Deceased/Not Found IL - Yingying Zhang, 26, Urbana, 9 June 2017 #5 *Arrest*

[annamolly]

Yes, this is why I'm thinking he intimated that he "knew" her, possibly through a mutual acquaintance.

I have thought he possibly pretended to know her, "Don't I know you? Insert name, right?" YZ responds no, and gives her name. Then he takes that as an opening. "Oh you look just like her! Are you a student? I am too. I taught this class, blah blah." YZ feels a little comfortable. He makes small talk and finally asks what she is out here for. "Oh man that bus is never on time, but I can give you a lift since you are running late! Hop in, it is no problem." He built up a common ground w her quickly and being late she may have taken the ride. Just my thoughts, but this has been my idea of how he got her in the car since the beginning.

 

[Tinypeeps]

Yes, this is why I'm thinking he intimated that he "knew" her, possibly through a mutual acquaintance.

Just doubt they had one, though I could certainly be wrong. I worked at a similarly sized research university in California for 17 years and I just don't think it likely that their paths crossed on campus - YZ only arrived in US in April/May; she wouldn't have taken any classes at all, and as another poster said, grad students tend to hang with others in their departments. Can't imagine an off-campus meeting either, but you could well end up being right. I just personally think a) the fake campus police ruse or b) an unusual departure from her usual carefulness in taking a ride from a stranger (especially a stranger who was all "..Hey, I saw the bus just pass you by - can I give you a lift?"), based on not wanting to be late are the most likely.

 

[Satchie]

I really wish there was more of an effort to find Yingying or communicate to the public any updates on the search. For me giving this family some answers is at the top of the priority list. However, it appears this case is shaping up to be more about convicting the perp than finding her or giving the public said updates. Such a tragedy. Here's hoping the family will get answers during trial some months down the road. I'll have to check back in then.

I understand those feelings, but another way to look at it is, the FBI has stated clearly they believe she's dead. Since they can no longer save her life, they can potentially save other lives by getting her killer convicted. In order to ensure the prosecution is a success, they often must withold information from the public, otherwise, the perp will find out what they know and will have a chance to make up lies to cover up and go free. Also, LE need to send the message to other potential kidnappers that they'll be caught and convicted, thus making the streets safe for other young women. So I do hope the family are able to receive her remains in the future, but hope they can reconcile themselves to her death without them.

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[Strangeworld]

I think the internet has led to people feeling somewhat entitled to information when they want it, which is usually now. It's really disheartening particularly when its in the context of other's suffering. YingYing's story is not ours, it is her's and her loved ones. I'm like most on here, following cases and having a personal and professional interest in how they unfold, but I never think its appropriate to pass our own frustrations at lack of information onto the very people (i.e. LE) who are likely giving up significant aspects of their own lives to give people closure, to seek justice. We are simply observers.

 

[crhedBngr]

Just doubt they had one, though I could certainly be wrong. I worked at a similarly sized research university in California for 17 years and I just don't think it likely that their paths crossed on campus - YZ only arrived in US in April/May; she wouldn't have taken any classes at all, and as another poster said, grad students tend to hang with others in their departments. Can't imagine an off-campus meeting either, but you could well end up being right. I just personally think a) the fake campus police ruse or b) an unusual departure from her usual carefulness in taking a ride from a stranger (especially a stranger who was all "..Hey, I saw the bus just pass you by - can I give you a lift?"), based on not wanting to be late are the most likely.

Yes, I see your point of view.

 

[Tinypeeps]

At some point in our lives we all are susceptible to a degree to charm and flattery, whether it is for nefarious reasons or not.

Sure. Just saying I see YZ as being less susceptible to that particular thing than the average woman. Personally, I would be FAR more leery of taking a ride from a guy who was flirting with or flattering me than from a guy who was like ".Oh man...I just saw that bus pass you by, [etc.]" For obvious reasons. Just my own sense of it - no more likely to be right than anybody else.

 

[Ven]

I think the internet has led to people feeling somewhat entitled to information when they want it, which is usually now. It's really disheartening particularly when its in the context of other's suffering. YingYing's story is not ours, it is her's and her loved ones. I'm like most on here, following cases and having a personal and professional interest in how they unfold, but I never think its appropriate to pass our own frustrations at lack of information onto the very people (i.e. LE) who are likely giving up significant aspects of their own lives to give people closure, to seek justice. We are simply observers.

Well said, Strangeworld.

