A New York Times engineering executive was shot multiple times and killed in a suburban California sports park on Saturday afternoon, allegedly by his wife's two 77-year-old parents, who witnesses say walked calmly away from the body before being arrested nearby. Jonathan McKinsey, 40, was pronounced dead at the scene at Dublin Sports Grounds, a playground and athletic complex about 35 miles east of San Francisco. His in-laws, Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, are now facing first-degree murder charges.
What Happened at the Park
According to Dublin Police Services, McKinsey was found lying in the parking lot of Dublin Sports Grounds around 3 p.m. Saturday with multiple gunshot wounds. A Dublin police sergeant happened to be driving past the park when he spotted a man on the ground and stopped. A flood of 911 calls from park witnesses came in around the same time.
Witness Assad Razawi told KGO-TV in San Francisco that he was standing outside a nearby grocery store when he heard five or six gunshots from across the street. "I saw the guy drop to the floor: head bloody and chest bloody," Razawi said. His daughter told the outlet that her father then watched a man and a woman walk away from the scene together, casually, like they hadn't just killed someone.
McKinsey was pronounced dead at the scene. The two suspects, Zhang and Chen, had not fled. They were still in the area when police arrived and were arrested within minutes of the shooting, according to NBC News.
Who Was Jonathan McKinsey
McKinsey was the director of engineering for games player experience at The New York Times, a role he had held since 2023. The Times confirmed his death. Before joining the paper, he had worked at Splunk, Coursera, and Oracle, according to his LinkedIn profile as reported by the Times.
He earned a bachelor's degree from Georgia Tech and a master's in computer science from UC Berkeley, NBC News reports. He was 40 years old.
The New York Times Games division is one of the paper's biggest subscription drivers, home to Wordle, the Crossword, and a suite of puzzles that have pulled in millions of players. McKinsey was part of the engineering operation keeping all of that running.
The Domestic War Behind the Shooting
Police have not officially stated a motive, but the backdrop here is not subtle. According to court documents cited by NBC News, McKinsey and his wife, Candice Jang, were in the middle of a bitter divorce and child custody battle at the time of his death. McKinsey filed for divorce in December, and a hearing was already scheduled for next month. In August, the court had approved hiring a private child custody evaluator.
The marriage had been falling apart for at least a year. The New York Times reports that both McKinsey and his wife had filed requests for domestic violence restraining orders against each other last year. A judge ultimately granted Jang's petition for a temporary restraining order against McKinsey, court documents show. McKinsey had also pleaded not guilty last year to two misdemeanor charges of child abuse.
The in-laws now charged with killing him, Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, are Jang's parents. They are both 77 years old. They are both being held at Santa Rita Jail.
The Charges Are Not Small
Zhang and Chen are not facing a single charge. According to BBC News, the couple faces multiple charges: first-degree murder, felony conspiracy, willful discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, and child endangerment. That last charge matters because there is every reason to believe children were present or nearby when an elderly couple opened fire in a public sports park on a Saturday afternoon.
It was not immediately clear whether Zhang and Chen have retained a lawyer. The BBC reports they are due in court Wednesday to formally face the charges. Dublin is in Alameda County, so the case will move through the Alameda County court system.
A Scene That Witnesses Will Not Forget
Dublin Sports Grounds is not some remote location. It is an athletic complex with fields, a playground, and a parking lot in a suburb that sits between Livermore and Pleasanton in the East Bay. On a Saturday afternoon in late September, people are around. People were around.
Razawi was outside a grocery store across the street. Other witnesses were in the park itself, calling 911. The San Francisco Chronicle was first to report Razawi's account of the shooting, and NBC News and BBC News both followed with additional witness detail. This happened in front of people, in broad daylight, and the two suspects did not run.
That detail keeps coming up in the reporting. They walked away calmly. They stayed nearby. Whether that reflects confidence, shock, or something else entirely, nobody has said publicly.
The Dingo Take
Two 77-year-olds allegedly shot their son-in-law to death in a public park in front of witnesses and then just... stood around. That is either the most brazen act imaginable or something closer to two elderly people who had convinced themselves they were doing something righteous. Neither explanation is reassuring.
The instinct is going to be to center this story on the ugliness of the marriage, the restraining orders, the child abuse charges, the custody battle. And yes, all of that is real and relevant context. But let's be clear about what actually happened: a man was executed in a parking lot next to a playground, and the people who allegedly did it are the grandparents in this story. Whatever McKinsey did or didn't do in that marriage, no court had convicted him of anything. A judge handing Jang a temporary restraining order is not a death sentence. A misdemeanor child abuse charge that he pleaded not guilty to is not a death sentence. Nothing that happens in a family court is supposed to end with gunshots in a sports park.
The charges include child endangerment. Let that sit. The people so concerned about the children in this family that they allegedly killed the children's father did so in a place where other children were playing. The New York Times lost an employee. Some kids lost their father. And two people in their late seventies are sitting in Santa Rita Jail facing first-degree murder charges. There is no version of this story that ends well for anyone.
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