A New York Times engineering executive was killed by his in-laws Saturday amid an ongoing domestic and child abuse legal battle, according to Bay Area police.
The shooting unfolded Saturday afternoon in the city of Dublin in Alameda County shortly after 3 p.m. A Dublin police officer found Jonathan McKinsey, head of engineering and games player experiences for the Times, lying on the ground at Dublin Sports Grounds with multiple gunshot wounds, police said.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
After receiving a flood of witness phone calls, Dublin police found and arrested two suspects: Shouyong Zhang, 77, and Shili Chen, 77, a married couple who were identified as McKinsey’s in-laws.
They are both being held at the Santa Rita Jail pending charges, police said in a statement.
According to court documents, McKinsey and his wife, Candice Jang, were embroiled in a child custody battle when he died. Last year, a judge granted Jang’s petition for a domestic violence temporary restraining order against McKinsey, court documents show. McKinsey filed for divorce in December, and a hearing was scheduled for next month.
In August, the court approved hiring a private child custody evaluator.
McKinsey, 40, earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgia Tech before receiving his master’s in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He had worked at the Times since 2023, the Times confirmed.
