Student from Yale was shot what the investigators thought was a perfect murder

On February 6, 2021, Kevin Jiang, a 26-year-old doctoral student from Yale and former national guardian of the army, spent the day with Zion Perry, his fiance, who was also a doctoral student there. The couple went hiking and ice fishing, followed by a dinner at her home in the wealthy East Rock district of New Haven. According to the police, Jiang left her apartment around 8:30 p.m. and drove to his house in his Prius, where he lived with his mother.

He made it barely two blocks when his car was recorded by a dark SUV from behind, and it was obviously a minor fender damage. The police assume that he got out of his car, probably to check how the other driver is doing and to exchange information. Instead the other driver Shot on Jiang eight times – With several balls that were fired so close to his head that the exploding shooting powder left burns in his face.

David Zaweski, the senior investigator of the murder commission in the Murder Fall Jiang, spoke to “48 Hours” correspondent Anne-Marie Green about the brand new history of this week, “The Ivy League Murder”, which on Saturday, January 25, at 10/9 Streaming is broadcast on CBS on Paramount+.

Zaweski said a witness told the investigators that she heard the slight fall on the fender, looked out of the window, heard shots and saw the mouthfire of a weapon. And another witness added that she not only heard the shots, but also saw how the shooter – dressed in black – stood above his fallen victim and continued to fire balls after he was on the ground. Later, the investigators secured a terrifying surveillance video that Kevin’s last living moments practically captured and confirmed the testimony of the witness.

But the secret became even greater due to the fact that the eight used cartridges, which were near Jiang, acted. The latest shootings were found in the area.

According to the police, a shooter had fired bullets in the caliber in the past few months .45 on four houses. In these cases, nobody was injured. The investigators interviewed the homeowners, but could not find any connection between them.

At first glance, Jiang’s murder had all the signs of a violent case of violence in road traffic. But Zaweski and his colleague Steven Cunningham quickly began to wonder if there was more.

“It looks a bit more personal,” said Zaweski to Green. “If someone is lying on the floor and not moving, what would mean that someone would continue to shoot?”

Cunningham questioned the car accident. “Was it intentional to get him out of the vehicle? Maybe something that was planned? ”He said.

“And if he had been targeted,” continued Zaweski, “what could have happened in his life that someone was driven to do so?”

It was a logical investigation that should be followed, but after he had brought Jiang’s mother and his fiancé the tragic news, the investigators said that the portrait that appeared from Kevin that was a talented young man who was not an enemy on the Welt could have. He lived with his mother and took care of her he had brought from Seattle to live with him. He volunteered to work with homeless people, was deeply religious and was a former lieutenant of the National Guard of the US Army. Just a week earlier, he had made Perry a marriage proposal, which she practically posted on Facebook on the anniversary of her meeting at a Christian retreat day.

Pastor Gregory Hendrickson summarized the young, freshly fiance couple for Green. “Obviously they had many things in common,” he started. “Both loved nature. Zion was a scientist who studied molecular biophysics and biochemistry … he was at the Faculty of the Environment. They are both brilliant and hardworking students, ”he said,“ and yet they felt that their achievements were not satisfactory. ”What they defined on the lowest level.”

Zaweski and Cunningham knew that they were facing a discouraging examination. Jiang’s murder may have only been another arbitrary shootout by the mysterious shooter in the caliber .45. Whoever was the shooter was still at large.

“The suspect was out there,” said Zaweski. “He was not identified. We didn’t know where he went … and we didn’t know what he would do next. “

Since there were only a few indications that could be followed, and a vague image of a dark SUV from surveillance recordings at the scene, they knew that they would probably need a break. And the next day they received one when they received an urgent call from SGT. Jeffrey Mills from the nearby North Haven police. He provided you with surprising information about two different emergency calls.

The first incident occurred about half an hour after Jiang’s murder. A driver was stuck on an abandoned, snow -covered railway track in front of a scrap site, on which he accidentally drove when he was looking for a nearby motorway driveway. The driver, Qinxuan Pancame from Malden, Massachusetts. His file was clean and he was calm with an excuse that Mills had heard of others who had strayed near this junkyard. So he helped to get a tractor and a nearby hotel room. At that time Mills did not know that there was a murder in New Haven.

