Federal authorities have arrested and charged a 28-year-old man with kidnapping Yingying Zhang, a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois who disappeared three weeks ago and now is presumed dead.
Brendt Christensen, a former Ph.D. candidate who had studied physics at the university, was arrested late Friday, according to a news release from the Department of Justice. A federal complaint also was filed Friday in the Central District of Illinois accusing him of kidnapping Zhang from the Urbana-Champaign campus the afternoon of June 9.
Christensen's former academic advisor, professor Lance Cooper, associate head for graduate programs in the Department of Physics,...
The University of Illinois' Alma Mater statue.