On September 26, 2026, Jonathan McKinsey — a 40-year-old engineer who helped run New York Times Games — was fatally shot in the parking lot of Dublin Sports Grounds in Dublin, California, east of San Francisco. Within minutes, police arrested his parents-in-law, Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both in their 70s. What emerged from court records was something far more layered: a collapsing marriage, competing abuse allegations, a custody battle over three young children, and a transgender man who had accused his in-laws of anti-LGBTQ+ hostility.
A Public Killing and Two Arrests in Minutes
Shortly after 3 p.m. on a Saturday, McKinsey was shot in the parking lot of Dublin Sports Grounds. A Dublin police sergeant happened to be nearby and responded while witnesses were already calling 911. McKinsey was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators believe he was deliberately targeted — this was not a robbery gone wrong, not a random encounter.
Zhang and Chen were booked into Santa Rita Jail on suspicion of murder. Jail records also list allegations of conspiracy, firearm-related offenses, and child endangerment. Witnesses reported that the suspects were masked and that both participated in the shooting — though those accounts come from news reporting and have not been adjudicated. Their arraignment was scheduled for the Wednesday following the killing. Authorities stated there are no outstanding suspects and no known continuing threat to the public.
McKinsey held a master’s degree in computer science from UC Berkeley, had worked at Oracle, Coursera, Splunk, and UKG before joining the New York Times in January 2023. He also taught computer-science courses part-time. By any measure, this was a man building a life — and a career at one of the most recognizable media brands in the world — while simultaneously navigating one of the most painful legal situations a person can face. The two facts existed at the same time, as they often do. how family courts handle contested custody cases
The Divorce, the Custody Fight, and What Court Records Reveal
McKinsey was married to Candice Jang — Zhang and Chen’s daughter — for more than a decade. They had three young children. By the time he was killed, they were in the middle of divorce and custody proceedings, with a court hearing reportedly scheduled for the very next week.
The court record is dense and contested on both sides. In October 2025, Jang sought a domestic-violence protection order against McKinsey. He later filed his own protection order against her and initiated divorce proceedings. Separately, Alameda County prosecutors charged McKinsey with two misdemeanor child-abuse-related counts in 2025 — one allegation involved striking a child, another alleged a young child was left home unattended. McKinsey pleaded not guilty and was out on bail, reportedly pursuing entry into a mental-health diversion program when he died.
In his own filings, McKinsey — who was transgender — alleged years of abuse by Jang and claimed her family had mistreated him. He further alleged that Chen had directed anti-LGBTQ+ language at both him and one of the children. These are allegations in legal documents, not findings of a court. But they sketch the outline of a family that had become, by late 2025, a battleground — and raise questions that investigators and prosecutors will now have to work through in open court.
What Still Isn’t Known
Dublin police have not publicly established a motive. Reporting suggests McKinsey was deliberately targeted, and the timing — days before a scheduled custody hearing — has inevitably drawn scrutiny. But correlation is not causation, and investigators have not confirmed that the divorce or any specific allegation drove the killing. The charges against Zhang and Chen have not been proven, and the case remains under active investigation.
What we do know is that a man is dead, three children no longer have their father, and two people in their 70s face murder charges. The legal proceedings that follow will be the place where the fuller picture — of a family under unbearable pressure — finally comes into focus.
- cases where family conflict escalated to violence