But about 15 hours later, on February 7th at 11 a.m., Mills reacted to another emergency call at an Arby’s, where employees had found a bag with a weapon and a box with balls from the caliber .45. The Arby’s was right next to the Best Western Hotel, into which Pan had been brought. And then he knew that Kevin Jiang had been murdered, from someone who drove a dark SUV that resembled Pan. Then he turned to the New Haven murder commission.

It turned out that Pan had checked in at the hotel, but had never stayed there. And when Zaweski sent detectives to Malden, where Pan visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (with) and lived with his parents, nobody was at home.

Zaweski turned to his computer and was looking for Pan, hoping to find a connection to Jiang. “We will use Facebook as a tool to get background information about a person with whom she is friends,” said Zaweski. But there didn’t seem to be a connection to Jiang.

“And so you go through the list of names,” says Green, “nothing, nothing, nothing, and then you think: ‘Boah’.”

“There is our connection,” replies Zaweski. This connection was Zion Perry, who was performed as a friend of Pan. She and Pan had met with a Christian group when Perry was studying. And although Perry Pan hardly knew and had no longer communicated with him since she left it and moved to New Haven to study at Yale University, the investigators of the murder commission felt that they had more than just a break had. They had a potential suspect that was missing in his house. And a possible motive: an obsession with Perry.

“It seemed as if there was a secret obsession with Pan behind the scenes, which Kevin knew nothing and didn’t know anything about Zion,” said Zaweski. After all, the murder of Jiang occurred only a week after Perry had posted her engagement together with earlier photos of her appointment on Facebook.

The investigators assume that Pan was also responsible for the four shootings in the .45 caliber and that the shootings were part of a deliberate plan. They suspected that these shootings were carried out to mislead them when Jiang was finally killed, and to let them believe that his death was only another random incident.

“He planned it,” said Cunningham. “And he knew that we would deal with these other things.”

“It wasn’t an accidental incident out there,” added Zaweski. “He was targeted.”

Now her murder investigations and the large-scale search for her brilliant, technically experienced co-refugee began. US Marshals agreed and learned that Pan’s family had an access to assets in the millions. Pan was missed and feared that he could try to flee the country. The pressure was great.

“It became so well known so quickly,” US Marshal Joe Galvan told “48 Hours”. “It was only increased.”

The marshals mobilized their enormous resources to track down Pan. They noticed that Pan’s parents had lifted large sums of cash and that they had made a long trip to the south with their son immediately after the murder. When the parents were stopped in Georgia, they sat in the car, but her son was gone. They said he just got out of the car and gone away, and they didn’t know where he went. The investigators were skeptical.

“They would go to the end of the world to support and hide it,” said Matthew Duffy, a superior of the US Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Connecticut. The Marshals focused on the parents to find Pan. They knew that it would require patience to find it because they used all of their surveillance techniques to track down the family.

Weeks passed, but finally their patience paid off. Pan’s mother finally made a mistake that would lead the marshal directly to her son. She called a employee’s phone from a hotel. The investigators spoke to the employee and were able to follow the call, which led them to Pan’s whereabouts in a guest house in Alabama.

“You went there with a small army,” said Duffy. “About 20 people … He just came out and said, ‘I am the one you are looking for.'”

At the time of his arrest, Pan had about $ 20,000 in cash, several communication devices and his father’s passport. He was charged With Jiang’s murder, accepted a deal and was sentenced to 35 years in prison in April 2024.

Pans parents were never charged for anything. “48 Hours” turned to the pans, but they did not answer our request for a comment.

The investigators assume that the murder of Jiang might never have been informed if Pan would not have got stuck on the rail tracks during this fateful February night.

“Could he have got away with murder?” Asked Green Zaweski.

“He could have done that,” replied Zaweski. “If he hadn’t got into these traces … it would have been very difficult.”

Although investigators, friends and family were relieved that Pan was made and brought to court, Jiang’s mother said at Pan’s verdict and said that she was of the opinion that 35 years in prison was too short punishment for the man who was her only son had killed.

Perry agreed. “I wanted to address Pan in a targeted manner,” she said at the verdict. “Although your punishment is much lower than you earn … there is also grace. May God be gracious to them. And may he be gracious to all of us. “

Even four years after Jiang’s death, friends wonder what Kevin, a man with deep belief, could have thought about his murderer.

“Do you think Kevin would have forgiven Pan?” Green asked Jamila Ayeh and Nasya Hubbard, who had served with Jiang in the military.

“Yes, I do that,” said Hubbard. Ayeh added: “Without a doubt.”