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US Seeks Death Penalty for 'Calculated' Murder of Chinese Grad Student

Reuters

   PEORIA, ILLINOIS - U.S. prosecutors argued on Monday that an Illinois
   man who kidnapped, raped and murdered a Chinese graduate student two
   years ago should be executed, telling a jury that his crime was one of
   "calculated" cruelty.

   The federal jury in Peoria, Illinois, that found Brendt Christensen,
   29, guilty last month of the abduction and murder of Yingying Zhang, a
   26-year-old student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
   is now hearing the penalty phase of the trial.

   "This was not an ordinary crime," James Nelson, a prosecutor in the
   U.S. Department of Justice's capital case division, told the jury. "It
   was cold, cruel and calculated."

   Christensen's lawyers have asked the jury to spare his life, saying he
   had long struggled with substance abuse and mental illness and had a
   family history of both.

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