【Epoch Times, September 30, 2026】California, a 77-year-old Chinese couple shot and killed their transgender son-in-law, Jonathan McKinsey, a tech director at The New York Times, and more details of the case have emerged.
On Tuesday, September 29, the California Post reported that court documents revealed McKinsey had accused his mother-in-law, Shili Chen, of verbally abusing their child for wanting to wear his sister’s dress and blaming McKinsey for it.
McKinsey was the gaming user experience engineering director at The New York Times. The police reported that last Saturday, on the 26th, his father-in-law, Shouyong Zhang, and mother-in-law, Shili Chen, shot at him several times in a parking lot at a sports complex in Dublin, East Bay area of San Francisco. The couple was later arrested nearby and is being held at the Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County.
According to arrest records, Zhang and Chen are facing charges including first-degree murder, felony conspiracy, reckless shooting, and endangering a child’s life with potential for serious harm or death.
Before the tragedy, the 40-year-old McKinsey was entangled in divorce and child custody disputes with his wife, Candice Zhang, with both parties making allegations of domestic violence and abuse against each other.
According to The Chronicle, McKinsey filed for divorce in December 2025, and a family law status conference was scheduled for October 2, 2026.
Based on court records obtained by The Mercury News, McKinsey had applied for a restraining order against his wife, accusing her of hitting him with a frying pan in 2013.
McKinsey also mentioned in his application an incident in 2023 when his mother-in-law, Shili Chen, had a conflict while helping look after their children at his home.
He stated that Chen expressed disapproval of their grandchild, Wyatt, showing a desire to wear his sister Alexis’s dress due to his same-sex inclination. When the grandchild made the request again, Chen hit the child on the back of the head.
McKinsey, who transitioned from female to male in 2010, said, “She blamed me for encouraging Wyatt to wear his sister’s dress and told me to get out of ‘her house’ even though the house we were in was jointly owned by me and Candice.”
McKinsey mentioned that Chen also used similar derogatory language against him.
He added that he had tried to have his wife kick out her mother and hire help to look after the children, but was denied.
The documents show McKinsey also accused his wife of abusing him in the marriage, including forcing him to commit suicide, saying, “No one would want to be with me, a perverted transgender.”
McKinsey also alleged that after his gender reassignment surgery, his wife removed medical tubes from his body, and his father-in-law assaulted his chest while he was recovering from mastectomy surgery.
On the other hand, Zhang applied for a domestic violence restraining order against McKinsey for the first time in October 2025, accusing him of “threatening to kill me and my parents.” In the application, Zhang accused McKinsey of abusing her and their three children over the years. The restraining order was granted.
The Alameda County Prosecutor also charged McKinsey with two misdemeanor counts of child abuse for allegedly hitting his 6-year-old son’s face with force.
The indictment shows that Zhang also told investigators about a domestic violence incident in 2018 when McKinsey injured her left arm.
McKinsey pleaded not guilty to both charges and was released on bail with the condition of attending parenting classes.