Tragedy
Slain New York Times Executive’s Wife Claimed He Threatened to Kill Her and Her Parents
New details are emerging about the family dispute involving Jonathan McKinsey, the New York Times executive whose in-laws were arrested after his death.
The New York Post reported on Monday, September 28, that McKinsey, 40, had threatened to kill his wife, Candice Jang, and her parents, Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, according to claims Jang made in an August custody filing. The outlet obtained the filing, whose contents were first reported by The Mercury News.
The New York Post reported that McKinsey was transgender and had transitioned from female to male in 2010.
According to the outlet, Jang said she and the couple’s three children had learned to avoid upsetting McKinsey because they feared upsetting him. “In my experience, appearing agreeable or happy around him was sometimes a means of avoiding his anger,” she wrote, according to the filing.
Per the report, she also described a birthday present she said McKinsey gave the children: a book about a young girl mourning her mother’s death. Jang said the subject frightened her because of the threats she claimed he had previously made.
“However, given his prior threats against my life, I found the choice deeply disturbing and frightening,” she wrote, the outlet reported. Jang’s statements were allegations made during the couple’s custody dispute.
McKinsey and Jang were divorcing and had filed restraining order requests against each other in 2025. He was also charged with two misdemeanor counts of child abuse following an incident involving one of their children. McKinsey pleaded not guilty and was released on the condition that he complete parenting classes, as Globe previously reported. The couple had another custody hearing scheduled for Friday, according to the Post.
McKinsey was found with gunshot wounds in the parking lot of Dublin Sports Grounds in California on Saturday, September 26, per NBC Bay Area. Emergency crews pronounced him dead at the scene. Police detained Jang’s parents, Zhang and Chen, both 77, nearby and arrested them on suspicion of murder.
Zhang and Chen are due in court Wednesday, September 30, according to the Associated Press.
