Transcript of True Crime Vault: Undercover Girlfriend

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00:00:36

We have this missing international student.

How did this young visiting scholar—

Yeah!

Just disappear?

And all you could do is think, as a parent, my child is halfway around the world. Nobody knows where they are.

We have about 2,000 cameras, and she got off the bus right here at this location, this spot right here.

It was a pretty eerie video to watch. As soon as the car drives up, basically, and stops right by Yingying, I'm just thinking, "Don't get in the car.

Don't get in the car." Okay, we're dealing with a kidnapping here.

That there's someone out there posing as an undercover cop trying to get people into vehicles.

Certainly didn't fit the profile of a kidnapper.

Did you see this?

Can you believe this? Look at who the kidnapper was.

Oh, my God.

Look, you know, I hope that we didn't bring you all the way up here to talk about video games. I needed to know where she was, like, now.

And to find out, to trap him, they're having his girlfriend wear a wire, maybe even risking her life.

I'm turning this thingy on. It's about 12:40.

They want her to go undercover.

The girlfriend is scared to death.

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN] I want to tell you.

We see that he was on a group chat entitled Abduction 101. It was a fetish, a fantasy. It was clear this was something he wanted to do.

She started really freaking out.

She fight.

Champagne-Urbana is in the heart of Champaign County. We're a square county right in the middle of east central Illinois.

People here are what I would call salt-of-the-earth people, people who, you know, work hard, have strong values.

The University of Illinois straddles both cities, Champaign and Urbana.

The story itself plays out essentially on the U of I campus from beginning to end.

It's a beautiful campus. It's sprawling. YouTube was developed by two of our alums. Soybean was developed as a cash crop here at the University of Illinois. So the ag roots are, no pun intended, very deep.

I'm a graduate of the University of Illinois. It has the largest Chinese student population in the country. There's no other college in the U.S. that has more Chinese students.

And now, if you went around campus about this time, I swear to God, you'd think you were in Beijing because there are so many Asian students.

In the spring of 2016, a new person flies from China, joining thousands of other Chinese students. A brilliant visiting scholar. She was 26 years old, and her name is Yingying Zhang. [SPEAKING CHINESE] Yingying was a graduate student from one of the top universities in all of China. She was an academic superstar, and she had a real zest for experiencing all sorts of different things.

She's traveled, she did voluntary work. Yingying loves singing. And she and a few friends, they formed a pop group called Cute Horse. And she was the lead singer in that group. [MUSIC] Before she came to the U.S., her friends celebrating Yingying's birthday, and that party also became a farewell party before her journey to the U.S.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] She felt that the University of Illinois here was one of the best places she could go in her field of environmental sciences.

To get into a research group here at the University of Illinois, you obviously have to have promise. Her intent was to begin a PhD program here in the fall.

Yingying was applying a position in our lab. She was really excited about everything. It's just a— it's a new Kind of a new world and a new life opened to her.

She was so new. She had only been here for a few weeks, and so, you know, it just— she hadn't really had a chance to establish a lot of relationships.

She spent lots of her time working or doing research. She also bought a guitar, and she said she didn't have a lot of time to play it, but it just made her feel like she had a friend. In her apartment.

Friday, June 9th, 2017, just a typical beautiful summer day here.

During the summer, campus is a lot more empty while students are home.

Yingying went to Turner Hall on campus that morning of June 9th.

Yeah, it's just a normal day. We kind of clean some equipment that we have been using. So around noon time, she told me she had an appointment at around 1:30 PM to sign an apartment lease.

So she was living on the south end of campus, what they call the married student housing complex.

She was looking to move to the 1 North Apartments because it would be less expensive. And so she had set up that morning to go tour the 1 North Apartments later that day over the lunch hour.

And she said she'd probably leave for 2 hours. And I said, yeah, Yeah, it was fine.

Yingying and the apartment manager had been texting each other to set up this meeting.

When she doesn't show up, he texts her back and says, "Where are you?" Around 3:30 or 4:00 PM, I felt a little bit strange because it shouldn't take so long.

Not the kind of an employee that would just leave.

No, no.

She was a person who was very responsible. They became concerned rather quickly, and they attempted time to contact her, and they couldn't contact her by cell phone.

After dinner, I went back to the office and to see if she might have been back there, but no. So I thought I'd go to her apartment to check. Nobody, like, answered the door. So at that moment, I thought something must have gone wrong. Then we went to the university police office.

So you went in physically and walk into the office?

Yes, yes, yeah.

And what did they say?

At that time, because it was Friday evening, and the police, they thought this just happened so often, like student went missing. A little bit typical. Weekend night.

We have had missing students in the past, but they're very rare that they're actually, that we don't find them immediately. And then some of her colleagues that are also grad students came in and would literally sit in our front office. Do you think they were just feeling you were not doing enough? I think they were just so concerned for her welfare. And they had a sense of urgency about it that she needed help and that none of this made sense.

That night, then we just stayed in front of the apartment building. We stayed maybe until midnight. Still, we really didn't have any clue.

The News Gazette, this is Mary. The next day, Saturday, June 10th, I was working here in the newsroom, and the phone rang, and it was a male friend of Yingying's, and he told me, "We have this missing international student." And I have to admit, I kind of rolled my eyes. As a crime reporter, we get missing persons reports quite a bit. But there was something about the way these people were conveying, "We think something's wrong," that made me say— [SPEAKING CHINESE] Okay, it won't hurt if we run a short story saying that the police are looking for her.

There was a determination to find her. There's that determination from campus and from law enforcement.

Our officers initially went there. Her apartment was in normal condition, so, you know, she didn't pack up her clothes, and she didn't have a car, so I assumed that she took a bus. So I basically checked with MTD buses in town here to see if she had got on a bus.

That's when they started looking at the cameras, the buses, and to try to figure out her last movements.

We have about 2,000 cameras, so that changed everything. There's probably 10 cameras on this bus. One there, there, here, here, and—

They're shooting every angle.

Yeah.

And then they discover that an exterior camera on the outside of the bus captures Yingying boarding a city bus at about 1:30 PM right in front of her apartment. Inside cameras show her walking toward the back, taking a seat.

So she was captured on video from the bus that dropped her off. So the bus was traveling eastbound from that direction coming from the west, and she got off the bus right here at this location.

Right this spot?

This spot right here.

So what's the next camera that we see?

So she got off the bus, came over in this direction, saw another bus heading this direction. I think she was trying to flag it down. I'm not sure if the bus driver saw her or not.

She's almost desperate to get that bus to stop. Yeah.

