NYT tech executive Jonathan McKinsey shot dead as elderly in-laws face murder charges in California

DUBLIN, CALIFORNIA: New York Times tech executive Jonathan McKinsey was shot dead at a California sports complex on Saturday, September 26, with police arresting his elderly in-laws in connection with the killing. McKinsey, 40, was found with multiple gunshot wounds in the parking lot of Dublin Sports Grounds and died at the scene.

The New York Times confirmed McKinsey was the victim and said he had worked for the newspaper since 2023. Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 76, were arrested and booked into Santa Rita Jail on suspicion of murder. Police said there were no outstanding suspects and no known threat to public safety.

Jonathan McKinsey was shot at Dublin Sports Grounds

Police said a sergeant driving near Dublin Sports Grounds around 3 pm Saturday saw a man lying in the parking lot and stopped to investigate. Around the same time, police received multiple 911 calls reporting the incident.

Officers found McKinsey suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Emergency medical personnel responded to the scene, but McKinsey was pronounced dead.

Witnesses reportedly told authorities they saw two masked people approach him in the parking lot.

Witnesses also said the two shooters took turns firing at McKinsey before the suspects were quickly arrested by police. According to police, officers located and detained the two suspects within minutes with help from witnesses who had remained nearby.

Video from the scene showed a body lying in the parking lot in broad daylight before a couple was taken away in the back of a police car.

The suspects were identified as Zhang and Chen, who are both 76 years old. The couple are married and are McKinsey’s parents-in-law, according to police.

The couple reportedly lived in the Dublin area. Both were booked into Santa Rita Jail on suspicion of murder.

Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen face murder charges

Zhang and Chen were booked into Santa Rita Jail on suspicion of murder.

Police identified the pair as suspects in the homicide and said the investigation remained active and ongoing. Detectives were continuing to examine evidence to determine the circumstances that led to the shooting.

McKinsey was married to the couple’s daughter, according to reports.

The family connection adds to the investigation, as the two people arrested in the case were McKinsey’s elderly in-laws.

Authorities have not publicly announced a motive for the shooting. The circumstances leading up to the confrontation remained under investigation.

Jonathan McKinsey had a long technology career

McKinsey had built a technology career spanning nearly two decades before joining The New York Times.

His career included software engineering roles at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Oracle. He also worked in product strategy at Coursera.

McKinsey later held engineering management and leadership positions at UKG and Splunk before joining The New York Times in January 2023.

At the Times, McKinsey initially worked as a senior engineering manager for the Games platform.

His work involved the infrastructure behind popular games such as 'Connections' and systems designed to handle large increases in traffic.

He later moved to the games player experience team.

In late 2025, he became director of engineering for games player experience, where he led a team focused on feature development and monetization for millions of daily puzzle players.

His career also included an academic background in computer science. McKinsey earned a master's degree in computer science from UC Berkeley in 2015.

McKinsey remembered by a former UC Berkeley connection

News of McKinsey’s death also drew a reaction on LinkedIn.

Nathan Wu, whose LinkedIn profile says he worked at UC Berkeley, posted a comment late Sunday, September 27, writing: “Rip buddy.”

McKinsey’s death came after years of work across some of the biggest names in technology before he took on a senior role at The New York Times.

The investigation into the shooting remained ongoing, with Dublin police asking anyone with information related to the case to contact investigators.