An attorney representing the elderly California couple accused of murdering their transgender son-in-law, a New York Times executive, told a court Thursday that the victim had terrorized his family for years before he was killed, according to reporting from the New York Post and Breitbart News.
Attorney Curtis Briggs said in court that Jonathan McKinsey, who was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds at Dublin Sports Grounds in Dublin, California, on Saturday, had “rained hell on his family for years,” the Post reported. Briggs described McKinsey as “extremely rageful,” claiming he “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 told the court, per the Post.
McKinsey’s in-laws, mother-in-law Shili Chen and father-in-law Shouyong Zhang, have been charged with murder in his death. Briggs said the couple intends to enter a not guilty plea. The two are the parents of McKinsey’s wife, Candice Jang.
A Contested Account of the Killing
Authorities allege the couple carried out a deliberate attack. “Officials say Chen and Zhang murdered McKinsey in a cold-blooded ambush-style attack where both grandparents took turns firing at him,” the Post reported. A family member told the Post he would bet the in-laws murdered McKinsey so that Jang could obtain sole custody of the couple’s three children.
Witnesses told authorities they saw the couple shoot the victim to death, according to ABC 7.
The case has surfaced a tangled history of domestic allegations between McKinsey and Jang. Both had filed for restraining orders against one another. In December 2025, McKinsey accused Jang and her parents of abuse, saying they allegedly mistreated him because of his identity. He also claimed Jang’s mother called McKinsey and one of McKinsey’s sons “perverts” after the boy tried on dresses.
Prior Child Abuse Charges Against McKinsey
Separately, McKinsey himself faced criminal charges at the time of his death. In 2025, he was charged with two counts of misdemeanor child abuse. Court documents alleged that he hit his 6-year-old son in the face and, at one point, left his then-2-year-old home alone for more than an hour. According to the source material, McKinsey pleaded not guilty to those charges and was expected to appear in court on that matter again next week.
The New York Times confirmed McKinsey’s role at the paper, with a company spokesman telling the Times that the victim “was director of engineering for the games department of the New York Times.”
The killing has drawn attention because of McKinsey’s prominent position at the Times and the involvement of his wife’s parents. Briggs’s courtroom remarks amount to a preview of the defense’s strategy: portraying the victim as a violent abuser whose conduct preceded the fatal encounter at the Dublin park.
McKinsey was found dead at the sports grounds on Saturday, setting off a chain of events that culminated in the arrest and charging of Chen and Zhang. Neither the Alameda County court nor law enforcement officials have released additional details beyond what has already been reported by the Post and ABC 7.
The couple’s expected not guilty plea means the case is likely headed toward a contested trial, where Briggs will attempt to introduce evidence about McKinsey’s alleged violence and the prior family disputes. Prosecutors, for their part, have characterized the shooting as an ambush in which both grandparents fired at the victim.
McKinsey’s death has also drawn scrutiny to the web of restraining orders and abuse allegations that surrounded the family before the shooting. The contradictory claims — McKinsey’s accusation that his in-laws abused him over his identity, and the child abuse charges he faced himself — are now part of the broader narrative being litigated both in court and in the press.
The victim’s wife, Jang, and her parents have not publicly commented beyond Briggs’s courtroom statements on Thursday. The New York Times has confirmed McKinsey’s employment but has not otherwise weighed in on the circumstances of his death.
As the case moves forward, Briggs’s characterization of the victim is likely to be central to the defense’s arguments. Whether a jury accepts that portrayal — or the prosecution’s account of a coordinated shooting — will determine the outcome.
The investigation remains ongoing, and court proceedings are expected to continue in the coming weeks.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2026/10/02/video-attorney-for-in-laws-accused-of-killing-transgender-nyt-executive-claims-victim-rained-hell-on-family-for-years/