And, here I thought I was going to get a few days mental break from this trial.
Have to be careful with newspaper headlines. They can be misleading. Many headlines are saying: “Christensen offered to plead guilty, reveal location of remains.” That’s not exactly correct. He’s offering information in his possession on the location of the remains.
Here's the text from their filing:
In truth, however, within six months of his arrest Mr. Christensen agreed to plead guilty to the charges against him, to cooperate fully with investigators and provide all information in his possession regarding the crime and the location of the victim’s remains and to accept a sentence of life without possibility of release.
"all information in his possession regarding the crime and the location of the victim's remains."
I do remember reading at least one article that said the family would be willing to trade life in prison in exchange for her remains. I assume, and I think it is reasonable to assume, her family would want actual, physical remains that they can return to China with them in order to make a deal taking death off the table. When you read that line at first, that's exactly what you think -'He's going to tell them where he buried her!!! Thank God!!!!!'
The problem might be that "all information in his possession regarding the crime and the location of the victim's remains" might mean instead: "Yeah, here's the spot on the riverbank where I chopped her up and threw the parts in the river. Have fun trawling the riverbottom from here to 10-20 miles downstream. Hope you find something." Or, "Yeah, here's the locations of the 3 dumpsters i tossed her remains in. Have fun figuring out in January of 2018 what landfill the contents of these dumpsters on June 9-12 ended up in, figuring out what parts of the landfills these contents ended up in, and cordoning off and excavating 6 months worth of trash in those sections. Hope you find something."
In short, they may have demanded that he give them a location and a guarantee that remains the Zhang family could take home with them would be recovered. Maybe that was a sticking point that kept a deal from being made.
I'm sure the prosecution will file a response to this. Needless to say, it is going to be *very* interesting what they say regarding this offer, and why it was not taken.......
I know prosecutors know how badly her family wants her body. I also know the Zhang family wants him dead, too. My guess is that they weren’t going to risk taking death off the table for a location, and then get caught with no body and BC in prison for life. Then the family would be left getting nothing of what they wanted. There must have been a stipulation that all or most of the remains must be recovered, or no deal. He probably coudnt guarantee it, so chose not to deal.....