Updated September 29, 2026

Every once in a while I come across a news story that gets more complicated the longer I look at it.

This is one of those stories.

On Saturday afternoon, September 26, 40-year-old Jonathan McKinsey was killed in the parking lot of the Dublin Sports Grounds in Dublin, California. Police arrested two people nearby within minutes: McKinsey’s mother- and father-in-law, Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen.

The case was initially brought to my attention through reporting by The Independent. Once I started looking at the local reporting and court-record coverage, the story became much more complicated.

There was an unresolved child-abuse case. There were allegations of domestic violence. There were restraining orders. There was an ongoing divorce and child-custody dispute.

And now McKinsey’s elderly in-laws are sitting in jail accused of killing him.

There is a very obvious story our brains want to construct from those facts.

But we don’t know yet whether that story is true.

That’s exactly why I want to follow this case.

What we actually know

According to Dublin Police Services, shortly after 3 p.m. on September 26, a police sergeant driving near the Dublin Sports Grounds noticed a man lying in the parking lot. At approximately the same time, dispatchers began receiving multiple 911 calls.

The man was Jonathan McKinsey, 40, a Dublin resident. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Witnesses helped officers locate Zhang and Chen nearby. Police identified them as a married couple and McKinsey’s parents-in-law. Both were arrested on suspicion of murder and booked into Santa Rita Jail.

Police said there were no additional suspects and no known continuing danger to the public. They also said detectives were continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the killing.

That last part matters.

Police have not publicly established a motive.

McKinsey was professionally accomplished. He was director of engineering for New York Times Games and had worked for the company since January 2023, according to a Times spokesperson quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle.

But his personal life appears to have been considerably more complicated.

The child-abuse case

In October 2025, Alameda County prosecutors charged McKinsey with two misdemeanor counts of child abuse, according to court records reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle.

According to a probable-cause declaration reviewed by the Chronicle, McKinsey’s wife reported that he had struck her 6-year-old son in the face with an open hand.

When deputies later went to McKinsey’s home, they reportedly found a 2-year-old child who had been left unattended while McKinsey went shopping.

The declaration also included an allegation from McKinsey’s wife concerning an earlier incident in 2018, when she said McKinsey grabbed her arm hard enough to leave a bruise.

Those are allegations, and that distinction matters.

McKinsey pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. He had not been convicted of them.

The Chronicle reports that he was released from jail under conditions that included enrolling in and completing 12 parenting classes.

Then came restraining orders, divorce and custody

The story becomes even more complicated when you look at the family-court proceedings.

According to Alameda County court records reviewed by the Chronicle, McKinsey’s wife, Candice Jang, filed for a domestic-violence prevention order in October 2025.

The Chronicle reports that the order was granted.

In her request, Jang made additional allegations concerning McKinsey’s treatment of her and their children over a period of several years.

Again, those allegations should not be confused with criminal convictions.

McKinsey subsequently sought a restraining order against his wife in December 2025.

Days later, he filed for divorce.

The divorce involved child support and custody issues, and the family-court case was still active at the time of his death. According to the Chronicle, a family-law status conference had been scheduled for October 2, less than a week after the shooting.

A neighbor also told the Chronicle that McKinsey had recently moved out of the home he had shared with his wife and three children.

So this wasn’t simply a family conflict that had occurred sometime in the distant past.

Something was still playing out.

What witnesses say happened at the park

This is another place where I think we need to separate eyewitness accounts from what police have officially established.

KTVU reported that witnesses described both members of the elderly couple as participating in the shooting.

Dublin resident Kevin Stein told KTVU that children and families were at the sports complex at the time and described the parking lot as busy on a Saturday.

The Independent summarized those witness accounts by reporting that witnesses said the couple took turns shooting McKinsey.

But here’s the important distinction:

That description comes from witnesses and news reporting. Police have not publicly confirmed the exact sequence of who fired when.

The Chronicle interviewed another witness who reported hearing several shots and seeing a man and woman he believed were involved leave the scene before police arrested them nearby.

What Dublin Police has officially confirmed is that Zhang and Chen were arrested in connection with McKinsey’s death.

There is another strange piece of the arrest record

According to jail and court-record reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle, Zhang and Chen were booked not only on suspicion of murder but also on allegations involving conspiracy and child endangerment.

At the moment, we don’t know exactly what the child-endangerment allegation refers to.

That could eventually become an important part of understanding what happened.

Or it could have an explanation that isn’t apparent from the information currently available.

That’s one of the reasons I’m reluctant to fill the gaps with assumptions.

And this is where speculation becomes dangerous

I suspect a lot of people reading this story will arrive at the same conclusion almost immediately:

The grandparents believed their daughter or grandchildren were being harmed, so they killed him.

Maybe.

The timeline certainly makes that theory easy to imagine.

But at this point, there is no public evidence establishing that as the motive.

Dublin Police has not publicly connected the homicide to the child-abuse prosecution, restraining orders, divorce or custody dispute.

The Chronicle specifically reported that it remained unclear whether the divorce or previous domestic-violence allegations had any connection to the shooting.

That doesn’t mean those things are unrelated.

It means we don’t know yet.

And I think that’s one of the most interesting parts of following a case like this in real time.

We normally encounter crime stories after somebody has packaged the narrative for us. There is a perpetrator, a victim and a motive, and everything gets compressed into a headline.

Here, we’re watching the narrative form while the evidence is still coming out.

The timeline so far

2018: McKinsey’s wife later alleged that a domestic-violence incident occurred between them.

October 2025: Alameda County prosecutors charged McKinsey with two misdemeanor child-abuse counts. He pleaded not guilty.

His wife also sought a domestic-violence prevention order.

December 2025: McKinsey sought his own restraining order against his wife and filed for divorce.

2026: Divorce, child-support and custody proceedings continued.

September 26, 2026: McKinsey was killed at Dublin Sports Grounds. His mother- and father-in-law were arrested nearby.

September 30, 2026: Zhang and Chen were scheduled for arraignment.

October 2, 2026: McKinsey’s family-law case had reportedly been scheduled for a status conference.

Why I’m following this

For me, this isn’t about turning someone’s family tragedy into entertainment.

Quite the opposite.

There are several difficult questions buried inside this story that are worth watching.

What was actually happening inside this family?

What evidence existed regarding the allegations involving the children?

What was happening in the custody proceedings?

What protections had the courts put in place?

What will prosecutors say motivated Zhang and Chen?

And perhaps the hardest question: how does a family conflict reach the point where two people in their late 70s are accused of killing their son-in-law in a public park in the middle of the afternoon?

We don’t have those answers yet.

So I’m going to keep this page updated as court records, police information and credible reporting become available.

And I’m going to try to keep two things separate as I do it:

what the evidence actually tells us, and the story we are tempted to build around it.

Those are not always the same thing.

Sources and further reading

This is a developing case. Arrests and criminal charges are allegations. Defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court. Allegations made in domestic-relations proceedings are also allegations unless established by a court. This article will be updated as additional records and verified information become publicly available.