Police responded to the residence of Jonathan McKinsey, a technology executive at the New York Times, on Tuesday night. Officers were seen entering the gated community where McKinsey lived while his wife’s parents are currently jailed, suspected of murdering him.
Footage captured on Tuesday showed law enforcement arriving at the townhome complex around 7 p.m. They knocked on the door several times before someone eventually opened it. The police remained at the house until about 9 p.m., but no arrests were made and no evidence was collected from the property.
This surge of police activity comes shortly after McKinsey was reportedly killed on Saturday in Northern California; his in-laws, aged 77, are accused of the shooting. According to authorities, the incident occurred around 3 p.m. in the parking lot of Dublin Sports Grounds, with witnesses stating that Zhang and Chen took turns firing at McKinsey.
The New York Times confirmed that McKinsey, aged 40, had been with the newspaper since 2023, where he held the position of head of engineering for games player experience.
In the wake of his death, McKinsey was undergoing a challenging custody dispute with his estranged wife, Candice Jang, over their children. Court records show that he faced two misdemeanor child abuse charges from Alameda prosecutors in 2025. A restraining order he filed against Jang also indicated that his father-in-law had visited the couple in 2023 to help care for their children.
Interestingly, court documents reveal that the grandmother involved in the case had reportedly accused McKinsey of influencing her grandson to wear his sister’s clothing—a claim that adds a layer of complexity to the tragic events surrounding his death.
His cousin, Lovell Garner, expressed the family’s shock in response to the incident, stating that it’s all still very recent. “It’s hard to wrap my head around. It feels like they were done with him to the point of taking his life. It’s baffling,” Garner shared. Zhang and Chen remain incarcerated as investigations continue into McKinsey’s murder.
