CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — New court documents say a girlfriend of a 28-year-old man who’s accused of kidnapping a University of Illinois Chinese scholar was so nervous secretly recording him on behalf of the FBI that she at least once fainted in front of him.

The account came in a pretrial motion filed by Brendt Christensen’s lawyers Monday in Urbana. It asks a judge to exclude the June recordings from the upcoming trial on the kidnapping of 26-year-old Yingying Zhang. She is presumed dead.

The girlfriend described to agents how her heart was pounding before she “went into shock and passed out while talking to” Christensen.

Among the places where she recorded him was at a vigil for Zhang’s family, friends and supporters amid the search for her. He was arrested the next day.