Based on the video, I mean, you can tell that there was a sense of urgency. I'm trying to get there, sign my lease so I can have a place to stay.

What happens next?

I think she's stopping there to, you know, collect herself. Wait on the next bus and still kind of like maybe trying to figure out, am I going to make it in time?

We noticed her standing next to a bus stop just south of University.

And what was she doing?

She was just standing there.

She's feeling anxious, and at that moment, something dark is on the horizon.

You're looking at somebody who has no clue what is around the corner.

Tell me what happened that day out here.

Yingying Zhang was on her way to an apartment complex to sign a lease. She got on a bus from one of the campus housing facilities.

She gets off a bus. She gets off on one side of the street. Her connecting bus is on the other side of the street. She misses it by seconds. The surveillance video shows her running after the bus.

Well, after 2:00 PM, that she's at the bus stop.

Yingying is standing on the corner, probably hoping that she can just catch a break.

Then they make a critical discovery on a camera at the parking garage right across the street from where she was waiting for a bus. You had no idea how to find where she went.

Mm-hmm.

Until then.

Yeah, it was like literally trying to find a needle in a haystack.

So here you realize, here's the needle.

Here's the needle. The camera captured her standing there.

And when we watched that video further, there was a black sedan that drove by her, actually turned in front of her east, circled around the block, and then pulled up next to her and stopped. And it appeared that the driver rolled down the passenger side window, and I saw Yingying look inside.

It was a pretty eerie video to watch. As soon as the car drives up, basically, and stops right by Yingying, I'm just thinking, like, "Don't— don't get in the car. Don't get in the car." But then you see that she walks up to it.

There was a discussion between Yingying and the driver for about a minute.

And then she eventually got in the car.

She opened the passenger side door and got in. It shut, and then just drove right off the camera.

The video footage from that camera dramatically changed the scope of the investigation, 'cause now We didn't just have a missing persons case. Now we had a suspect vehicle. She got in the car with a person. Whoever was driving that vehicle knew exactly what happened to her.

Once she got in the car, we realized, "Okay, we're dealing with a kidnapping here." Through that video, we were trying to figure out, "Okay, what kind of car is this?" You could not see from the distance.

It got too pixelated as you came in close. You could not get a view of the driver, could not get a view of the license plate. And so the FBI got involved.

That vehicle is a very unique vehicle. It was identified as a Saturn Astra, which was only produced for a very short time frame and imported into the United States.

It's a Saturn Astra, which is a very rare vehicle.

100%—

If it was a Honda Accord, Toyota Camry— in Champaign County, I would imagine there's probably thousands of common vehicles. This car, I believe there was only 58 in the state.

There was nothing more important than determining who owned the car, whether they could make any identification of the driver, and then go talk to that person.

The FBI has been treating this as a kidnapping.

Campus police say surveillance video shows her entering a black Saturn Astra vehicle.

The fact that the police were releasing the video gave it a renewed sense of, "This is a serious situation." The posters of Yingying and the car were hung up all around campus. I think students on campus were very concerned.

How much fear was there amongst the other students here when this started to unfold?

Everybody was kind of really, really frightened, especially the females, and just thinking about how many times you see young females, college students walking around in the area by themselves, and I think it was a huge eye-opener.

I think the biggest theory of her disappearance was that somebody did take her. I know there was big talk of, like, a sex trafficking ring.

One has to think if there is someone driving around the campus scanning for potential victims, that's someone from the greater community, but certainly not someone who is a student on that campus. A lot of students don't even have vehicles.

It got more frightening when this British grad student named Emily Hogan tells police that earlier the same day that Yingying went missing, a man tried to get her into his car.

She said a man A white male in a black sedan pulled up next to her, identified himself as an undercover police officer, and asked her to get in his car to answer a few questions about things going on in the neighborhood.

Emily described seeing mirrored sunglasses and being shown a badge. She declined, and then she immediately calls the police.

Do you remember, like, hearing anything? Police will have a police— you'll hear, like, a scanner or a radio.

No scanner, no radio.

What if you saw a picture of him?

Would you be able to say that was him?

Because of the sunglasses?

It would be tough?

Emily Hogan is so rattled that she posts about the encounter on Facebook. This is hours before Yingying's kidnapping. She warns people, "Don't get in a car, even if they say they are police or have a badge." If Yingying had just seen that post, Perhaps she might never have gotten picked up.

It was just scary to know that somebody was out there just driving around wanting to pick up women.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] Across the ocean in China, that video of Yingying getting into that black Saturn is circulating. Seen on Chinese media. One of the people watching that was someone very, very close to Yingying, her serious boyfriend, Xiaodong Hou.

I saw that video. I don't know what happened after she get into the car, and I also have some bad feelings.

But days went by, nothing happened.

Yeah, nothing happened, and we decided to go to the United States and to look for her by ourselves.

Yingying's boyfriend and her family wanted to do something that the FBI could not do— just find out for themselves exactly what happened to her.

They saw a girl in small town, an Asian girl just look like Yingying.

So you rushed right down?

Oh, yeah. We went there. They said the girl was her. Some of them even said, "Definitely, it's her." Yingying's missing became a huge story in China.

Now, if you ask an ordinary Chinese citizen about Yingying's name— Zhang Yingying. Everyone knows about this case. This particular one got so much attention because Yingying was from a very ordinary family.

So to uncover every detail about Yingying Zhang's background, I traveled thousands of miles away from the American college town to the south of China to the town of Nanping. Yingying Zhang is from a region of Southeast China. When you get there, you can see this natural beauty. It's near the Wu Yi Mountains, surrounded by what is known as the Nine Bend River. The main economy in this area is tea farming. Yingying's hometown of Nanping is a tea farm. One of the poorer cities in the country. When I got there, the people were so nice. The family welcomed me. When I came to their apartment, it was very modest. There was no heating. So when I sat down to interview them, we actually had to wear our coats. Moment in June 2017, what did you hear first, that she was missing?

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN] Kai, what's up?

The family does not come with great means. The father was a driver for a small company. Mom never really got any education. She does not read and write, so she basically is a homemaker. Yingying has a younger brother, dropped out of school when he was middle school age, and he's learning to be a mechanic. A cook.

But she's the smartest one in the school.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] Yingying was very special. From when she was little, she enjoys studying. She was the best student in every school she went to.

She was my English assistant for 3 years. Friendly, positive, and always help other classmates.

She's just precious, and she had a smile that would light up wherever she was.

Yingying was the very first member of the family who ever went to a university, and that's where she met her boyfriend, Xiaoling Hou.

