Deceased/Not Found IL - Yingying Zhang, 26, Urbana, 9 June 2017 #3 *Arrest*

[mrsobrien]

I kind of remember that BC worked in construction before. Could he use cemet to bury her in land or water?

I don't remember reading about his work history. Can you please link ?

 

[Skigirl]

It depends if he chose to or he was forced to. I guess it is not clear at this moment. All the reports say he is a good TA but nothing about his research or academics. I tend to believe he failed his PHD so he had. O choice but to get a MS and go to job market.

Faculty in his department say otherwise -- that he was making progress and that he was not asked to leave the program. I agree that the timing of this crime and his leaving of his program are probably related somehow, but how, exactly, I'm not sure.

 

[Elainera]

I was a student at UofI a long long time ago. We used to play Dungeons and Dragons in those tunnels. They were a lot of sewer connections to those tunnels. I thing that is where he put her and its a matter finding her body down there and not having a lot of well meaning searchers going in there.

That makes sense. Maybe LE is walking those tunnels as we speak (or type).

 

[mrsobrien]

As Christensen’s advisor, Cooper went over his school record and charted out the courses he was to take. Cooper said he didn’t interact with Christensen on a regular basis after the initial semester until spring 2016, when Christensen had a meeting with him to drop out of the Ph.D. program and pursue a master’s degree instead.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...-illinois-student-charges-20170630-story.html

 

[Elainera]

Faculty in his department say otherwise -- that he was making progress and that he was not asked to leave the program. I agree that the timing of this crime and his leaving of his program are probably related somehow, but how, exactly, I'm not sure.

My theory would be, the program might have helped to anchor him in reality. When that was gone his fantasies and unhealthy urges were allowed to take over more of his waking consciousness.

 

[IQuestion]

I don't remember reading about his work history. Can you please link ?

The info, don't know if it is allowed on WS. People give "e-journals about themselves" and sometimes even interviews. He spoke of being a roofer/construction during the summers in WI. (Was injured in an accident and broke both arms, and seemed pretty upbeat, regardless.) And at one time wanted to be electrical, structural or mechanical engineer but went the route of physics. (BTW eventually worked on the Super Collider....
that is an amazing accomplishment.)
G'night MrsObrien, thank you for all your hard work. The crackle of fireworks has finally stopped...I must live next to every kid who smuggled a brick of fireworks into town.

 

[Elainera]

i bet he failed his PhD candidicay no later than April.

I think that happened already last year.

 

[Nick_1]

My theory would be, the program might have helped to anchor him in reality. When that was gone his fantasies and unhealthy urges were allowed to take over more of his waking consciousness.

Yeah, probably not wrong, at least to a certain extent. This suspect was truly rare. Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of violent crime offenders don't possess such a high level of education. My theories were incorrect on both the case and offender, the suspect is an anomaly. He rapidly deteriorated across the board. It doesn't appear he had prior offenses. Just sort of spiraled out of control, I believe.

 

[sadsnorlax]

Going back to how he (might have) got YZ into his apartment:

Yingying was going to sign a lease, not just check out any old apartments, it seems she had her heart somewhat set on the place she was making her way to - so I'm not sure if BC telling her to just go and look at his apartment instead would have swung it.

However, and I really hope this doesn't offend anyone, I say it with the utmost tenderness - I don't think we know how strong YZ's English was. When you're not completely fluent in speaking/understanding a language, and up against a strange man who is persuasive enough in any which way, you might just do what he says for fear of not wanting to say that you don't understand. That's what I think. I don't think a threat would even be needed.

That said, BC confessing to bringing her to his apartment could easily be bravado. 'Bringing a girl back' has always been a way of saying that you scored. It just sounds 'impressive'. Depends on who he was talking to, and why he was moved to make such a statement.

(If I'm misunderstanding or discrediting YZ's fluency in English, I'm genuinely sorry.)

 

[Ambitioned]

Apparently, the FBI has been known to go undercover on FetLife. Maybe that's what happened here.

http://www.wtma.com/news/what-we-know-about-the-fetlife-fetish-site/

The Illinois case is not the first time FetLife has been mentioned in a criminal investigation.

A Haverhill, New York man was charged in April with making and distributing child *advertiser censored*. Authorities say an undercover FBI task force officer first came into contact with the man on FetLife.

I bet that's what happened too. One of my relatives goes undercover on the game Runescape to crack down on online pedophilia. Naturally I'm not privvy to details but there's this:

Talk about creepy: a 54-year-old man from Massachusetts allegedly "married" a 13-year-old girl from Detroit in Runescape and then came to the city three times to have sex.

