丧心病狂！章莹颖案嫌犯承认杀害、殴打、强暴...
当地时间6月12日，章莹颖案开庭。辩方律师称“我们承认克里斯滕森（Brendt Christensen）造成了章莹颖死亡”，其女友提供的窃听录音中还描述了他令人发指的作案细节......详细阅读：令人发指！克里斯滕森承认强暴并杀害章莹颖。
Attorney reveals his client killed visiting Chinese scholar Yingying Zhang
ABC NEWS
In a shocking courtroom revelation, the attorney for Brendt Christensen, a former teaching assistant at the University of Illinois, admitted that his own client had kidnapped and killed a young Chinese visiting scholar.
revelation
表示“被揭露（披露）的（惊人）真相”，英文解释为“a surprising fact about someone or something that was previously secret and is now made known”举个🌰：
He resigned after revelations about his affair.
他因私情被揭发而辞职。
“Brendt Christensen is responsible for the death of Yingying Zhang," public defender George Taseff said during his opening statement in Christensen’s trial. Christensen had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
plead guilty/not guilty
plead表示“（在法庭上）承认（否认）有罪，认（罪）”，英文解释为“to state in a court of law whether or not you are guilty of a crime law”，如：plead guilty/not guilty/innocent，举个🌰：
He pled guilty to burglary.
他承认犯有入室盗窃罪。
Yingying Zhang, 26, was last seen entering a black Saturn Astra on June 9, 2017 -- only a few yards away from a bus stop outside the university's PBS radio and television station. Within weeks, investigators tracked that car back to Christensen.
"Brendt Christensen killed Yingying Zhang,” Taseff went on. "Nothing that we say or do will be meant to sidestep or deny that."
sidestep
表示“回避（问题）”，英文解释为“to avoid dealing with something difficult”，如：sidestep a problem/issue/question，举个🌰：
The report sidesteps the environmental issues.
报告回避了环境问题。
If convicted, Christensen, 29, could face the death penalty. “He is on trial for his life in this case,” Taseff told the jury.
Taseff spoke shortly after the prosecution's opening statement. The government confirmed for the first time that there is DNA evidence linking Christensen to the crime.
jury
表示“陪审团”，英文解释为“a group of members of the public who listen to the facts of a case in a court and decide whether or not sb is guilty of a crime”，如：members of the jury 陪审团成员。
prosecution
此处表示“原告，控方（包括原告和原告律师等）”，英文解释为“a person or an organization that prosecutes sb in court, together with the lawyers, etc.”举个🌰：
He was a witness for the prosecution.
他是原告证人。
"He kidnapped her, he raped her, he assaulted her, he covered up his crime,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Miller repeated a total of three times during his opening statement.
In another startling disclosure, Miller said that Christensen allegedly told a wiretapped informant that Yingying was his 13th victim and that he'd been killing since he was 19 years old. Prosecutors say investigators have not linked Christensen to any other cases at this time.
disclosure
此处In another startling disclosure替换了开头的In a shocking courtroom revelation，类似的表达；disclosure表示“透露的信息；公开，透露，披露”，英文解释为“a secret that someone tells people, or the act of telling this secret”。
startling则替换了shocking，同样表示“惊人的；令人震惊的”（very unusual or surprising）。
informant
类似于informer，表示“（向警方或报纸）提供消息的人，告密者，线人”，英文解释为“a person who gives secret information about sb/sth to the police or a newspaper”。
Miller said the informant, Christensen’s then-girlfriend, recorded multiple conversations between herself and the defendant. Prosecutors described, in great detail, Christensen's alleged admission of what he had done to Zhang on these recordings.
then-girlfriend
表示“前女友”，then意思是“当时的”，英文解释为“used when mentioning the person who had a particular job, title, or position at a time in the past”，如：a visit to China by the then US President, Richard Nixon 当时的美国总统理查德•尼克松对中国的访问。
“[Christensen] said she fought for her life,” Miller told the jury. He also said Christensen told the informant he raped and beat Yingying before assaulting her with a baseball bat and eventually decapitating her.
decapitate
表示“砍…的头，把…斩首”，英文解释为“to cut off someone’s head”，如：a decapitated body 一具无头尸体。
类似的：behead
表示“斩首”（If someone is beheaded, their head is cut off, usually because they have been found guilty of a crime.）举个🌰：
At least one hostage was beheaded in that room.
至少有一名人质在那个房间被斩首。
Blood stains on the baseball bat investigators found in Christensen’s apartment, along with multiple other stains found on his mattress and carpet, matched Yingying's DNA, according to prosecutors.
blood stains
blood stains 血污，血迹；stain 作名词，表示“污渍”，英文解释为“A stain is a mark on something that is difficult to remove.”
According to Miller, Christensen did not reveal what he did with Yingying’s body in the undercover recording, but said “her family would leave empty handed” and that the last serial killer at his level was Ted Bundy.
相关背景
Theodore Robert Bundy (born Theodore Robert Cowell; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer and necrophile who kidnapped, raped, and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of denials, before his execution in 1989 he confessed to 30 homicides that he committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. The true number of victims is unknown and possibly higher.
西奥多·罗伯特·“泰德”·邦迪（Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy，1946年11月24日－1989年1月24日），是美国一个活跃于1973年至1978年的连环杀手。（维基百科）
necrophile
necrophile /ˈnɛkrəfʌɪl/ 表示“恋尸狂”，英文解释为“a person who is sexually attracted to corpses.” 其中，corpse表示“尸体”（A corpse is a dead body, especially the body of a human being.）
Taseff said the defense took issues with "the way the government says the events occurred." Taseff alleges that Christensen was lying when he told the informant there were 12 other victims.
Taseff painted Christensen as a troubled graduate student at the University of Illinois who was dealing with substance abuse issues, a failing marriage and a plummeting academic record. Taseff said all of these issues created the “perfect storm” on June 9, 2017, when Christensen “did the unthinkable.”
plummet
作动词，表示“（数量、比率、价格）暴跌”，英文解释为“If an amount, rate, or price plummets, it decreases quickly by a large amount.”举个🌰：
In Tokyo share prices have plummeted for the sixth successive day.
在东京，股价已经是连续第6天暴跌了。
perfect storm
表示“同时发生一大堆麻烦事；（许多糟糕的事情同时发生而）糟得不可更糟的局面；独立发生时没有危险性但一并发生时会带来灾难性后果的事件组合”，就是中文里所谓的“屋漏偏逢连夜雨；雪上加霜”的含义，英文解释为“a combination of events which are not individually dangerous, but occurring together produce a disastrous outcome”
Wikipedia的解释：A perfect storm is an event in which a rare combination of circumstances drastically aggravates the event. The term is used by analogy to an unusually severe storm that results from a rare combination of meteorological phenomena.
Zhang’s father, brother and boyfriend of eight years sat in the front row of the courtroom. Her mother, Lifeng Ye, watched from another courtroom on a closed circuit stream. Zhang’s boyfriend, Xiaolin Hou, was called to testify shortly after opening statements.
testify
表示“（尤指在法庭上）作证”，英文解释为“to make a formal statement of what is true, especially in a court of law”举个🌰：
He has agreed to testify at the trial.
他已经同意出庭作证。
“We planned to get married that October,” Hou told prosecutors. Opening arguments ended by 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. More witnesses are expected to testify.
法律英语相关表达积累
· attorney/ public defender/ defendant/ jury
· prosecutor/ prosecution/ informant/ victim/ witness
· courtroom/ trial/ plead guilty/ plead not guilty
· testify/ the death penalty
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LearnAndRecord
2015年2月8日
2019年6月13日
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