PEORIA, Ill. (WAND)- Brendt Christensen maintained his innocence and called his prosecution "political" in recorded jailhouse phone calls played by prosecutors Tuesday.
"All I can say is I'm innocent," Christensen told his wife in a July 3, 2017 call. "They're desperate. That's why I'm here."
In a September 2017 conversation, Christensen and his wife discuss recordings of a conversation with girlfriend Terra Bullis in which Christensen describes beating, strangling, stabbing and beheading Yingying Zhang and boasts that she will not be found.
"That's probably going to be played during the trial," Christensen correctly predicted. "Think of what the news is going to do with that."
In a call with his mother the same month, Christensen suggests Zhang may have been trafficked.
"That's what everyone in here told me too is she's probably a sex slave," Christensen said.
During one call recorded during Christensen's June 2019 trial, Christensen's ex-wife Michelle Zortman joked about Terra Bullis, a prosecution witness and Christensen's ex-girlfriend, being carried out of court on a stretcher.
"I hope it's too much for her and she can't f***ing do it," Zortman said.
In cross-examination of FBI Agent Andrew Huckstadt, Christensen's defense pointed prosecutors were only playing ten recordings out of hundreds of phone calls Christensen made during his two years in jail.