The setting isn't anything new but frightening nonetheless: predators are trolling chat rooms and online virtual worlds looking for their next victim. John W. Phillips, 54, of Fitchburg, Mass., is allegedly one such example, charged with 11 felonies related to his so-called RuneScape marriage.

Link

I have mad respect for LE who go undercover on Discord, game chat rooms, in-game chat, internet chat rooms, etc. It's a whole 'nother world out there. You just never know the person you meet online may be LE

 

[kiwi50]

Yeah, probably not wrong, at least to a certain extent. This suspect was truly rare. Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of violent crime offenders don't possess such a high level of education. My theories were incorrect on both the case and offender, the suspect is an anomaly. He rapidly deteriorated across the board. It doesn't appear he had prior offenses. Just sort of spiraled out of control, I believe.

I find this case terribly depressing, the waste of two lives which held so much promise.
The first picture in his fb showed a nice looking guy, he seemed to be well thought of at the university, obviously intelligent, I guess it depresses me because if my daughter had brought him home, I'd have considered him promising, how little we know of what lies beneath the surface.
He must have fooled a lot of people during his life.

 

[Elainera]

Yeah, probably not wrong, at least to a certain extent. This suspect was truly rare. Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of violent crime offenders don't possess such a high level of education. My theories were incorrect on both the case and offender, the suspect is an anomaly. He rapidly deteriorated across the board. It doesn't appear he had prior offenses. Just sort of spiraled out of control, I believe.

Yes "spiraled out of control", that's how it seems.

 

[Ambitioned]

The info, don't know if it is allowed on WS. People give "e-journals about themselves" and sometimes even interviews. He spoke of being a roofer/construction during the summers in WI. (Was injured in an accident and broke both arms, and seemed pretty upbeat, regardless.) And at one time wanted to be electrical, structural or mechanical engineer but went the route of physics. (BTW eventually worked on the Super Collider....
that is an amazing accomplishment.)

Just more false exaggerations IMO.

 

[Webthrush]

I don't remember reading about his work history. Can you please link ?

It comes up briefly in this old interview, mentioning a summer roofing job he had (among other interesting tidbits):
http://www.youthink.com/news_view.cfm?fn=/newsletter/news217.html
[scroll to bottom of page where interview is]

 

[WebWoman]

I agree. Although his grad advisor said he was not asked to leave the program, he may not have been able to find a group to work with. It is true that a lot of times you will make as much or more money in industry with a master's, so I understand that mindset (it was my own when I left my humanities program after completing the coursework), but the fact that he couldn't find a job after a year of looking leads me to think also that he wasn't remarkable.

I'm sure he was depressed, but lots of people are depressed and never kidnap anyone or commit murder. I do wonder about previous crimes, because the sloppiness of this one suggests to me that he was getting overconfident and careless. But maybe it was impulsive. We just don't know enough about him.

He may have quit the phd program and was unemployed because he was playing so much video games. Chicken or the egg. Was he playing so much because he had time from not working or did he not have time to work because he was playing so much? Based on the hours posted on his Steam acct. I can't imagine how he could work if he played over 40 hours/week.

 

[Webthrush]

just a few random, misc. comments after reading all the posts from over-night:

1) someone asked about BC’s criminal history; I believe it’s been stated that he had no known criminal history beyond a speeding ticket (sorry, don’t have the link at-hand)

2) the idea that he could’ve had multiple usernames at FetLife seems intriguing… one username for one set of interests, a different username for perhaps a different set of interests?

3) several posters speculated about him getting mad at one thing or another (like failing the PhD. program), but he says in one of his profiles that he ‘almost never gets mad’ — I think that may be true, especially if he’s sociopathic and lacks any depth of feeling or emotion; i.e. THAT may be a bigger problem, than getting mad is (not sure).

4) I don’t believe the “clean” passenger side of the car means much — I once had an old vehicle that rarely had passengers in its lifetime… the driver’s side & back seat (where I threw and stored things) were grundgy-as-heck, but the front passenger side always looked prettly spotless from lack-of-use. So unless FBI has detected actual cleansers/chemicals being used on the passenger side and nowhere else, not sure the visual inspection means much.
Similarly, because of false confessions and fantasy lives, whatever conversation FBI overheard may not mean much (depending on specific context and details).

5) However, by now, I lean toward thinking (as others speculated) FBI has visual evidence from BC’s cellphone (or something equally convincing) of YZ’s death, and that is why they seem so certain.