 

[Tinypeeps]

I understand those feelings, but another way to look at it is, the FBI has stated clearly they believe she's dead. Since they can no longer save her life, they can potentially save other lives by getting her killer convicted. In order to ensure the prosecution is a success, they often must withold information from the public, otherwise, the perp will find out what they know and will have a chance to make up lies to cover up and go free. Also, LE need to send the message to other potential kidnappers that they'll be caught and convicted, thus making the streets safe for other young women. So I do hope the family are able to receive her remains in the future, but hope they can reconcile themselves to her death without them.

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Agreed 100%. In addition to which, building a case with ironclad evidence against Christensen IS the quickest way to give yhe family answers.

 

[AnemoneBrown]

I think the internet has led to people feeling somewhat entitled to information when they want it, which is usually now. It's really disheartening particularly when its in the context of other's suffering. YingYing's story is not ours, it is her's and her loved ones. I'm like most on here, following cases and having a personal and professional interest in how they unfold, but I never think its appropriate to pass our own frustrations at lack of information onto the very people (i.e. LE) who are likely giving up significant aspects of their own lives to give people closure, to seek justice. We are simply observers.

I appreciate the empathetic and sober responses to my feelings of disappointment. I was sure to state the most important issue, as I see it, is getting answers for the family, not for me. This is something they have stated publicly, not something I am projecting onto them or made up. http://abcnewsgo.net/video/yxsGqqbaUtvM

More importantly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with holding LE accountable for the handling of a case (there are countless recorded instances of LE and FBI bungling a case) or taking an interest in a case. If it was wrong for people to get personally invested in tragic cases like Yingying's WS would not exist. No need to shame those who are feeling impatient. This is a hugely popular case, globally. I stated that given the likelyhood we will not learn anything new about Yingying's whereabouts until the trial (i.e. when LE/Prosecutors deem it auspicious for legal reasons) I would check back with WS then.

By the way, I am a U of I grad and I get messages everyday from faculty, students, and alumni expressing impatience with the lack of updates. So you can extend your criticism to the U of I community at large as they too care less about a legal analysis of this case, than they are with finding Yingying and for her family to have answers.

 

[Calzone]

No, university-affiliated students or scholars are university guests, not US government guests.

With all due respect, every foreign national in the US is a guest of the US. A status which can be rescinded at any time. All foreign nationals, be they student, business person, actor, athlete, head of state, apply for a visa. As a student and not say a tourist, she needed a sponsor for a visa that would allow her to stay for an extended period of time. The University was her sponsor and may have considered her a "guest" but she was a guest of the US Government.

 

[Deleted member 192280]

http://www.wjbdradio.com/local-news...salem-last-month-wasnt-missing-kidnap-victim-

Salem Police Detective Bryan Green says a possible citing of a missing kidnapped Chinese Scholar in Salem has now been ruled out.Green traveled to Champaign Tuesday to meet with the parents of 26-year-old Yingying Zhang to show them video surveillance of the woman who apparently had been mistaken for her daughter. Green says they were able to see the woman in the video was not their daughter. They were also shown that the same woman that was in Salem on June 16th selling jewelry had also been in Salem on May 19th before Zhang was missing.
...

Green says the news was disappointing to Zhang's family who continue to try and determine if their daughter is dead or alive.

 

[Calzone]

I think the internet has led to people feeling somewhat entitled to information when they want it, which is usually now. It's really disheartening particularly when its in the context of other's suffering. YingYing's story is not ours, it is her's and her loved ones. I'm like most on here, following cases and having a personal and professional interest in how they unfold, but I never think its appropriate to pass our own frustrations at lack of information onto the very people (i.e. LE) who are likely giving up significant aspects of their own lives to give people closure, to seek justice. We are simply observers.

I appreciate the perspective but for some of us Yingying's story is ours. It is certainly a different story than her family's for sure. Yingying's family is living a devastating nightmare in a very far away place. Some of us are living through that story playing out in our community. For Yingying's family, and selfishly for myself, I don't want the local LE to screw this up, get the wrong person, drop the ball in court, or whatever will make MY neighborhood less safe or less welcoming than it was a couple months ago. I am not an observer. I am a participant. While I understand why the term is used, most of us who live here would not consider BC a resident of Champaign. He is a transient like the other 30,000 residents who are just passing through. He does not represent our community, nor does Yingying, but he has turned my peaceful community into a circus sideshow. Graduated in May, his lease was probably up at the end of June. We may have only been weeks away from having this blight off our streets.