I met her in the first meeting of the classmates I have deep impression of the, of Ying at that meeting. She has beautiful face and beautiful voice.

They were both great students. They graduated number 1 and number 2, Xiaolin being number 1, and they both went on for graduate studies at Peking University, which is the equivalent of Chinese Harvard.

When you look at those videos of Yingying Bing getting into that car, what did you think when you saw that video?

On one hand, I think Ying will be found soon because it will be not difficult for them to locate the car and locate Ying.

Days went by. Nothing happened.

Yeah, nothing happened, and we decided to go to a university. The United States and to look for her by ourselves.

To do your own search?

Yeah, do our own search.

You thought the police, the university just was not doing enough?

I think we could do better.

Yingying's father, her boyfriend, her aunt, her mother's sister all came. The family tells me they want to do anything they can to find their girl.

We will not give up until we find her.

We can't imagine what the emotion would be for a family to come to a country they'd never been to before. They didn't speak the language.

Oh, haggard, devastated. It was horrible. I mean, and all you could do is think, as a parent, "My child is halfway around the world. Nobody knows where they are. I'm gonna get as close as I can to where she was last seen, and then I'm gonna try to find her." This is where Ying got into the car.

How many times did you see her? How many times do you think you've been out to the spot?

Oh, many, many times. I also did everything we can to find her by ourselves. We search a lot of place around Champaign. We got a lot of tips. One time, I saw a tips on the Facebook.

It was of a woman, I think, of Asian descent that was seen in Salem, Illinois, which is south of here about 75 miles.

You rushed right down to Salem.

Oh, yeah. We went there. We show her pictures. To the people there. They said the girl was her. Some of them even said, "Definitely, it's her." The family contacted the Salem Police Department, which—

Offered to check surveillance video from street cameras to see if the girl in question was actually Yingying.

They have checked the videos, but unfortunately, that girl was not Yingying.

You saw the video of who that girl was?

We saw the video.

She did not look like Yingying at all?

From the back, it looks like Ying, but from the front, that was not Ying.

Your hopes and then suddenly disappear.

Oh, yeah, yeah. But this kind of thing happened several times.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] It was very frustrating for us, so I can't imagine what the family was going through, you know, trying to figure out if their daughter is still alive. Can they find her? Can they locate her?

Crime Stoppers is offering a $40,000 reward $100,000 reward for any information that leads to Yingying Zhang. It is the largest reward of its kind ever offered by the organization.

Eventually, we came up with 18 vehicles that were persons of interest that we wanted to look at. It got exciting at that point. But then it slowed when I'd made contact with those people, and we still had nothing.

The police always like to say that it's good police work that solves crimes. In this case, the greatest clue that they could have was right in front of their eyes.

And the person who found the clue that helped crack this case wasn't an FBI agent. He was a campus cop.

I watched it for almost— I would say somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes of just watching it go forward and backwards. I was able to determine that, yes, this is something different about this car. I kind of got a little excited because I'm like, hey, well, there's something there.

It changed everything.

It was a huge moment.

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26-year-old Yingying Zhang disappeared June 9th.

Campus police say surveillance video shows her entering a black Saturn Astra vehicle in Urbana that afternoon.

Yingying has been missing for days. The police and FBI agents are working 20-hour days because they know that they're up against the clock. They know that with each passing hour, with each passing day, the chances of finding Yingying diminish.

We're working 24/7. We weren't seeing our families. We were, in some ways, sleeping just a couple hours, just enough to get back up and go again.

All attention came onto that black Saturn Astra.

What's the license plate? Who's driving the vehicle? The video was very grainy.

Got too pixelated as you came in close. You could not get a view of the driver, could not get a view of the license plate.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] I wanted this young lady to be found. There were some detectives looking at video footage, so I went in and I asked, "Is there anything I can do to help? What are you guys looking for?" He said, "We're trying to figure out if we can, you know, enhance this and see the license plate." On June 14th, I reviewed the video. It was from this camera angle. It's on the Electrical and Computer Engineering Building, and the black vehicle is actually traveling northbound. I started watching the wheels. I noticed that there was something missing here, a defect. There was a dark spot that was missing from the right passenger front hubcap. And then going through, doing my checks, going forward, going backward, spending a lot more time frame by frame taking a look at it, I was able to determine that, yes, this is something different about this car.

So no one else had seen that before you did?

Yeah.

And then I kind of got a little excited, 'cause I'm like, "Hey, well, there's something there." Sergeant Carter, everybody knows that he's a car guy, and he has a real close attention to detail on everything. And I didn't see it, but he did.

It was a huge moment. That information comes back to the FBI that there's a piece missing from that front right hubcap.

You could also see that the vehicle had a large sunroof, which was not observable in some of the other camera footage.

An FBI agent, he goes through his notes and he realizes, "The first guy we interviewed, his car had a sunroof." When they initially interviewed him, he was calm, did not appear to be nervous.

He said that he was home all day playing video games.

An FBI agent noted, "Well, he had a sunroof on his car." I sent him back out there with a team and say, If there's a broken hubcap, let us know immediately.

And then they went back to that Saturn, looked at the car.

A couple minutes later, I get a photo, and it's a match.

It was the same hubcap that has been seen on the video.

The owner of that vehicle was Brent Christensen. Christensen was a young man, 27, who had just completed a master's program with the University of Illinois in their physics department.

He was on the list of teaching assistants who were ranked as excellent by their students.

He was my TA, teacher assistant, for physics mechanics. He seemed pretty knowledgeable. He seemed like, you know, like any TA in physics department, pretty respectable, know what they're talking about.

What was he like? Was he stressed? Was he relaxed?

He seemed pretty relaxed, seemed pretty mild, you know. He didn't really have— I wouldn't say he had much of a big personality, you know.

He was married. He lived in a nice apartment on the west edge of Champaign. Certainly didn't fit the profile of a kidnapper.

I knew very little about him. I knew that he had no criminal history. He had no police contacts. So there was really nothing significant in his background.

I really wanted to— talk to Mr. Christiansen. We knew she got into his vehicle, so our plan was to knock on the door. We wanted to ask if Mr. Christiansen would be willing to talk to us.

I mean, it was almost midnight by the time they had the warrant and assembled the team to go out to his apartment.

And I just kept saying to myself over and over again, I'm just out loud, I can't believe that it's this easy. I can't believe that this is how we're gonna catch him, is from that cracked hubcap.

