Kevin Jiang: A Murder That Left a Community Baffled
Kevin Jiang was a 26-year-old Yale graduate student, an Army veteran, and a man of faith who volunteered with the homeless. He seemed to have no enemies, and no one could figure out why someone may have targeted him on Feb. 6, 2021, when he was shot in the street not far from his fiancée’s apartment in New Haven, Connecticut.
At first, it seemed like the murder may have been a random shooting — possibly an act of road rage. But as detectives looked into the case, they began to unravel the truth — unbeknownst to Jiang, someone had meticulously planned his death. Who would want to kill Kevin Jiang? And how would detectives track down the killer?
The story begins with another shooting in December 2020, nearly two months before Jiang’s murder. A seemingly random shooter fired bullets into four different homes in a couple of New Haven neighborhoods. The shootings had a few key things in common: homes were fired upon and no one was harmed, In two cases a dark-colored SUV was seen fleeing, and.45 caliber fired cartridge casings were found at all four scenes.
In time, it would become clear that these shootings were linked and were part of a larger plan. On Jan. 30, 2021, Jiang proposed to his girlfriend Zion Perry while on a hike to a waterfall. The two had been dating for about a year and had met at a Christian retreat. They both loved nature, attended church, and were science students: Jiang was a graduate student in the Yale School of the Environment, and Perry was also at Yale, working on a PhD in molecular biophysics and biochemistry.
On Feb. 6, 2021, at 8:30 p.m., police responded to the scene of a shooting in New Haven. When they arrived, they found Jiang deceased in the street. About 100 feet away was his car, a Prius..45 caliber casings were also found at the scene, and it appeared Jiang had been shot multiple times. Police obtained video surveillance from a nearby residence. In the video, a vehicle crash can be heard prior to Jiang’s Prius entering the frame, closely followed by a dark SUV. The Prius comes to a stop, then the SUV reverses out of frame. Jiang exits his Prius and walks toward the SUV. A few seconds after he moves out of frame, eight gunshots and a scream can be heard.
One witness reported that she looked at her window after hearing gunshots and saw the shooter standing over Jiang, who was already down on the pavement, firing additional shots. Detectives observed stippling — a burn pattern caused by gunpowder exploding from a weapon fired at close range — on Jiang’s face. The evidence of close-range gunfire made detectives think there might be more to Jiang’s death than a random shooting or a case of road rage.
Detectives found that Qinxuan Pan, a brilliant MIT graduate student studying artificial intelligence, had a possible motive for the murder. Pan was Facebook friends with Perry, Jiang’s fiancée, and had made online communication with her. Though Pan’s motive was never confirmed, the murder of Jiang occurred just one week after Perry publicly announced her engagement to Kevin on Facebook.
After months of investigation, U.S. Marshals tracked Pan’s parents south to Georgia, where they were staying with another couple. Pan’s mother made a phone call that led investigators to Pan’s location. On May 14, 2021, Pan was arrested at a boarding house in Montgomery, Alabama. He was found with approximately $20,000 in cash on him, as well as multiple communication devices, seven SIM cards, and his father’s passport.
Pan pleaded guilty to the murder of Kevin Jiang in February 2024 and was sentenced to 35 years in prison without parole. He is scheduled to be released in 2056, when he will be 65 years old.