A teenage Zhang [Photo provided to China Daily]

Yet for the family who had waited for nearly two years before flying in to attend the trial, emotional devastation was done right on the case's opening day, when the gruesome details of Zhang's death came to light.

"Although the FBI must have obtained those details through Terra's audio surveillance back in 2017, it was only toward the end of 2018 when our lawyers emailed me about what they had just been told by federal prosecutors about Yingying's death," Hou said.

Unable to find a way to break the news to Zhang's parents, Hou alerted the volunteer translators before the court opening."I told them to bypass the details," he said."But it didn't take long before Yingying's father knew-it was everywhere in the American and Chinese media."

Zhang Yingying; a bird about to fly. [Photo provided to China Daily[

"He became more silent from that day on," said Shi, who sat in the courtroom every day with Sun throughout the trial. Previously, the two had rented a house in Peoria, a town 90 minutes' drive from Champaign where the trial took place.

"For long hours he sat on the stoop of the family's temporary residence in Peoria, smoking nonstop. Occasionally he would let out a sigh, as if to release some of the anger and anguish that had been brooding inside his chest," Shi says.