Make California Post a Preferred Source The elderly in-laws and alleged killers of trans New York Times tech exec Jonathan McKinsey were charged with murder and allegedly “lied in wait” for him before the killing.
Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77, were both charged with murder and a myriad of special allegations and circumstances linked to the crime on Wednesday morning.
The allegations include the special circumstance charge, murder by “lying in wait,” which means they allegedly potentially timed their attack on purpose.
Other special allegations or circumstances include: violence or bodily harm, use of a weapon, violent conduct, inflicting great bodily injury, personal and intentional discharge of a firearm, use of a firearm and personal use of a firearm, as well as an allegation that the defendant was armed with a firearm.
Zhang and Chen allegedly took turns shooting McKinsey in the parking lot of Dublin Sports Grounds this past Saturday. Local police found and arrested the pair on suspicion of murder.
A spokesman for the Times confirmed McKinsey was the victim of the attack and had worked for the newspaper since 2023. He was the newspaper’s head of engineering for games player experience.
McKinsey had been embroiled in a brutal divorce and custody fight with his wife, Candice Jang. He had three kids under 10 with Jang, whom he had been married to since 2011. Both parties previously accused each other of abuse and have filed restraining orders against each other.
The New York Times executive allegedly hit their six-year-old son in the face with an open hand, and Jang called the police to report the incident. McKinsey was charged with two counts of misdemeanor child abuse for the incident, but was ultimately released from jail on the condition that he take parenting classes.
He accuses Jang of beating him with a frying pan in 2013 and abusing their children verbally. McKinsey said she tried to push him to suicide, claiming Jang told him he should kill himself because “no one would want to be with someone as f–ked up and transgender like you.”
McKinsey also had a tense history with Jang’s in-laws. Chen visited the family in 2023 and began allegedly berating the couple’s young son for wearing dresses, calling the young child a “disgusting queer” and a “pervert.” Chen also allegedly hit McKinsey’s young son in the back of the head when he asked.
When McKinsey begged her to stop, Chen turned her ire to the New York Times employee, who was transgender and transitioned from female to male in 2010, according to the documents.
She then called McKinsey the same names, the restraining order alleged.
“She blamed me for Wyatt wanting to wear his sister’s dresses and told me to get out of ‘her house’ even though we were in the home owned by Candice and I,” McKinsey wrote.
In a separate incident, the father-in-law allegedly punched McKinsey in the chest after he got a double mastectomy.
A family member told The California Post that he’d “lay a lot of money” that the in-laws killed McKinsey to support his wife’s custody bid.
