster were compacted multiple times, making them very small, and potentially unrecognizable.
