An attorney representing an elderly couple charged with murdering a New York Times engineering director told a California court this week that the victim had subjected the family to years of violence before being shot to death.
Jonathan McKinsey, identified by the Times as director of engineering for the newspaper’s games department, was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds at Dublin Sports Grounds in Dublin, California, on Saturday. Witnesses told authorities they saw the shooting take place, according to ABC 7.
Prosecutors have charged Shili Chen and Shouyong Zhang, McKinsey’s mother-in-law and father-in-law, with murder in connection with the killing. Their attorney, Curtis Briggs, said in court Thursday that the couple intends to plead not guilty.
Briggs told the court that McKinsey had been violent toward his family for years.
“He was extremely rageful, could not control his temper, abused his wife so badly at one point he fractured her spine, abused the kids so badly that a court in Alameda County had to send him to parenting classes. McKinsey was extremely violent and dangerous to his family,” Briggs said, according to the New York Post.
Chen and Zhang are the parents of McKinsey’s wife, Candice Jang. The couple had a history of mutual legal disputes: McKinsey and Jang had each filed for restraining orders against the other. In a December 2025 filing, McKinsey accused Jang and her parents of abusing him over his gender identity, and said Jang’s mother had called him and one of his sons “perverts” after the boy tried on dresses.
McKinsey was also facing two misdemeanor child abuse charges filed in 2025. Court documents in that case alleged he struck his 6-year-old son in the face and at one point left his then-2-year-old child home alone for more than an hour. McKinsey had pleaded not guilty in that matter and was scheduled to appear in court again this coming week.
According to the New York Post, officials describe the killing as an ambush-style attack in which both grandparents took turns firing on McKinsey. A family member told the Post that he believed the in-laws carried out the killing so that Jang could obtain sole custody of the couple’s three children.
The case remains in its early stages, with Chen and Zhang expected to formally enter pleas as proceedings continue in Alameda County.