When we knocked on the door, he—

Seemed maybe a little surprised, but was relatively calm in his demeanor. When we entered the apartment, we immediately noticed that his wife was undressed.

I don't know why she would answer the door in that way. She seemed to be very comfortable.

The agents asked her if she would put on clothes, because it would make them feel more comfortable.

One of the things that was in the apartment that there's a photograph of are the mirrored aviator sunglasses that you can actually see we see a reflection of Christensen's wife.

It's interesting because when you see those mirrored sunglasses, they're just like the ones that the British student said she saw on the man who tried to talk her into his car.

I walked with him inside the apartment. He sat down at his kitchen table. I gave him a copy of the warrant, asked him if he would come and talk to us, or on camera. Champaign office was just a mile away.

He was very nonchalant when Agent Manganaro asked him if he was willing to come down to the station. He told his wife, he said, "Well, everything I've seen in the movies tells me I shouldn't talk to the police.

What do you think?" And she nonchalantly said, "Yeah, I think you should go." He agreed to come and interview with us, and so myself and Detective Stiversen drove him to our Champaign FBI office. This is a voluntary interview. So at any time you're done, we'll drive you back home.

I really had a sense of urgency that I needed to know where she was, like, now.

I know that you picked her up.

Where'd you take her, Brent? We need to find Yingming. It was close to midnight. Mr. Christensen agreed to come and interview with us. With myself and Detective Stuyvesant with the university police.

We left his apartment and drove back to the FBI headquarters.

Did he look like he was worried?

He was very calm.

My name is Anthony Manganaro. I'm a special agent with the FBI. I'm assigned here in Champaign. And then this is Eric?

Yeah, Detective Eric Stuyvesant.

Detective with university police.

Okay.

We are investigating the disappearance of Ms. Yingying.

I'm willing to answer questions. Some questions, obviously, I don't know.

One of the things I like to do when I start an interview is just have the person tell their story, or in this case, retell his story that he had prior told to agents. Do you remember what you told him?

I was either playing video games Was he abnormal the way he was answering?

He didn't seem very concerned why he was there. Most people in that situation might be like, you know, why are you pulling me out of bed at this time of the morning? Why are we here?

And he never really asked.

He just kind of wanted to see what we were going to ask him.

Almost like he felt that he was interviewing you.

In a way. He wasn't going to provide us anything new, and he wanted to know what we knew.

Why am I under suspicion? Is it just my car, or is there anything else?

I mean, that's, you know, a large portion. I mean, it is a very unique car. Detective Stiversen and I hadn't interviewed together before.

We were very comfortable with doing it together.

We pretty quickly and easily evolved into a softer approach for myself. What'd you graduate in?

Master's in physics. Wow, that's—

You're smarter than me.

Thanks.

And a bit more confrontational approach with Detective Stiverson.

Look, you know that we didn't bring you all the way up here to talk about video games and what you had for lunch that day.

Yeah.

Why do you think that we brought you up here?

Because the car I own was seen picking up a girl that's missing.

Boy, I was really going after him, and it was because I had a sense of urgency that I needed to know where she was, like, now. I really pressed him about the video. You're a student here at the U of I. What do we have everywhere? I'm like, "Cameras, Brent, cameras. We have cameras everywhere." We control kiosks at bus stops. We can look in buses. We can look in every building, out on the streets, and you're telling me that I didn't see you driving your car on Goodwin?

And then you turned.

You turned on Clark. And we still have cameras.

I've seen the videos. I didn't see me.

You've seen what we've allowed you to see. And then at that point, you could see it in his face. The wheels are turning. His eyes start to flutter. I know that you picked her up. Where did you drop her off at? She was looking for a ride. She had missed her bus. She told you she was going to 1 North, so where did you drop her off at?

There is a lengthy period of silence. Mr. Christiansen starts to physically react to that confrontation when he realizes he's at odds with his story. Story.

He's almost hyperventilating, like somebody's having a panic attack. And at one point, he looks over to Tony.

Mr. Christensen even looks at me almost wanting help, almost wanting an out. And I remember just staring back at him because I wanted the answer as well. I wasn't there to give him an out. [SPEAKING GERMAN] OK.

I thought I drove around on Saturday. I had to pick a girl up. I don't remember where. Yeah.

He made an admission that was like a light bulb going off. He changes direction and admits that he actually had picked up an Asian person in his car earlier in that day.

He had gone from that cool, calm, confident to nervous.

I saw her picture. I don't think it was her, though.

Seemed to desperately be looking for an answer to give that would explain why she got into his car.

Do you remember the girl's name that you picked up?

No, she was talking very broken English. Okay.

Tell us about what happened. What time of day was that?

Early afternoon. I don't really remember.

Okay.

I was just driving around. I saw a girl, and she was very distressed. I asked her if she needed help. I talked to her for a little bit. How much? I gave her a short nod, a cool nod. She freaked out and got out.

Okay.

That's all it was.

He says, "Oh, I did pick up an Asian female," and then the information that he provided pretty much narrowed it down to it was Yingying.

You had no doubt at that moment?

No doubt in my mind at that point. I knew that he was our guy, that it was not only his car, but he was the driver.

Christiansen was our guy. But we still didn't know where Yingying was. Was. We still didn't know what happened to Ying Ying.

So where did you drop her off at?

Where'd you take her, Brent? We need to find Ying Ying tonight.

I think it's time that I stop answer— answering questions. I know the civil advice is to get a lawyer before you answer anything, and I think I've tried to help enough.

I knew we had the guy. What I struggled with was being able to prove it.

He was arrested for making a false statement to the FBI.

He was detained for about 24 hours, but ultimately the U.S. Attorney's Office decided to not prosecute.

We didn't want to hold him in custody because we thought that by releasing him, we would have the opportunity to find Yingying.

The authorities are trying to find her if she's still alive. They have a secret game plan. They are going to have somebody very close to Christensen go undercover and help them solve the case.

I know everything. Well, I know way more than everyone knows. Outside of, like, you know, the FBI and the police. I want to tell you.

You want to?

I do want to. A few months ago, I had a huge form of schizophrenia.

It is a parent's nightmare I mean, send your kid away to school, and then they never come back.

Where'd you take her, Brent? We need to find Yingying.

Tonight.

Can you believe this?

Can you believe that this is, like, that's Brent. That's our TA.

I'm just absolutely blown away.

They ask Christiansen's girlfriend to wear a wire for them.

They want her to go undercover.

That's fine, Yingying. During the entire walk, Tara was recording everything that he was saying.

13. The last person I would consider at my level that actually did anything.

[SPEAKING SPANISH] The girlfriend is scared to death.

