Unsealed arrest warrant provides additional details on the murder of Kevin Jiang ENV ’22
The unsealed warrant reveals Qinxuan Pan was likely involved with other New Haven shootings and reveals new information about the night of Jiang’s murder.
Photo of Qinxuan Pan Courtesy of New Haven Police Department
On June 11, a Connecticut Superior Court arrest warrant for Qinxuan Pan was unsealed, revealing further details surrounding the night of the murder of Kevin Jiang ENV ’22, Pan’s relation to Jiang’s fiancee Zion Perry GRD ’26 and Pan’s potential involvement in other shootings in New Haven.
The 96-page document comes after Pan was arrested on May 14 and charged with one count of felony murder for the alleged Feb. 6 murder of Jiang. After a monthslong search, Pan was ultimately found in Montgomery, Alabama, and subsequently extradited to New Haven, where he was arraigned on May 20. Pan had rented an apartment in Alabama under a fake name, and he had $19,000 in cash, seven cellphones, several SIM cards, his father’s Chinese passport and a computer in his possession, state prosecutors said. He is currently incarcerated in Connecticut, with his bail set at $20 million.
Pan’s next court date in the ongoing murder case is scheduled for July 13, according to the New Haven Independent. Pan’s attorney, William Gerace, said he plans to request at that hearing for Connecticut Superior Court Judge Gerald Harmon to reduce Pan’s bail to $1 million.
Pan’s possible involvement with other New Haven shootings
The police also said they found connections between the bullets fired at Jiang’s homicide and the bullets used in other recent shootings in the New Haven area.
“Though no confirmatory microscopic analysis has been conducted to date, preliminary findings indicate an association between the .45 caliber fired cartridge casings recovered from Jiang’s homicide scene and fired cartridge casings recovered from four other shots fired incidents,” the arrest warrant application states.
The police found .45 caliber fired cartridge casings at the sites of a Dec. 11 shooting at 165 Huntington St. and a Jan. 15 shooting at 105 Stimson Rd.
Police also found similar cartridge casings at the site of the Feb. 5 shooting at New Haven Public Schools Assistant Superintendent Paul Whyte’s house, where surveillance video shows a dark colored SUV with “similar features to a GMC Terrain” parked outside Whyte’s house before fleeing the area, according to the arrest warrant. Police confirmed that Pan test drove a black 2017 GMC Terrain at the time of this shooting.
“Obviously, there’s always the wanting to understand the ‘why’ of it all,” Whyte told the New Haven Independent in February, when asked how he felt about the potential link between the shooting of his house and the murder of Jiang. “It is so very unsettling.”
On Feb. 6, the same day Jiang was killed, police found .45 fired cartridge casings at a shooting at 164 Shepard St. in Hamden. According to the arrest warrant, surveillance video from the scene captured a dark colored SUV — which “resembles a 2015 GMC Terrain” — stop in front of the residence and fire the shots. Jiang was shot approximately one hour later, and police confirmed that Pan test drove a blue 2015 GMC Terrain at the time of this shooting.
Police recovered .45 fired cartridge casings — similar to those found at four above shootings — from the scene of Jiang’s homicide, according to the arrest warrant.
On Feb. 7, police recovered a Ruger .45 caliber SR1991 semi-automatic pistol at Arby’s Restaurant on Washington Avenue in New Haven, along with seven firearm magazines, a GMC Terrain owner’s manual, three license plates and other items which police believe belonged to Pan. However, forensic testing determined that the semi-automatic pistol was “not the firearm used in the homicide,” the arrest warrant stated.
The relationship between Pan and Perry
Photos found on social media previously revealed that Pan knew Jiang’s fiancee, Perry, from their time as students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The recently unsealed document gave additional details on their relationship, such as that the two met while attending various Christian group events on campus.
“They talked at those events and she invited him to other events to welcome him,” police wrote in the affidavit. “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.”
Perry also told police that their last communication was after Perry graduated from MIT on May 31, 2020. Pan had called to congratulate Perry and asked if the two could have a Zoom call. According to the document, Perry said the Zoom did not happen.
Perry said she never shared her New Haven address with Pan, although the two were friends on Facebook, where Perry posted about her engagement to Jiang and that she would soon start her doctorate. Jiang was shot approximately 500 feet from Perry’s residence in East Rock.
The night of the murder
Multiple people called 911 to report numerous gunshots the night of the murder. Jiang, according to police in the affidavit, was found “lying in the middle of the road wearing a yellow and black jacket. He was observed to be holding an army camouflage backpack.”
Police and a subsequent autopsy further revealed that Jiang was shot multiple times in the face, torso and extremities — the autopsy later recovered three bullets from his body — likely at close range.
Perry told the police that she heard gunshots a few minutes after she went into her apartment. Jiang had already left and entered his car, she said, so she did not assume that he was involved.
According to the affidavit, audio-video surveillance from a Lawrence Street resident shows a car crash between Jiang’s and Pan’s vehicles, followed by “eight gunshots, a brief scream, and then additional gunshots” a few seconds after Jiang and the SUV moved out of the frame.
A broadcast disseminated by the police department to neighboring stations on Feb. 6 initially described the suspect, later identified as Pan, as a “black male wearing a yellow sweater,” which detective David Zaweski wrote in the arrest warrant was “erroneously broadcasted.”
Zaweski also wrote that one eyewitness who he spoke with heard gunshots and a scream and saw a person standing over Jiang — who was lying on the street — and firing downward.
The entire 96-page affidavit can be found here.
