The two elderly in-laws accused of gunning down a New York Times engineering executive in a Dublin sports park parking lot are scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday morning as families return to the community complex to process the tragedy.
Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77-year-old Dublin residents, are being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail and are expected to face murder charges for the Saturday afternoon killing of 40-year-old Jonathan McKinsey.
Families returned to the Dublin Sports Grounds Monday evening, just two days after the broad-daylight shooting. Officers responding to the scene Saturday found McKinsey in the parking lot suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
Witnesses helped police quickly locate and arrest Zhang and Chen nearby, and police confirmed there are no other outstanding suspects.
For the community, returning to the park — a frequent hub for youth sports — brought lingering shock. Many noted that their children had been playing at the grounds only moments before the violence erupted.
“You’re obviously worried about everybody’s safety… you were just there, your kids were just there,” said Dublin resident Trung Le. “I think everybody’s first reaction is like, ‘Wow.'”
“We were just right over here having a picnic like 10 minutes before this incident happened,” said Shellsea Gomez, another local resident. “I don’t really know exactly what happened, but you’re coming and putting a lot of kids in danger and that’s just not right.”
While investigators search for a motive, court documents reveal that McKinsey was in the middle of a child-custody battle with his estranged wife and was facing misdemeanor child-abuse charges.
Additionally, according to The East Bay Times, McKinsey — who was transgender — alleged in court filings that his mother-in-law, Shili Chen, had used anti-LGBTQ slurs against him and one of his children.
Police have not yet stated whether the family disputes or custody battle are connected to the killing. Legal analyst Steven Clark believes investigators will focus heavily on electronic records to uncover a motive.
“There appears to be a tremendous amount of premeditation that went into this… defendants went there to track down this individual,” Clark said, adding, “It’s going to be important to look at all of the text messages and emails between these parties and reverse engineer exactly where things went so wrong.”
Police have emphasized that there is no known ongoing threat to the public, though families at the park continue to process the tragedy in a space central to their community.