They want to find their daughter.

Please cut.

She disappeared at the University of Illinois and still has not been found.

No matter dead or alive, we just want to find her and bring her home.

Yingying Zheng was last seen on this campus video. Moving toward late June of 2017, this may have been the most frightening time for students, faculty, residents in Champaign-Urbana. You still had a missing young woman and nobody knew who who was behind this.

There's this image of a black car that's been put out in the media. People on campus are wondering, is there a kidnapper out there? Is he gonna strike again?

I'm willing to answer questions, some questions.

What the public doesn't know at this point is that authorities have tracked that vehicle to the owner, a U of I physics grad student named Brett Christiansen. Initially, Christiansen said he never left the apartment on June 9th. That he was sleeping and playing video games.

I just picked a girl up.

But in that interrogation, he admits that he picked someone up, and oh, by the way, that person he picked up matches almost to a T Yingying.

I gave her a short ride home to her house. She freaked out and got out.

We knew Christiansen was our guy. We still didn't know where Yingying was. We still didn't know what happened to Yingying.

We thought that by releasing him, we would have the opportunity to find Yingying.

The suspect in this case was not at all some nefarious person from the outside looking in. He's the kind of guy you'd want to bring home to Mom and Dad.

I think it took a lot of people by surprise because he was a PhD candidate. It didn't, I guess, fit what would be considered a normal profile.

Normal profile. So there was really nothing of significance in his background, and I knew that he was from Wisconsin.

Brent Christensen was born in 1989 in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

So this is the town of Stevens Point, which is a population of about 26,000 people here in Wisconsin. You can't get a town any different than Nanping, where we met the family of Yingying.

When people talk about Stevens Point, the first thing that usually pops up is the Point Brewery. We have our own symphony orchestra, 3 different playhouses. It's not quite Norman Rockwell, uh, but it is. People come here and they raise their families, and nobody feels unsafe.

This is the neighborhood where Brent grew up. It's certainly middle class. That's where Grant grew up.

They were very nice, very friendly.

They kept their yards up, their house up.

The kids were very, very mindful.

Mom and Dad worked real hard.

Mike was a carpenter. He also had a vending route that he ran. And, you know, the guy was always working hard.

What about Mom?

She was a little bit more friendly, a little bit more outgoing, okay? And very hardworking.

This is Brent eating again.

It's still his birthday.

He's 1 year old today.

Typical brothers, you know, Matt was always picking on Brent. Brent wouldn't fight back, and I had to warn my older boy, "Watch out, he's getting bigger." What's the history of Brent? Typical kid, really. Highly intelligent. Was able to teach him early on, you know, before kindergarten, how to read, write, Math, no problem. He also had a piano that he learned on his own without notes or anything.

When he was in grade school, he was in a gifted program, so really he had a fairly good upbringing.

He has no aggression in him, very gentle, very private. My sons, my daughter, myself depend upon Lonnie logic, and so we can shove our emotions down.

He did have night terrors, that he would wake up in the middle of the night. There was one incident where he tried to jump off the second floor porch. He ran into the street into a car that was passing by, and that sent him to the hospital.

The neurologist, who was a specialist in sleep disorders, told me this is something odd. He mentioned perfect storm, that it probably would never ever happen again.

What was he like when he was in high school?

I guess I could call him a loner type. He was the invisible guy, except for the handful of times that he and his friends did decide to just be goofy in class.

Goofy.

Goofy.

One time he had coordinated with a friend outside of class to burst in, in the middle of the hour to just have a lightsaber fight with plastic lightsabers.

This is his graduate.

Yeah.

In your book.

So Brent decided to take a scanned picture from a roller coaster ride. This is the kind of person that was in class with me. I mean, he was kind of a goof. After Christiansen leaves high school, he meets Michelle, who had also gone to the same high school.

High school.

They began a dating relationship.

And just, pfft, very fast, they got married.

What did you think of Michelle?

Intelligent. She was good for him. He needed somebody intellectual.

He got admitted to the University of Illinois to attempt to obtain his PhD there, one of the top physics programs in the country.

Did you feel that he was at the top of his game?

Yes, absolutely. Nothing but good things. I mean, here he was doing something that I really envied. He was a professional student.

By 2016, his coursework is going down the tubes. He decides that the doctoral program, he's not gonna make it, so he downshifts to a graduate degree. While he's failing academically, there are suddenly cracks in his marriage. He's drinking too much. His wife, Michelle, Michelle has had it.

She gave the option of open marriage instead of divorce.

That's why he agreed to it.

It was basically an ultimatum. And he did not want to lose her.

You mentioned that there's another guy she hangs out with. You mentioned there's another girl you hang out with. Do you guys have a— We're in an open relationship.

Oh, yeah.

I have a girlfriend. She has a boyfriend as well.

Tara Bullis is Brent Christensen's girlfriend. He found her on a dating website after him and his wife Um, decided to go into an open relationship.

Tara Boles is a person in the local Champaign-Urbana community. She would say she's had a hard life. Was a very honest and forthright person.

New at 10 o'clock here, the family of a missing University of Illinois scholar from China is pleading for help. Tara was interviewed by agents on June 15th and gave a very thorough interview, very open and cooperative, and wanted to help in any manner she could.

Authorities don't yet have the goods on Brent Christensen, so they throw somewhat of a Hail Mary. They ask Christensen's girlfriend, Tara Bullis, to wear a wire for them.

They want her to go undercover against not just her boyfriend, but a man that the authorities have now considered to be the prime suspect in the kidnapping and probable death of Yingying Zheng.

This is Tara. It's Thursday the 22nd at 5:25. And he should be coming over around 5:30, so I'm turning it on.

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The mystery at U of I. What really happened to a visiting scholar from China who disappeared from campus?

The best and perhaps only opportunity we had to have someone who could interact directly with Brent Christensen really was Tara Bullis.

The FBI called Tara in because she was the closest person to Christensen. She came in voluntarily and sat and answered questions.

This is a girlfriend. This is somebody who he has an intimate relationship with.

She was conflicted because she loved Brent Christensen.

During the conversation with Tara, We approached her with the idea of wearing a wire and recording future conversations with Christiansen.

She was willing to cooperate because it would either exonerate him or it would help find Yingying.

We have the girlfriend who's wearing a wire. The girlfriend is scared to death.

This was a very risky proposition from the very beginning. If he were to determine that she's also involved, involved in this at this point. In a private moment, in their bedroom, in a car, he very easily could have taken her out.

