Brendt Christensen was a respected member of his society, a graduate teacher and adjunct researcher at the University of Illinois highly revered by his students for his brilliance in the field of physics. In 2017, he became known not just to members of his immediate society, but to the world for clearly the wrong reason – he was arrested for the alleged kidnapping and alleged murder of visiting Chinese scholar Yingying Zhang. From his wife to other facts about his life, learn more about Brendt below.
Bio – Who is Brendt Christensen (Yingying Zhang’s murder suspect)?
Records indicate that Brendt Allen Christensen was born on June 30, 1989 to Michael and Ellen Christensen. His birthplace was in north-central Wisconsin.
As a child, Christensen was known to be a very happy, friendly, and well-behaved kid loved by literally everyone in his neighborhood. He received his high school education at Stevens Point Area High School where he was part of a wrestling team and also competed in track and field events. He was really good at sports to the point of becoming a regular on the cover of the school yearbook.
After graduating from high school in 2007, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, but transferred to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he eventually earned a degree in physics in 2013. A brilliant student, he chose to pursue his doctorate in condensed matter physics at the University of Illinois the following year after earning his bachelor’s degree. Nevertheless, he later decided to drop that for a master’s degree.
In May 2016, he received his Master’s degree in Physics from the University of Illinois. Immediately after he was done with this, his good results enabled him to obtain the position of a graduate teacher at the University. His work is said to have ranged from supervising to overseeing discussion sessions, grading quizzes, and challenging exams.
For those around him, his life was on the right track until he was arrested on June 30, 2017 by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) for the alleged kidnapping and alleged murder of a Chinese academic, Yingying Zhang.
Zhang was a visiting scholar of Chinese Academy of Sciences. She came to the United States for the sole purpose of conducting research in the area of photosynthesis and crop productivity. As expected, she was to conduct the said study at the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Upon his arrest, the FBI made shocking revelations about Brendt Christensen and it left people around him in shock and disbelief. According to the Bureau, the Chinese scholar was last spotted getting into a black Saturn Astra which happens to be Brendt Christensen’s car. Although Brendt claimed to be home that day playing games, CCTV footage revealed otherwise.
After more investigations, the graduate teacher was arrested by authorities on June 30, 2017 and hauled into court a few days later on July 2. Although Zhang’s body has not been found, authorities believe that she died and that Brendt tortured her. The man is said to have visited sex fetish site, Fetlife and browsed forums like Abduction 101 before the kidnapping.
His trial was postponed until April 2019 after he first appeared in court and is expected to last five weeks. If found guilty, he is at high risk of being sentenced to death or spending the rest of his natural life behind bars.
His wife
Not much is known about BrendtChristensen’s wife. Nevertheless, we can say that her name is – Michelle Christensen. Michelle graduated valedictorian from Stevens Point Area High School in 2006. Having known each other since they were high school students, Brendt and Michelle finally became man and wife on March 11, 2011.
In 2018, following various pieces of evidence suggesting that her husband could indeed be guilty of the crime, she filed for divorce. Michelle then changed her last name to Zortman for obvious reasons. From what we gather, her divorce from Brendt was finalized in December 2018. But despite this, she is said to be working with her defense team in order to free the man from the noose around her neck.
