A former researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has pleaded guilty to the 2021 killing of a Yale graduate student found shot outside his car in Connecticut.
Qinxuan Pan faces 35 years in prison following his guilty plea on Thursday in a New Haven court. The 32-year-old will be sentenced on April 25.
Pan’s lawyer William Gerace said on Friday that it was “prudent to take this reasonable plea bargain” as his client was facing 60 years if convicted.
Prosecutors say that on the morning of February 6, 2021, Pan shot Kevin Jiang multiple times on a street in New Haven, which is home to Yale University.
He fled, leaving Jiang lying by his car with gunshot wounds to his head, chest and extremities.
Pan had eluded authorities for three months following the shooting death and was apprehended in Alabama, where officials said he was caught living under a fake name with US$19,000 in cash, a passport and several cellphones.
A graduate student at Yale’s School of the Environment, Jiang grew up in Chicago and was an Army veteran.
Thursday’s statement from prosecutors did not mention a motive for the killing.
Yale student killing: MIT grad linked to case stole car on day of crime
Yale student killing: MIT grad linked to case stole car on day of crime
Court documents show Pan knew Jiang’s fiancée, Zion Perry, from when they both attended MIT.
But Perry told authorities “they never had a romantic or sexual relationship, they were just friends, but she did get a feeling that he was interested in her during that time”.
Jiang had just left Perry’s apartment after a day of fishing when Pan shot him.
Jiang and Perry had been engaged just days earlier.