There is always concerns with having a confidential source that's going undercover. We felt pretty good because Christiansen was under 24-hour surveillance.

I'm turning this thingy on. It's about 12:40, and I'm gonna go go see Brent on the porch.

The way the recordings progressed, the first few, there was little evidence towards the crime necessarily.

I have already done more than I had to for them, and I was repaid by getting arrested. I want to find this girl and—

He makes a comment to her that he wants to clear his name with the FBI.

I'm going to go talk to— Uh, one of the FBI agents.

Why do you have to talk to them?

I don't have to. I don't, but I will.

Okay.

Give them my name. So 8 days after Yingying's disappearance, Christiansen voluntarily goes back into that FBI office.

Good to see you again.

You too.

He gives a very similar story about how he had just mixed up his days and how he had just wanted to help this woman.

She started really freaking out. She was grabbing at her hair, you know, like, "Where am I? What are you?" All that kind of stuff. And, like, I stopped, 'cause I didn't want a crazy girl in my car. Yeah.

Do you remember where she got out?

I remember it was a residential area. Would you maybe be willing after this to hop in a car with us and sort of take us through the area, if that kind of refreshes your recollection? I can try.

So he agreed to go to out go out with them and drive around the area north of where he had picked her up to try to identify a specific location where he had let her out of his car.

He directed them in all sorts of different directions. He basically took them on a wild goose chase.

I think he went in with the intention of trying to clear his name.

He was more of a suspect after the interview on the 7th.

After the second interview with Brent Christensen, the FBI let it be known publicly that they had his car.

They found that black Saturn but won't say where it was found or who it belongs to.

That must have been a key moment in his mind. If he had any thoughts that he was gonna control this situation, they went out the window at that point.

That's weird.

Why would they release his car?

So they kept the info because they didn't want the real culprits to know of their progress in the case. Like, for instance, they knew it had nothing to do with me, at least I assume they do by now.

The undercover tapes have really gone nowhere initially. He doesn't say anything incriminating. And then all of the sudden, there is an event that will change the direction of the case. Of the case.

On June 29th, 2017, there was a vigil held in honor of Yingying.

This event was established to try to bring more awareness, to try to help find her.

Brent Christensen was still in contact with Tara Bullis, and that morning, he texted her and told her that he wanted to go to the memorial walk.

He showed up at a vigil for the woman he was accused of kidnapping. It's 6:46 on Thursday, June 29th. We're at the benefit for the walk, and Brent has a thing of alcohol, and he is drinking while he's here.

That's fine, yeah, yeah.

That's fine, yeah, yeah.

That's fine, yeah, yeah.

The fact that he wanted to go to her memorial walk was very odd.

So when Christiansen and his girlfriend are walking along in that visual, a WCIA news crew got a very quick shot from behind. It turns out that during the entire walk, Tara was recording everything that he was saying.

He said, "Everyone is here for me." He made comments to that effect during the walk.

I want to see how many people are here.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] 20 days is a long and hard journey for me and for the whole family.

Xiaolin had a song that he had written for Yingying, and at this memorial, he played that song for the crowd. [SPEAKING CHINESE] And at the end of that song, Thank you so much. Everyone stood up and started cheering and clapping.

Thank you guys so much for coming down here for the walk.

Except Christiansen.

He just slowly clapped his hands.

He stayed in his seat, and he just slowly clapped.

It really was an insight into the depth of his faith. Of Brent Christensen's depravity.

He describes how people are coming up to him, thanking him for being here.

They thanked me for being here. Like, just think about that. Just— [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Yeah. Of course I am. I want to tell you.

You want to?

I do want to.

In the middle of that visual, his girlfriend with the FBI recording device suddenly hears exactly what happened to Yingying Zhao.

She was telling you.

She was.

She was. She's tired.

I remember getting home that night. I couldn't sleep. Close to midnight, my phone rings, and it's my supervisor, and then he goes, Tara's here. We're listening to the recording, and Christiansen admits on the recording that he killed Yingying.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] Nobody knew what happened. Any room for another victim? I was the only one.

Tara was very upset when she was with us at our office.

On the day of the memorial walk, she would She was very frightened many times. She was very scared many times.

Crying, just shaken. I mean, this really impacted her, the things that were said to her.

They will never find her. The family, you know, they're going to leave her behind because no one will ever know where she is.

With those admissions, we believed that we had enough evidence to now arrest him for kidnapping.

We start tonight with breaking news. The FBI within the hour announcing charges against a man accused of kidnapping. News of the charges shocking to those who knew Christiansen.

Finding out Brent Christiansen was a student made the situation a little more scary. He was going to class here, he was going to work here.

I reached out to one of my friends and I'm like, hey, did you see this?

Can you believe this?

Can you believe this? Like, that's Brent, that's our TA.

This is a text you sent to one of the other students in the class.

I'm saying, "Look at who the kidnapper was." And he's like, "Oh my God." And I say, "Isn't that insane?

Brent was the kidnapper." I'm just absolutely blown away.

I spent most of June 30th drafting a criminal complaint authorizing his arrest.

Investigators believe the missing student, Yingying Zhang, is dead.

And knowing that I was the agent who wrote that, really struck me because I had to then go and be with her family. So— sorry.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] When you first heard this name, Brent Christiansen, What did you think at that moment?

[SPEAKING CHINESE] [SPEAKING CHINESE] Christensen has no criminal history and has pleaded not guilty.

Christensen is charged federally, one count of kidnapping resulting in death, two counts of lying to the FBI.

While Christensen is in jail, he has multiple phone calls with his family, which are all recorded. He tells his mother, Ellen, he had nothing to do with Yingying's disappearance.

It's all circumstantial shit. I didn't do it. Yeah. I'm just wondering what they're basing all this on. Everything will be okay in the end. I didn't do it. And the truth will come out in the end.

But at the time, Christiansen's family just had no idea what was actually said on that recording at the vigil. You strongly believed that he was innocent when you first heard it?

Oh, yeah.

Heard this news. It was not the Brent you knew.

Oh, no. Brent couldn't have done that. That does not fall within his character at all.

As we continue to move the case forward, the defense turns over to us this March 21st counseling video. He went to the University of Illinois Counseling Center to see what he could do to save his marriage.

He talked with an intern counselor who interviewed him for about an hour. And because she was an intern, and she took a video of it.

Austin, tell me a little bit about what brought you in today. Um, mostly my alcohol and drug abuse. It's been going on for years.

He described himself as kind of lonely in a way, in despair.

