Jonathan McKinsey was a 40-year-old trans man, father of three, and engineering leader at New York Times Games whose life had become entangled in a bitter divorce and custody dispute before he was shot and killed in Dublin, California. Long before his death, Jonathan had already used court filings to describe abuse he said was directed at him because he was transgender, including anti-LGBTQ+ slurs, physical violence during recovery from gender-affirming surgery, and interference with transition-related medical care.
Jonathan told the court that his mother-in-law, Shili Chen, called him a “pervert” and used anti-LGBTQ+ language against him and one of his children. He also told the court that his father-in-law, Shouyong Zhang, punched him in the chest while he was recovering from gender-affirming chest surgery. In the same family conflict, Jonathan said his estranged wife, Candice Jang, interfered with medical tubes following a transition-related procedure. Those accusations were part of a larger court battle in which Jonathan and Jang both made serious allegations against each other, sought court protection, and fought over custody of their children.
Jonathan denied allegations made against him and pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges connected to one of his children. The legal fight remained active as the conflict between the families continued, leaving a substantial court record documenting both the broader breakdown of the marriage and the specific anti-trans hostility Jonathan said he experienced from members of his wife’s family.
🎥 Video report showing Jonathan McKinsey, the Dublin homicide scene, and court-record connected to the family conflict before his death.
On September 26, 2026, Jonathan was at Dublin Sports Grounds when gunfire erupted in the parking lot during the afternoon. Dublin police responded at approximately 3:08 p.m. and found him suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene, turning years of documented family conflict into a homicide investigation involving the same relatives Jonathan had previously accused of abuse.
Witnesses described both a man and a woman taking part in the shooting. According to reporting based on witness accounts, the man fired at Jonathan and then passed the gun to the woman, who also fired before the pair walked away from the area. Police located Jonathan’s in-laws, Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77, nearby and arrested them shortly after the killing.
Prosecutors have since charged Zhang and Chen with Jonathan’s murder and say they lay in wait for him before the shooting. The lying-in-wait accusation adds a planning element to the prosecution’s case and places Jonathan’s killing inside a sequence that began before he entered the parking lot that afternoon.
The murder charges also force renewed attention onto the abuse Jonathan had already described in court. He had told the court that Chen used anti-LGBTQ+ verbal abuse against him and one of his children and that Zhang punched him in the chest while he was recovering from gender-affirming chest surgery. Those allegations were part of the documented family conflict before Jonathan was killed, and the two people he named are now defendants in the case over his death.
The divorce and custody battle remained complicated, with accusations on both sides, but Jonathan’s transgender identity was already embedded in the conflict through the treatment he said he received from his in-laws. His allegations described hostility toward his transition, his body, and one of his children, making that record part of the history investigators and prosecutors now have alongside the eyewitness accounts, arrests, and murder charges.
Police have not publicly announced a motive for the killing. The investigation therefore continues against a record that includes years of family conflict, documented allegations of anti-trans abuse, a public shooting witnessed by bystanders, and prosecutors saying Jonathan’s in-laws lay in wait for him before he was killed.
Jonathan’s death left three children without their father and ended the life of a man who had built a leadership career in engineering while navigating a family conflict that had grown increasingly hostile. His work, parenthood, transition, and court record all existed before the shooting, and they matter because the homicide did not begin the story of what Jonathan said he was experiencing.
The murder prosecution will now determine what happened in the Dublin parking lot and who is legally responsible for Jonathan’s death. The broader record already shows that Jonathan had documented anti-trans hostility from members of the same family before prosecutors charged two of them with his murder and said they lay in wait for him before the shooting, making that history impossible to separate from the public accounting of his life and death.
Jonathan’s death deserves more than a single headline. His children, the abuse he documented, and the murder case now moving through court deserve sustained attention.
Support Trans United’s independent reporting as we continue following Jonathan’s case, the prosecution, and the accountability that follows.
That’s absolutely horrible 🤬😢
So tragic for him, those crazy in-laws deserve a life sentence, so cruel....