 

[Strangeworld]

My guess with what little we know is that he shows patterns of stimulation seeking - multiple sexual partners, chasing the thrill of online dating/hookups etc, fetlife. To me it shows a pattern of more and more intense stimulation and Yingying's kidnapping may be part of this pattern. Whether his intention was kidnap/assault or kidnap/assault/murder I am not sure.

Edit: I don't believe all his proclaimed fetishes were actually genuine fetishes...to me the extensive list and summaries of what his 'turn ons' are seems to me like he was just trying to find the next level, he wasn't sure what it needed to be but anything that would stimulate him...he was probably very aware that vanilla turn ons weren't doing it for him anymore and he needed another level. More like a wish list of sorts.

 

[WebWoman]

just a few random, misc. comments after reading all the posts from over-night:

1) someone asked about BC’s criminal history; I believe it’s been stated that he had no known criminal history beyond a speeding ticket (sorry, don’t have the link at-hand)

2) the idea that he could’ve had multiple usernames at FetLife seems intriguing… one username for one set of interests, a different username for perhaps a different set of interests?

3) several posters speculated about him getting mad at one thing or another (like failing the PhD. program), but he says in one of his profiles that he ‘almost never gets mad’ — I think that may be true, especially if he’s sociopathic and lacks any depth of feeling or emotion; i.e. THAT may be a bigger problem, than getting mad is (not sure).

4) I don’t believe the “clean” passenger side of the car means much — I once had an old vehicle that rarely had passengers in its lifetime… the driver’s side & back seat (where I threw and stored things) were grundgy-as-heck, but the front passenger side always looked prettly spotless from lack-of-use. So unless FBI has detected actual cleansers/chemicals being used on the passenger side and nowhere else, not sure the visual inspection means much.
Similarly, because of false confessions and fantasy lives, whatever conversation FBI overheard may not mean much (depending on specific context and details).

5) However, by now, I lean toward thinking (as others speculated) FBI has visual evidence from BC’s cellphone (or something equally convincing) of YZ’s death, and that is why they seem so certain.

Yes, the article linked on the first page says the passenger side (and another article I had read described the actual components) had recently been cleaned to a greater degree than the rest of the car, not that it was always cleaner/less used, but cleaned. He may have used bleach to remove blood imo.

 

[WebWoman]

I agree, and I didn't think you were claiming that I am just thinking out loud. I do think his sink into depression is a piece of the puzzle--contributing to self-esteem problems, or addiction issues, and who knows what else. I would like to get a little more insight into his thinking, because it might help in finding YZ. Sometimes our thinking here is helpful to LE. They have told us that. I think you are 100% on target with your interpretation of the lie on his LinkedIn profile.

He may not have updated his LinkedIn profile bec he's not actively looking for a job. Mine was outdated with an old job title for years until a neighbor asked to see my profile so I finally updated it. And from my experience with a sociopath they don't get depressed like normal people do. You wouldn't notice a difference in them when something depressing happens. He (my former friend) showed no emotion including sadness let alone depression when close family members would die or things going bad like losing a job. They just don't feel, as hard as it is for normal people to comprehend. Plus BC was feeling good enough to go weightlifting at 5am with a gf/wife? every morning, to leave the house, go to a rally smiling etc. it's not like he was on suicide or depression message boards and not getting out of bed. Plus most people lose interest in sex when depressed let alone kill for it. He reminds me of the tin man in the Wizard of Oz.

Maybe it's his inability to have feelings that lead him to more severe fetishes to try to get him to respond to things with some feeling which as a sociopath he just doesn't/can't/is incapable of. Maybe all that working out was to release a ton of feel good hormones that slightly made him feel better on his quest to experience feelings. Maybe all that bondage and kidnapping fettish was a fascination to see someone show extreme emotions including fear which he was incapable of experiencing himself, and in the process incapable of feeling empathy - kind of blankly staring at someone getting tortured. He may have been in an open relationship because he's incapable of feeling jealousy or deep love. I'm curious as to what his parents have to say about his personality and behavior growing up.

 

[WebWoman]

Yeah, probably not wrong, at least to a certain extent. This suspect was truly rare. Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of violent crime offenders don't possess such a high level of education. My theories were incorrect on both the case and offender, the suspect is an anomaly. He rapidly deteriorated across the board. It doesn't appear he had prior offenses. Just sort of spiraled out of control, I believe.

there are quite a few violent criminals including many serial killers who are highly intelligent and therefore remain off the radar for years such as the Freeway Killer William Bonin who tortured his victims, was college educated and considered extremely intelligent. I can think of more.