Dublin couple charged with murder in parking-lot shooting of son-in-law, a New York Times engineer

A married couple in their late seventies were booked on suspicion of murder after witnesses say they took turns shooting their son-in-law, a New York Times engineer, in the parking lot of a youth sports complex in Dublin, California, on Saturday afternoon.

Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77 and residents of Dublin, are accused of killing Jonathan McKinsey, 40, in front of families gathered for weekend youth games. According to a news release from Dublin Police Services, a patrol sergeant driving near the Dublin Sports Grounds around 3:08 p.m. spotted a man lying in the parking lot as multiple 911 calls began coming in. Officers found McKinsey with multiple gunshot wounds; he was pronounced dead at the scene. Zhang and Chen, who are McKinsey's parents-in-law, were located and detained within minutes, with help from bystanders who pointed officers toward the couple.

The numbers

The shooting happened at 6700 Dublin Boulevard, a complex of ball fields and a playground about a block from the police department's own civic center. McKinsey and his wife, Candice Jang, had been married since around 2012 and have three young children together. He had been restricted to two hours of supervised visitation per week since last fall, and the couple's divorce case had a hearing scheduled for the following week. Both Zhang and Chen were booked into Santa Rita Jail on suspicion of murder under California Penal Code Section 187, which defines murder as "the unlawful killing of a human being ... with malice aforethought"; jail records reviewed by the Associated Press also listed allegations of conspiracy and willful discharge of a firearm with gross negligence. Both suspects are being held without bail, according to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, which runs the jail. Prosecutors have not yet said what degree of murder they intend to charge; under Penal Code Section 190, second-degree murder carries 15 years to life in state prison, while a first-degree conviction carries 25 years to life or life without parole.

A family fractured by a bitter custody fight

Court records reviewed by the Associated Press show the killing followed months of escalating legal conflict inside the family. In October 2025, McKinsey was charged with two misdemeanor counts of child abuse after Jang told an officer he had struck their 6-year-old with an open hand and that a 2-year-old had been left unsupervised in an upstairs bedroom for more than an hour. McKinsey pleaded not guilty and was ordered to complete 12 parenting classes. Jang obtained a domestic violence restraining order against him days later, and the family court subsequently limited him to supervised visits.

McKinsey, who was transgender, filed his own restraining-order petition against Jang and her parents around the same time. In it, he alleged that Chen had directed anti-LGBTQ slurs at him and at one of the children, and that his father-in-law had punched him following gender-affirming surgery. He also accused Jang of grabbing his forearms and dropping him onto a table hard enough to fracture a vertebra during an earlier confrontation. None of those allegations had been resolved by a court at the time of the shooting, and no motive for the killing has been announced.

Who is affected

McKinsey worked as director of engineering for New York Times Games, the division behind puzzles such as Wordle and Connections. Colleagues and the paper's leadership have not issued a public statement on his death. His three children, the youngest not yet old enough for school, are now without a father and with both maternal grandparents in custody on murder charges; it is unclear who has assumed their care or whether any of them were at the park when he was killed.

The killing has also rattled a fast-growing Bay Area suburb unaccustomed to this kind of violence. Dublin, a city of roughly 73,000 people in Alameda County's Tri-Valley region about 35 miles east of San Francisco, has built much of its identity around youth recreation, and the sports grounds where McKinsey died sit alongside ball fields and a playground used daily by local families. Dublin Police Services said officers stepped up patrols at the complex in the shooting's aftermath, even as they emphasized there was no continuing threat to the public.

What witnesses saw

Multiple bystanders described the shooting to reporters from KTVU and other outlets in the hours afterward. Witnesses said the man and woman took turns firing at McKinsey before officers arrived. Assad Razawi, who was near the parking lot with his daughter, told reporters he watched the moment McKinsey went down.

"I saw the guy drop to the floor: head bloody and chest bloody," Razawi said.

Another witness, Kevin Stein, described how ordinary the Saturday scene had been moments earlier. "There were kids and families, just like you see now," he told CBS News Bay Area. "This parking lot is full on a Saturday." Investigators have not said whether any children witnessed the shooting itself.

What happens next

Zhang and Chen were scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday morning at the Alameda County courthouse, though it was not immediately clear whether they had retained defense attorneys, according to the San Francisco Examiner. Prosecutors have not yet announced formal charging decisions or a theory of the case beyond the murder allegation. Dublin Police Services said the investigation remains active and asked anyone with information to contact Sgt. Ahmad Mateen. The divorce and custody case between McKinsey and Jang, and the unresolved restraining-order petitions on both sides, are expected to continue in family court separately from the criminal proceedings against her parents.