I have probably had some form of depression ever since I was a teenager. I don't want to live anymore. I don't know. I was just trying to— The only person I really interact with outside of working is my wife. I don't have friends. My wife told me she wanted to separate from me Sunday night. I just can't live without her.

Christensen's wife is fed up with their relationship and wants a quote-unquote open marriage. Christensen meets Tara Bullis, and then what happens next next leads to a new direction for Christensen. She is into the fetish community, and she brings him into that fold.

The agents learned from examining the defendant's phone that he, he was on this FetLife website, which is a website that individuals with various fetishes can get on and have various discussions. And so we see that he was on a group chat entitled Abduction 101, and it revealed in there he was talking to a woman about something called a consensual abduction. And he described how he was going to take her, put her in a large duffel bag, duct tape her mouth, and then put her in either the back seat or the rear of his car.

And he actually was just visiting these sites just a few times overall. He contacted one other person, and that was it.

There are individuals, no doubt, who are on there who, for them, it was a fetish, a fantasy. But something they wouldn't act out. For Brent Christensen, the large duffel bag that he discussed on the website, he actually purchased. It was clear this was something he wanted to do.

There's an avalanche of seemingly incriminating evidence against Brent Christensen. But he sticks to his guns. He maintains his innocence.

I know what happened. And I didn't do anything wrong.

But at Christensen's trial, the victim's family would hear something no parent should have to hear. Should ever have to hear.

It was unbelievable, like supernatural almost how he just didn't give up.

Yingying's father and brother, I kind of wish that they would just take off the headphones.

In late May, Yingying's family and loved ones, they came to the U.S. to attend the trial.

How have you been doing in the United States now?

[SPEAKING CHINESE] In their dreams, they want their daughter, or they want the remains. It may be that this trial brings the closure.

Brent Christensen goes on trial for his life in Peoria Federal Court.

Outside the courthouse, hundreds demanding justice for Zheng and her family.

June 12th, 2019, opening statements at the Peoria Federal Courthouse. It's 2 years and 3 days since Yingying disappeared, and Brent Christensen is on trial for her murder. For his life.

The government is seeking the federal death penalty in a state where capital punishment has been abolished.

This is a federal capital case, and that's extremely rare to begin with. The death penalty at a state level was abolished years earlier, but the prosecutors wanted to put Christiansen on death row. It's a cavernous courtroom. Brent Christiansen is sitting at the defense table. Defense table facing the jury. Yingying's family is sitting in the front left side of the gallery, in Christiansen's field of vision.

They were very solemn and stoic. And yes, they could look at him, but he, I don't think, would ever try and make eye contact with them.

During the opening statement, a simple phrase that I repeated several times was, "He kidnapped her." He murdered her. He covered up his crime.

Prosecution's star witness, Christiansen's girlfriend, Terribles.

Oh, that's her.

Terribles arrives to court flanked by FBI agents.

He didn't want to look at her at all. There was an opportunity when she would sail right past him, and he would still keep his eyes shut.

She testifies to the relationship that they had. The prosecution takes her through the relationship, through her decision to wear a wire for the FBI.

Tara Bullis, she's a hero in the case. I believe that she did an incredible job testifying. I mean, you can imagine how hard that was for her during cross-examination, as the defense asked her numerous questions and attacked her.

They said, When he started dating Tara, that's when he linked sex and violence in his mind, and maybe that's what propelled him to go farther down this path. Maybe she was the catalyst that made him think about these things.

Any claim that Tara Bullis led him to do this is preposterous. The evidence shows that he was already making these plans long before he met Tara Bullis.

Her testimony is not credible. Was crucial, but it was what she did, recording conversations surreptitiously of Christiansen, that became the cornerstone of the case.

I want to talk about it. It's—

Is it hard to hold in?

I want to talk about this so much.

The jury is hearing these details. They're wearing headphones. There's a transcript playing in the courtroom of the recording. I'm sitting behind Yingying's father and brother who are listening on headphones to a translation of the recording.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] I couldn't believe it. She just didn't die. It was unbelievable. Like, supernatural almost, how she just didn't get killed. I couldn't believe it that she was still alive. So I carried her into my bathtub. I grabbed a bat and I hit her on the head as hard as I could. And it broke her head open.

It's chilling that a human being, first of all, could do what he said he did to another human being. But even more chilling, that he could describe what he did with such pleasure.

He ultimately says to Tara on that recording that he decapitated Yingying.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] That was the end of it, right? She was done.

Yingying's father and brother, I kind of wished that they would just take off the headphones, but they didn't. They absorbed every single word, and it was heartbreaking to witness.

But what was on that tape just got even more horrific. Recorded evidence that Christiansen may not have killed just one person, but many people.

People.

We're thinking he just admitted to being a serial killer.

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3 decades ago, a young woman named Angie Dodge is found brutally murdered in her bedroom in Idaho Falls.

Falls.

It was probably the worst case I've ever seen. It is the one that sticks with me.

Police zero in on a suspect and put a man behind bars.

I don't know what the hell you guys want.

Do you think we'd be wasting our time and wasting your time if we didn't think you're involved?

But as the years pass, doubts emerge about whether the real killer was ever caught. That's when Angie's own mother embarks on a decades-long mission to uncover the truth.

23 years I've been trying to put this puzzle together, and the center's missing.

I've always been told the truth will come out. You can't hide the truth.

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Inside the Peoria federal courthouse, a recording has been played of Brent Christensen not only admitting to killing Yingying but boasting that he had killed before.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] I've been at this since I was 19. The last person I would consider of my level that actually did anything was Ted Bundy.

Either you have a bona fide serial killer, and you better find his other victims, or he's just following a path of lies and deceit.

When we heard that, we took that very seriously. So the FBI ran down all the leads they could. Looked back at the places that he had lived, looked for missing persons at those locations.

Ultimately, we could not find any other victims. That's not saying that there aren't any, but we've never been able to find any other victims.

The defense early on admitted that Christensen had kidnapped and killed Yingying, but they said because he lied about killing her, killing those 12 other victims, you can't believe all of those horrible details heard on those tapes.

The defense said these were the ramblings of a drunk man, that he was embellishing these statements, that he was performing for Terribilis.

He didn't do half of what he said. It wasn't as horrendous. I mean, sure, killing somebody is horrendous, but it wasn't as oppressive. Prosecution made out.

The difference between the claim of 12 other victims and not being able to corroborate that, and thus what he did to Yingying then not being truthful, it doesn't match with the evidence obtained from the apartment. He describes hitting her in the head with a baseball bat. We have her DNA on the baseball bat. We have her blood, her DNA on the mattresses, on the floorboards, underneath the bed.

