Chinese Scholar Missing From University Of Illinois For Days
URBANA, Ill. (AP) - Police say the FBI is investigating the disappearance of a Chinese woman from a central Illinois university town as a kidnapping.
26-year-old Yingying Zhang was about a month into a yearlong appointment at the University of Illinois' Urbana-Champaign when she disappeared June 9.
She had been visiting one of the school's science departments for the last month and was staying in university housing.
University police released surveillance video Monday showing Zhang entering a black Saturn Astra vehicle in Urbana that afternoon. Her friends told police she had gone out to sign a lease.
Campus police spokesman Patrick Wade told The (Champaign) News-Gazette that the FBI has labeled the case a kidnapping, but is not ruling anything out.
Wade says the FBI plans to post information on billboards across Illinois and in the Indianapolis and St. Louis areas about Zhang, who is a crop productivity researcher from Jianyang, China.
(TM and © Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)