Defense in trial: He did it

As a federal prosecutor in Peoria, Ill, on Wednesday shared with jurors grisly details of how authorities claim a former University of Illinois doctoral student kidnapped a visiting scholar from China, then beat her to death with a baseball bat , defense attorneys intent on sparing their client a possible death penalty offered an exceptional claim: He did it.

Opening statements began in the deathpenalty trial of Brendt Christensen, a case which is being closely watched in China and by Chinese students across the U.S. Christensen is accused of posing as an undercover officer to lure 26-year-old Yingying Zhang into his car on June 9, 2017, as she headed to sign a lease off campus.

Christensen, who is over 6-foot, took Zhang to his apartment where he raped, choked and stabbed her in his bedroom, as the 5-foot-4 Zhang tried to fight him off, prosecutor Eugene Miller said in his opening statement to jurors Wednesday. Christensen then dragged Zhang into his bathroom, and pummeled her in the head with the bat before decapitating her, Miller said.

Miller also revealed for the first time that Christensen was captured on an FBI wiretap bragging that Zhang had been his 13th victim.