The elderly couple accused of fatally shooting their son-in-law, a top staffer at the New York Times, near a public park in Dublin, California, were formally charged with murder by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday.
Shouyong Zhang, 77, and Shili Chen, 77, were both charged with murder, including personal use of a firearm causing death and lying in wait sentencing enhancement, in connection with the shooting of their son-in-law, Jonathan McKinsey, 40, according to the district attorney’s office.
The couple has an arraignment scheduled at Alameda County Superior Court, East County Hall of Justice in Dublin on Wednesday, September 30.
McKinsey, the head of engineering for the New York Times’ games section, was found with multiple
gunshot wounds on Saturday, Sept. 26, in the middle of a parking lot near the Dublin Sports Grounds, according to the Dublin Police Department. He was declared dead at the scene.
As emergency medical personnel tended to McKinsey, officers quickly detained Zhang and Chen, who remained near the scene of the shooting in a black Honda Civic, according to police.
Surveillance footage obtained by the police showed the couple shooting McKinsey multiple times, according to a police report.
The couple was then booked into the Santa Rita Jail, where they received preliminary charges for murder and other felony charges, according to jail records.
The district attorney’s office did not provide a motive for the shooting when they announced charges against the couple.
Prior to the shooting, court records reveal that McKinsey and his wife, Candice Jang, were expected to appear for a court hearing on Sept. 25, in connection with a custody dispute for their children, according to court records obtained by the Mercury News.
The couple had been going through court proceedings since 2025, with court records revealing that McKinsey had levied discriminatory abuse against his in-laws and his wife for being a trans man; Jang accused McKinsey of domestic violence toward their family, according to the San Francisco Standard.
Jang accused McKinsey of multiple allegations of abuse, in one situation accusing him of hitting one of her sons in the face during an argument over Legos, according to the Mercury News.
In October 2025, he was charged with child endangerment and corporal injury to a child. He pleaded not guilty and was ordered to complete parenting classes.
In McKinsey, he alleged that Jang's mother, Shili Chen, had directed anti-LGBTQ+ slurs at him, calling him a “disgusting queer” and a “pervert,” the Mercury News reported. He also alleged that Jang had been abusive to him during medical procedures related to his transition.
Court records show that the hearing in the couple's cases was postponed and rescheduled multiple times throughout 2026.
Noe Padilla is a Northern California Reporter for USA Today. Contact him at npadilla@usatodayco.com, follow him on X @1NoePadilla or on Bluesky @noepadilla.bsky.social. Sign up for the TODAY Californian newsletter or follow us on Facebook at TODAY Californian.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dublin couple charged with murder in the killing of son-in-law
