NYT exec gunned down by in-laws was transgender, faced child cruelty charges

The 40-year-old New York Times executive, Jonathan McKinsey, who was gunned down by his 77-year-old in-laws in California, had been involved in a bitter dispute with them and his estranged wife over his transgender identity and child cruelty charges, according to court documents.

Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen killed McKinsey at a parking lot in the middle of the day before a passing cop caught and arrested them. Police received multiple 911 calls from residents after several gunshots were heard and while first responders tried to save the tech executive, he was declared dead on the scene.

Now, court records obtained by The Mercury News have revealed that his estranged wife and the accused's daughter, Candice Jang, had filed for a restraining order against McKinsey in October 2025. She claimed that McKinsey struck their six-year-old son in the face during a fight over LEGO, leaving the child with a "handprint" shaped bruise. She also alleged that in 2018 he had been violent with her when he grabbed her wrist hard enough to leave bruises.

At the time, deputies arrived at their home to check on the allegations and found the couple's two-year-old child left unattended in a bedroom upstairs while he was away shopping. McKinsey was eventually charged with cruelty and corporal injury to a child, and was released on a USD 50,000 bail.

Then, in December last year, McKinsey countered by filing a protection order against his wife, alleging that she was the one who had been abusive to him for 15 years.

He claimed that in 2013, she thrashed him with a frying pan and, prior to that, in 2010, she attempted to pull medical tubes out of his body when he was undergoing a sex transition process. He also alleged that Jang's father, who was not named in the filing, punched him in the chest while he was recovering from a double mastectomy. He alleged that his mother-in-law called him a "disgusting queer" and a "pervert" after they had a fallout over one of McKinsey's children's clothing choices.

The New York Times tech executive also filed for a divorce the same month. He and Jang married in 2011.

The estranged couple remained embroiled in a child custody battle, with a court hearing scheduled for Friday, October 2, Mercury News reported.

Despite these revelations, it is not yet clear if arguments between McKinsey and his in-laws over gender identity and child cruelty charges were the motivations behind them killing the tech executive.

Jonathan McKinsey was at the parking lot of the Dublin Sports Grounds in Dublin, California, when reportedly two masked people approached him before opening fire. The accused couple allegedly took turns shooting their son-in-law before a police officer who happened to be in the area arrested them.

McKinsey was the head of the engineering team for New York Times games since 2023.

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