Qinxuan Pan, now in custody.
U.S. Marshals have arrested Qinxuan Pan in Alabama — more than three months after the MIT artificial intelligence researcher allegedly shot and killed 26-year-old Yale grad student Kevin Jiang in the Goatville section of East Rock.
That news of the end to a months-long manhunt came Friday morning.
“On the morning of May 14, 2021, the U.S. Marshals Gulf Coast Regional Task Force in conjunction with the U.S. Marshals Middle District of Alabama arrested Fugitive from Justice, Qinxan Pan,” city police spokesperson Sgt. Shayna Kendall wrote in an email press release.
The U.S. Marshals Office and city police have been looking for Pan since soon after Feb. 6. That’s when Jiang was shot to death in the middle of Lawrence Street while near his fiancee’s apartment.
That same night of the murder, North Haven police allegedly encountered Pan in a deserted scrap metal yard—and then let him go, leading to a nationwide manhunt.
City police obtained an arrest warrant in late February charging Pan, who knew Jiang’s fiancee, with murder. The U.S. Marshals also posted a $10,000 reward at that time for information leading to Pan’s arrest.
City and federal law enforcement officials said at the time that Pan was last seen in Georgia. There were fears he may have slipped out of the country.
Contributed photo
The late Yale grad student Kevin Jiang.
The murder of Jiang, a grad student at Yale’s School of the Environment who served as a U.S. Army National Guardsman and was an active member of Trinity Baptist Church on State Street, sparked outpourings of grief from shocked city residents and the Yale community more broadly.
It also inspired heated conversations and critiques about the level of local, national and international attention paid to crimes committed against Yale students, and a feeling of neglect among city residents unaffiliated with Yale who have also lost loved ones to homicide.
The pastors at Trinity Baptist issued this statement Friday: “We are grateful for the diligent efforts of law enforcement and for the arrest of the suspect. We continue to pray that the truth would be revealed, that justice would be done, and that God would bring healing and comfort to Kevin’s family and loved ones.”