Trans Man Allegedly Murdered by His Estranged Wife’s Parents
Jonathan McKinsey, a New York Times engineering executive, was fatally shot at a California park amid a bitter custody dispute.
Jonathan McKinsey, a transgender engineering executive at The New York Times, was allegedly killed by his estranged wife’s parents on September 26 amid a contentious custody dispute.
McKinsey, 40, the Times’ head of engineering and games player experiences, was shot multiple times shortly after 3 p.m. at Dublin Sports Grounds in Dublin, California. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Responding to calls from witnesses, Dublin police arrested Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77, the parents of McKinsey’s estranged wife, Candice Jang, reports NBC News.
The couple is being held at Santa Rita Jail, police said in a statement.
On September 30, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office charged Zhang and Chen with murder, with allegations of personal use of a firearm causing death and the special circumstance of lying in wait.
If convicted, each defendant could face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
According to the California Post, McKinsey began his transition in 2010, a year before he and Jang married. In court documents, he claimed she was less than supportive, alleging that she tried to pull medical tubing from his body following a transition-related procedure.
His relationship with his in-laws was also contentious. He claimed Zhang had punched him in the chest in 2010 while he was healing from top surgery, and accused Chen of calling one of his children a “disgusting queer” and calling him a “pervert” following a disagreement over the child’s choice of clothing, according to The Advocate.
McKinsey and Jang were involved in a bitter custody dispute, with each accusing the other of spousal and child abuse.
In 2025, Jang filed for and was granted a temporary domestic violence restraining order against McKinsey, arguing that her spouse had been physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive toward her and their children for years. She detailed more than a dozen incidents of alleged abuse between November 2020 and July 2025.
She also claimed that McKinsey had threatened to kill her and her parents. In a court filing, she claimed to be “disturbed” when McKinsey gave their children a book about a girl whose mother dies.
“Given his prior threats against my life, I found the choice deeply disturbing and frightening,” she said in the filing.
McKinsey subsequently filed for divorce and sought his own restraining order against Jang, accusing her of being the abusive partner in the relationship.
In October 2025, Jang reported McKinsey to Dublin police for allegedly striking their six-year-old son in the face with an open hand. She also told investigators of a 2019 incident in which she claimed McKinsey grabbed her left arm, leaving a bruise.
During their investigation, Dublin police went to McKinsey’s house, where they reportedly found the couple’s two-year-old child left unsupervised while McKinsey was out shopping for over an hour. McKinsey claimed Jang framed him by purposely failing to tell him the child was asleep upstairs before he left the house, according to The New York Times.
McKinsey was charged with two misdemeanor counts of child abuse, to which he pleaded not guilty. He was released from jail on the condition that he complete 12 parenting classes.
At the time of his death, McKinsey had been trying to enroll in a mental health diversion program, which could have resulted in the child abuse charges being dropped upon successful completion. A hearing in McKinsey and Jang’s custody dispute had been scheduled for October 2. A divorce hearing had also been scheduled.
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