He knew that his wife was gonna be out of town for the weekend. Huge amounts of cleaning been done on the drywall, going all the way down to the baseboard. We got video of him going to a local Walmart as he purchased large amounts of Drano. He purchased Swiffer pads. He purchased garbage bags.

There's a mountain of evidence against Brent Christian. Not a lot of question about whether or not he's guilty.

I think the jury deliberated for about 90 minutes before coming back. Yeah, I didn't have to wait around that long.

And then that guilty verdict came, and it was for her.

When it came time for the penalty phase of the case, it does kick it into a whole new emotional level, obviously. On the part of the defense attorneys to try and spare his life.

The prosecution would have you believe that Brendt Christensen is a singular predator. The defense portrayed him as a man drowning in pain.

Happy birthday to you. They played videos of him blowing out his first birthday candle, playing the piano. They also talked about the history of mental health issues in his family.

He lost control. Wasn't the Brent I knew. Wasn't the Brent anyone knows. It makes no sense.

Something snapped.

I believe there is evil in the world, that people do evil things, and that he allowed himself to go down this dark path.

The jury deliberated deliberated for about 8 hours over the course of 2 days.

When they read the sentence, there's no unanimous decision, so the default was to give him life in prison.

It was not what Yingying Zheng's family had waited 2 years for.

The result today seemed to encourage people to do crimes. And me, myself, myself will never agree with that.

You were furious when this death penalty did not happen.

Yeah, very frustrated, very disappointed.

You would like to kill him?

Yes, if I have a chance.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] Justice to Yingying's family is the death penalty for Brent Christensen. They leave disappointed. But there's something else that comes out in court that outrages them. And it has to do with his visit to the U of I Counseling Center.

When Christensen went to the counseling center 11 weeks before he kidnapped Yingying, he was required to fill out this intake form.

One of the questions is, have you had homicidal or Do suicidal thoughts? you have suicidal thoughts? And he checked the box yes. The counselor intern asked him for a little bit more information about that.

You also mentioned thoughts of hurting others, thoughts of harming others. Yeah. A few months ago, I happened upon— I had a huge forum about serial killers. When I started looking into these people, horrible they were, I just got this obscene feeling like, I think I know how to do it. Just planning it.

Chris Chising talks about how he bought items that could be used in the disposal of the body.

Did you ever, like, purchase anything related to the plan?

Then he said, "But I'm not having these thoughts anymore. I'm done with these thoughts." But obviously he wasn't done with those thoughts.

The intern did flag Christiansen's case, and two specialized university counselors met with him. They offered Christiansen different treatment options, including a follow-up visit, but he never showed up.

It certainly raises questions about whether or not whether or not somebody should have done something more with this information.

Could they have prevented this murder if they had just gone public with this information?

I think they can do something to stop the whole case, but they didn't. So, in my view, they do have some responsibility.

It's a huge red flag. I'm angry that it could have been prevented, that it wasn't necessary.

Just 11 weeks prior to Yingying's disappearance, Brent had sought counseling with the school.

Yeah, I can't talk about anything that's an aspect of the case.

I'm sorry.

I know it's a sensitive one, but—

That's really all I can say about it, yeah.

You can't talk about that at all?

Yeah, sorry.

Yeah. I don't think they can deny liability, the counseling center and their staff. That's why we filed the lawsuit. Filed a civil lawsuit naming two employees of the counseling center.

The counselors are trying to dismiss the suit, saying that their actions did not put Yingying in danger. The university recently sent us a statement saying it will defend the social workers named in the civil suit and that it's confident they followed best practices in mental health. Health care.

After everything that has happened, after all of the courtroom action, despite the lawsuit, despite Kristensen being locked up for life, the family wants a traditional Chinese burial.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] Brent, right now in prison, he knows everything about the family wanting one thing in their life to bring peace to this crisis. They want to find the body of their daughter. Would he— would you ask him to do that?

Right now, he's been told not to.

By whom?

Well, it's not something right now. Please cut. I can't say anything about that.

Mike Christiansen later called us to say there would soon be a revelation about the whereabouts of Yingying's body.

Where is Yingying? Christiansen finally offers up some information. But will it offer Yingying's family solace?

The trial is over, but the sense of this case being over isn't.

Pretty much everybody is still just kind of wondering, "Where is Yingying?" Yingying's family and boyfriend were told about what he did with Yingying's remains.

Before the trial, Christiansen's attorneys went to the government and told them exactly where Christiansen said he had put Yingying's body.

And those were not on-the-record conversations. It couldn't be released publicly, so that's why it was held in close confidence and came out only after the trial was completed.

After killing Yingying Zhang, June I 9, 2017, he placed her bodily remains in 3 separate garbage bags. The next day, June 10, 2017, he placed those garbage bags in the dumpster immediately outside his apartment building. The hauler would take it to the landfill in Danville. The landfill says that the area is probably the size of half of a football field.

By the time they provide provided that information. It was almost 18 months after she would have been placed in the landfill.

There's 30 feet of fill on top of the area where the trash would have been dumped at the time. We know that he lied to the FBI. So when he says this stuff, can you go to the bank on it? Can you send hundreds of people out there to search and have him back in his cell laughing?

To me, it just adds That's the tragedy.

And yet you've got— the family still wants to find the body.

Will the family ever let this go?

I think the only way for us to find some comfort and end the whole case is to find the remains.

We remember the life of a beautiful young lady who made her family very proud, a friend who was kind, kind, joyful, caring, and giving.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] They actually brought in what was a casket, and they put Yingying's clothing in it, and at the end of the service, they had a private burial in Yingying's garden.

Yingying's family went back to China, but without Yingying's body, and that's never going to be a closure for Yingying's mother and father.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] Is it difficult for you to look through these pictures now?

[SPEAKING CHINESE] And Shaolin lost the only woman that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

You asked her to marry you.

Yeah, we planned to get married in October of 2017.

So you wrote a song for her?

Yeah, and the name of the song is "Angel." Even right now, I still feel she's an angel surrounding me.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] Chinese police did a search after Yingying was missing, and they found a diary. Most part in the book is written in Chinese, but the very last line was in English.

Yingying wrote, "Life is too short to be ordinary." Sadly, authorities tell us it would be next to impossible to ever find her remains, but Yingying will never be forgotten. By her many friends and her family.

Thanks for listening to the 2020 "True Crime Vault." We hope you'll join us Friday nights at 9:00 on ABC for all-new broadcast episodes.

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