Witnesses told local media that the parents-in-law of NYT Games director Jonathan McKinsey took turns fatally shooting him near a busy park in Dublin, California, on Saturday afternoon.
Police identified the suspects as married couple Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77. Their arrests followed the discovery of McKinsey's body in a parking lot near Dublin Sports Grounds, where an officer found him with multiple gunshot wounds.
Witnesses Describe NYT Games Director Shooting
The officer was driving near the sports grounds at around 3:00pm local time when he discovered the body, according to police. McKinsey, 40, was lying in the middle of the parking lot.
The shooting happened in broad daylight in Dublin, about a 40-minute drive southeast of San Francisco.
Dublin resident Kevin Stein spoke about the people using the area in a report by KTVU, describing families and children near the scene.
'There were kids and families, just like you see now,' he said.
'This parking lot is full on a Saturday...It's incredible that they'd just do that right in front of everybody.'
Stein's comments focused on the shooting's public setting, describing a parking area used by families and questioning how it could have happened in front of others.
Witness accounts helped police locate Zhang and Chen nearby within minutes. Officers took the couple into custody and booked both into a local jail on suspicion of murder. They remained in jail as of Monday afternoon.
Police named the pair as suspects in their son-in-law's killing. The claim that they took turns shooting McKinsey came from witnesses who spoke to local media.
The newspaper confirmed McKinsey's employment through a spokesperson, who told The Independent that he was director of engineering for New York Times Games. He had worked at the company since 2023.
Police had not disclosed a possible motive for the shooting. It remains unclear whether an earlier child abuse case involving McKinsey had any connection to his death.
NYT Games Director's Charges
Last year, McKinsey was charged with two misdemeanour counts of child abuse, according to court records reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A woman had contacted Dublin police to report that her husband, identified as McKinsey, struck her six-year-old son in the face with an open hand, according to a probable cause declaration cited in the reporting.
Her account also included an allegation about an incident in 2018. She told officers that McKinsey had grabbed her arm and left a bruise, the newspaper reported.
Officers went to McKinsey's home after receiving the woman's call. When they arrived, they discovered that a two-year-old had been left unattended while McKinsey went shopping, according to the probable cause declaration.
The allegations about the two children formed part of the account of the earlier police response. They remain distinct from the witness descriptions of Saturday's shooting, for which investigators have not publicly identified a motive.
The court account described the allegations and McKinsey's plea, but did not establish that he was convicted of either child abuse charge.
McKinsey was released from jail on the condition that he complete parenting classes, according to the court reporting.