 

[Strangeworld]

I appreciate the empathetic and sober responses to my feelings of disappointment. I was sure to state the most important issue, as I see it, is getting answers for the family, not for me. This is something they have stated publicly, not something I am projecting onto them or made up. http://abcnewsgo.net/video/yxsGqqbaUtvM

More importantly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with holding LE accountable for the handling of a case (there are countless recorded instances of LE and FBI bungling a case) or taking an interest in a case. If it was wrong for people to get personally invested in tragic cases like Yingying's WS would not exist. No need to shame those who are feeling impatient. This is a hugely popular case, globally. I stated that given the likelyhood we will not learn anything new about Yingying's whereabouts until the trial (i.e. when LE/Prosecutors deem it auspicious for legal reasons) I would check back with WS then.

By the way, I am a U of I grad and I get messages everyday from faculty, students, and alumni expressing impatience with the lack of updates. So you can extend your criticism to the U of I community at large as they too care less about a legal analysis of this case, than they are with finding Yingying and for her family to have answers.

I appreciate the perspective but for some of us Yingying's story is ours. It is certainly a different story than her family's for sure. Yingying's family is living a devastating nightmare in a very far away place. Some of us are living through that story playing out in our community. For Yingying's family, and selfishly for myself, I don't want the local LE to screw this up, get the wrong person, drop the ball in court, or whatever will make MY neighborhood less safe or less welcoming than it was a couple months ago. I am not an observer. I am a participant. While I understand why the term is used, most of us who live here would not consider BC a resident of Champaign. He is a transient like the other 30,000 residents who are just passing through. He does not represent our community, nor does Yingying, but he has turned my peaceful community into a circus sideshow. Graduated in May, his lease was probably up at the end of June. We may have only been weeks away from having this blight off our streets.

Both these posts missed my point. When I see evidence that the police have dropped the ball, are slacking off or anything in the same vain, I will accept negative comments towards them. Until then, I wish all those personal to YingYing, both here and in her communities, my deepest condolences.

I stand by my previous post 100%

 

[Evrgreentree]

With no new evidence trickling in, I've taken another look back at the original video. I'm using the original UIUC one on Youtube, which seems to be the best quality. It is 1 minute 10 seconds at 10 frames per second, and 1280x720 dimension.

Some observations:

1) From the beginning, people or news reports have mentioned that the video is edited, and that YY supposedly talked to BC for around 3 minutes. Others have mentioned that she talks to him for at least one minute. This is what I see:

a) At 0:14.5, car pulls over. YY immediately steps to the car as soon as it stops (as if she was expecting it?)
b) At 0:16.7 the scene changes to a different camera. There must be some time gap, since there is now a white truck passing BC in the other direction
c) At 0:23.7 a red car enters from bottom of frame, and passes BC
d) At 0:32.1, camera changes back to first scene. The red car is still in the frame, but has moved slightly back. Thus, there is maybe a 1/2 second overlap between the two cameras
e) At 0:40.5 YY starts to open the door. Ignoring the time gaps, she had been talking for 26 seconds before moving her hand to the door.
f) At 0:46.8 she closes the door
g) At 0:52.5 the car starts to move
h) At 1:01.6 BC's car leave the bottom of the frame
i) At 1:02.4, the scene changes to the "reference video", which was before picking up YY.

Regarding the time gaps, the shadows from the various structures move a tiny but perceptable amount. In the first 16 second sequence, the building shadow moves about 2 pixels. When the scene cuts over and back 15.5 (+/- unknown) seconds later, the shadow has moved about 4 pixels. Back with the original camera, the last 30 seconds the shadow moves 4 pixels. So it's _possible_ there are 15-30 seconds missing or so during the camera switch, but it doesn't look like minutes are missing. The affidavit mentions speaking for "approximately one minute".


2) The car pulls away less than 4 seconds after her door closes. This contradicts BC's statement that she showed him a map on her cell phone. He seemed to know where he was going right away.

3) Cropping and enlarging the original video to show just the car (download here), you can see a small amount of extra detail but not much. It's somewhat clear to make out from the changing shadows that she sits down and looks at his face, then at her lap, then his face, then stares at his lap as he drives away. After the car starts moving, I can't make out anything from her seat.



