Manhunt on for person wanted for questioning about death of Yale student with Chicago ties

A manhunt is on for a Massachusetts man wanted for questioning about the shooting death of Yale University graduate student Kevin Jiang, a former Chicago resident who was killed Saturday night blocks from the Ivy League school.

Qinxuan Pan, 29, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is wanted for questioning. He’s been charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and interstate theft of a vehicle, according to the Marshals Service.

Authorities didn’t explain what led them to Pan, but said he was to be considered armed and dangerous.

One link between the two men is Jiang’s fiancee, Zion Perry, who graduated last year from MIT and, according to media reports, was Facebook friends with Pan.

Jiang and Perry got engaged a week before Jiang’s death.

New Haven Police

Jiang, 26, was shot to death Saturday evening in New Haven, Connecticut, blocks from the Ivy League school.

The U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force has joined the search for Pan. Authorities were searching for him Thursday in the Atlanta, Gerogia, area, where he has relatives, Marshals Service spokesman Matt Duffy said.

“We’re working hard to catch him,” Duffy said.

Jiang attended St. Therese Chinese Catholic School in Chinatown and graduated from Maine South High School in Park Ridge in 2012.

Jiang’s family moved from Chicago to Washington state, and Jiang graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in environmental studies. He was a second-year student in the master’s program at Yale School of the Environment.

Jiang, who was days from his 27th birthday, was a veteran of the U.S. Army, where he served as a tank operator. At the time of his death, Jiang was a member of the Army National Guard who’d recently been called up to assist with COVID-19 relief efforts in Connecticut, according to the university.