A court has sentenced a former researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to 35 years in prison. The sentence comes after the defendant, Qinxuan Pan, 33, pleaded guilty to the killing of a Yale University graduate student found outside his car on a Connecticut street.
Pan, who pleaded guilty to murder in February, apologized during a hearing in a New Haven courtroom. He spoke to the room packed with family and friends of the victim, Kevin Jiang. “I feel sorry for what my actions caused and for everyone affected,” Pan said. “I fully accept my penalties.”
The victim, Jiang, was a 26-year-old U.S. Army veteran who grew up in Chicago. He was a graduate student at Yale’s School of the Environment. According to reports, Jiang had just left his fiancée’s apartment in New Haven on the evening of February 6, 2021, when Pan shot him multiple times.
According to police and prosecutors, the couple had just gotten engaged days earlier. During the hearing, several of Jiang’s relatives and friends spoke. Afterward, the judge handed down the sentence, which Pan agreed to as part of his plea bargain.
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“My son was a remarkable young man who cherished life and held deep (belief) in God,” said Jiang’s father, Mingchen Jiang. “He had a bright future ahead that promised to spread God’s love far and wide.” Although the court sentenced Pan to prison, investigators never made a motive for the killing clear.
Investigators said they discovered Pan and Jiang’s fiancée connected on social media. They said the two met at MIT, where they graduated from and where Pan worked as a researcher. Jiang’s fiancée reportedly told authorities she and Pan “never had a romantic or sexual relationship, and were just friends.”
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However, “she did get a feeling that he was interested in her during that time.” It all started on February 6, 2021, when Jiang dropped his fiancé Zion Perry off at her home in New Haven. According to prosecutors, gunshots rang out, and officials found Jiang lying on Lawrence Street with multiple close-range gunshot wounds.
After the shooting, Pan fled the scene and eluded police for three months before being apprehended in Alabama. After a nationwide manhunt, officials caught him in Alabama. They said he lived under a fake name with $19,000 in cash, a passport, and several cell phones.
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Jiang, on the other hand, died from his wounds, and officials ruled his death a homicide. The late Chicago native was a United States Army veteran and National Guard reservist. His parents, fiancé, friends, professors, and military comrades described him as a joyful friend and a faith-filled Christian.
They also described him as a brilliant student and a brave soldier. The 26-year-old reportedly planned to attend law school to study environmental law. He had grand ambitions to use his skills and knowledge to help protect the planet. But”his mother, Linda Liu, told the judge that Pan shattered his “beautiful and joyful life.”
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