4) I made a quick gif of the car as it's driving (click for full size), centering the car on the image. It made it more clear to me that the blob in the window is the rear view mirror and not her hat. It also makes it more clear that he's looking to the right and slightly down as he drives past. But I still can't make out any trace of YY -- either she's slumped out of view or she blends in too well with the seat.

5) The last image before he moves out of frame looks to me like just a bad quality image. In isolation, it looks like a giant head looking straight out the window. It doesn't match at all the previous images showing him looking to his right. There has been a lot of attention paid to that frame, but personally I don't get much out of it.

6) The police used the cracked hubcap to identify the car, which means they couldn't read the license plate. So much for infinite zoom There was a recent news article announcing they will be upgrading cameras around the city to rectify that.

7) Per the affidavit, the police weren't aware of the cracked hubcap on June 12th when they first went to BC's residence. It was only on the 14th that they noticed it in the video, after which they got the search warrant. It's too bad they lost two days because of that oversight.

8) I was also confused about the last "reference view" at the end of the video. The video description does mention it was taken sometime before picking her up, but I initially assumed it was after. The shadows in that clip are much shorter. My rough guess based on the shadow angles are that it was about 1:15 to 1:30pm (the video with YY was at 2:03).

[FONT=.SF UI Text][FONT=.SFUIText]Informative post, thanks! I agree with one of poster above, did BC had an stun gun with him or something similar? From the link you gave, it seem weird when the first camera had an much more closer view of the front car and more details they decided to switch camera further back when ZYY starts to enter the car. I get the impression that the authority's probably wants to blur out the sensitive details a bit from all the different angles captured, but from watching the video multiples time over and over on how ZYY enter the car. I have two hypothesis. #1 When she enter the front side passenger seat, she give me the impression that she got stunned and fallen right down next to BC right shoulder in the middle of the car that led to BC glancing over his shoulder below to keep an eye out for his befallen victim while he drives away. (from the video her shadow seem too middle to the car). #2 That ZYY actually did not enter from the front passenger side but actually sit in the back passenger seat since she's quite an cautious person she would perhaps felt safer to sit in the back and bail out once something looks bleak to her. (I was trying to figure if the door open was the front or back but the camera angles changed before that very moment, and this child-lock safety feature enabled in the back would prevent ZYY from opening the door and escaping. I also saw an thick dark shadow in the back seat that led me to believe this could be ZYY and not the backseat). However, near end after the showing BC car going from the other direction, I cannot spot ZYY anywhere in the car, so that led me back to the first hypothesis that she probably got stunned after stepping inside the car immediately.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[dizzychick]

remember the lovely girl from Utah I think, her hubby had been lying to her about med school. When she began to figure it out he killed her. He dumped her body in the dumptsters in his apartments and even though he finally confessed and told where she was they still never found all of her, bless her heart. When I saw this case it made me think of her. Sorry I cannot remember her name. Dementia is catching up with me. It may be Lori. does anyone remember her?

 

[Normancita]

remember the lovely girl from Utah I think, her hubby had been lying to her about med school. When she began to figure it out he killed her. He dumped her body in the dumptsters in his apartments and even though he finally confessed and told where she was they still never found all of her, bless her heart. When I saw this case it made me think of her. Sorry I cannot remember her name. Dementia is catching up with me. It may be Lori. does anyone remember her?

Lori Hacking?


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[Satchie]

Sadly, so many cases of missing and murdered young women, every one of them tragic. It's not the police's fault these things happen, and they can't undo the immense pain the perpetrators cause. They're only human beings, not perfect, but they're on the right side of the law, so I don't understand blaming them.

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[dizzychick]

Lori Hacking?


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Yes ! that was her. She was so pretty and such a good woman. That case just tore me up.

 

[Normancita]

Yes ! that was her. She was so pretty and such a good woman. That case just tore me up.

Me too! I just looked that case up again. That jerk won't be eligible for parole until 2034!!!!!!


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[dizzychick]

Me too! I just looked that case up again. That jerk won't be eligible for parole until 2034!!!!!!


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all they recovered of her was a tooth and bone from her should blade. If Mark had been a little more savy he might have gotten away with it, at least if he had not told where to look they would never have found even those tiny pieces of her body. Ofcourse the lies about his school would have come to light and you could surmise he was the one who killed her since the move they were about to make was for him to go to med school. He is very much the black sheep of that family. His brother is still a practicing doctor in Utah and another brother is an engineer. Wonder what his problem was?