VERDICT FOR SCHOLAR'S KILLER TRIGGERS DEBATE

Critics voice anger over life sentence

Brendt Christensen smiled toward his lawyers beside him in a federal courthouse in Peoria, Illinois, after a judge sentenced him to life in prison on Thursday for killing Zhang Yingying, a young visiting scholar from China, in 2017.

Christensen, 30, escaped the death penalty after he admitted killing Zhang, 26, in his apartment. He had lured her into his car by pretending to be an undercover police officer at a bus stop as she headed off to sign an off-campus apartment lease in June 2017.