For more than four months, Ronggao Zhang has walked to his missing daughter's apartment almost every day. At first, he stood outside, hoping she would show up one afternoon. (19459002) "It brings peace and comfort to my heart," Zhang explained in Mandarin, through a translator.
His daughter, Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign disappeared June 9 on her way to sign an apartment lease. A former graduate student has been charged with kidnapping and killing her. Zhang's body has not been found.
A few days ago, Zhang's father made a final visit to the Orchard Downs apartments with his wife, 24-year-old son and daughter's boyfriend as they prepared to return to China. They arrived here after Zhang vanished, hopeful in the beginning that she'd be found alive. After authorities relayed the grim news, they decided to stay until it was found so they could take her home for a proper burial, in accordance with Chinese customs.
Now they plan to leave Sunday, reluctantly, without her. Zhang's mother is in fragrance health - she broke down at the start of a recent court hearing - and there's no way of knowing when this cruel mystery will be solved. Each day they wait, in agony.
"We do not know where she is, and I do not know how to spend the rest of my life without my daughter," said Lifeng Ye, Zhang's mother, her face tear-stained and voice trembling as she spoke through a translator. "I can not really sleep well at night. ... I want to ask the mother of the suspect, please talk to her son and ask him what he did to my daughter. "
