Urbana News-Gazette Reporter Tim Ditman: “Prosecutors are not in a mode to take a last-minute plea deal”

Posted: Jun 14, 2019 / 03:47 PM CDT / Updated: Jun 14, 2019 / 03:45 PM CDT

FILE – This 2017 file photo provided by Xinyang Zhang shows his sister, Yingying, with their parents, Ronggao Zhang, right, and Lifeng Ye, at a train station in Nanping, China. The 26-year-old visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, disappeared June 9, 2017. Brendt Christensen, a former graduate student, has been charged with kidnapping and killing her. Zhang’s body has not been found. (Xinyang Zhang via AP, File)

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Urbana News-Gazette Reporter Tim Ditman joins John Williams to describe the feeling in the room where he and other journalists and Chinese community members have been watching the murder trial of Brendt Christensen in Yingying Zhang’s death. Tim predicts prosecutors’ next steps in the case and lists the defense’s argument, even as they admit Christensen’s responsibility of Zhang’s death.

[audio http://serve.castfire.com/audio/3648432/Urbana_News-Gazette_Reporter_Tim_Ditton_Prosecutors_are_not_in_a_mode_to_hear_a_last-minute_plea_deal__2019-06-14-205532.64kmono.mp3