A former AI researcher planned, and nearly executed, the ‘perfect murder,‘ but a miniscule mistake in his getaway led to his arrest.
Qinxuan Pan, 34, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, nearly got away with murder after he led federal authorities on a months-long manhunt to find him after he shot-and-killed Kevin Jiang, a 26-year-old Yale University graduate student.
The suspected killer’s grisly crime was recently featured in a 48 Hours special on Paramount+.
The special, dubbed The Ivy League Killer, features the case’s lead detective, David Zaweski, as he shares exclusive insight into the harrowing murder and how freak car problems in Pan’s getaway exposed him as the prime suspect.
Pan, born in Shanghai, China but raised in Malden, Massachusetts, shot the graduate student eight times after rear-ending his Prius on February 6, 2021.
Before the gruesome murder, New Haven Police had been investigating a series of unsolved gun shots sent off around the area.
According to police, a gunman had fired .45 caliber bullets into four homes over the last several months.
In those cases, no one had been hurt. Investigators interviewed the homeowners but were unable to find any connection between them, and the case went dry.
Qinxuan Pan, 34, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, nearly got away with murder after he led federal authorities on a months-long manhunt to find him after he shot-and-killed Kevin Jiang, a 26-year-old Yale University graduate student
Kevin Jiang, 26, a graduate student at Yale University was shot-and-killed in New Haven, Connecticut on February 6, 2021
Jiang had just proposed to his girlfriend, Zion Perry, who was also a student at the prestigious university
On the day of his murder, Jiang had just spent the day with his fiancée, Zion Perry, who was also a student at the prestigious university.
He left her upscale East Rock apartment around 8.30pm that evening, headed just a mile away to the home, which he shared with his mother.
However, he was rear ended by an unspecified black SUV in what appeared to be a minor fender bender.
Police then believe Jiang got out of his car, likely to check on how the other driver was and exchange information.
Pan had other plans. He shot Jiang eight times, with several bullets fired so close to his head that the exploding gunpowder left burn marks on his face.
The former AI researcher then fled the scene.
Not long after, Pan was stopped by Sergeant Jeffrey Mills, who found the MIT grad stuck on a desolate snow-covered railroad track outside a scrap metal yard, just a half hour later.
Calm and with an excuse readily prepared, Pan told the officer that he had accidentally driven into the yard while looking for a nearby highway entrance.
Pan had a clean license and his excuse was one Mills had heard before, so without second thought, he helped him get a tow and a nearby hotel room.
At the time, Mills was unaware that there had been a murder in New Haven.
However, about 15 hours later, Mills responded to another 911 call at an Arby’s, where employees had found a bag containing a gun and box of .45 caliber bullets – similar to .45 caliber shell casings found at the scene of the four recent shootings in the area.
The Arby’s was right next door to the Best Western hotel where Pan was supposed to have been lodging.
By then Mills was made aware of Jiang’s murder, also noting the killer drove a dark SUV similar to the one he encountered the night before. That’s when he reached out to New Haven homicide.
Police said 911 callers reported hearing at least seven gunshots at 8:30pm on February 6, 2021, near the intersection of Lawrence and Nicoll streets in New Haven
Police were initially looking at the possibility that Jiang was shot after a car crash, as his Prius had rear-end damage
However, it turned out that Pan had checked into the hotel, but never stayed there.
Investigators later sent detectives to Malden, where Pan lived with his parents, but no one was home.
Detectives then took to the internet in hopes of finding any information on Pan, his friends and any possible connection he may have had to Jiang. But after ample searching there seemed to be no connection to the Yale student.
However, listed as a friend of Pan’s was Jiang’s fiancée. She and Pan had met each other at a Christian group when Perry was an undergraduate at MIT.
Although Perry was barely an acquaintance of Pan and hadn’t communicated with him since she left MIT and moved to New Haven to attend Yale, the homicide detectives felt this may be enough to confirm Pan as a suspect.
‘It did seem like there was a secret obsession of Pan’s going on behind the scenes that Kevin wasn’t aware of, and that Zion wasn’t aware of,’ Zaweski said in the special.
He also pointed out that Jiang’s murder occurred just one week after Perry posted her engagement to Jiang on Facebook.
Investigators believe Pan was also responsible for the four .45 caliber shootings, and that the shootings were part of a premeditated plan.
They theorized that those shootings were done to mislead them when Jiang was eventually killed, to make them think his death had been just another random incident, Zaweski inferred.
Jiang shared a video on his Facebook page, showing him popping the question to Perry while on a hike to celebrate their dating anniversary. He wrote: ‘She said YES!’
Jiang, like his fiancée, was a devout Christian and an active member of a New Haven church
Pan met Perry during their time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where they were both involved in Christian groups on campus
‘This wasn’t a random incident out there,’ Zaweski added. ‘He was targeted.’
Not long after, US Marshals joined the case and learned that Pan’s family had access to millions of dollars in assets.
Pan was still at-large and investigators worried he might be trying to flee the country.
‘This became so high profile so fast,’ US Marshal Joe Galvan told 48 Hours. ‘It was just heightened.’
Investigators noticed Pan’s parents had withdrawn large sums of cash, and that they had taken a long trip south with their son right after the murder.
Pan’s parents were eventually stopped in Georgia, however their son was nowhere to be found.
When asked of his whereabouts, they said he’d simply gotten out of the car and walked away, and they didn’t know where he’d gone.
‘They would go to the ends of the earth to help support and hide him,’ Matthew Duffy, a supervisor of the US Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Connecticut, said.
Investigators then shifted their focus onto Pan’s the parents, hoping they would lead them to their fugitive son.
Several weeks passed without answers, before finally, a break in the case. Pan’s mother made a crucial mistake that would lead investigators straight to her son.
Jiang was a former US Army National Guardsman
This photo from March 2020 shows Zion Perry (left), laughing with Pan (far right)
The protective mother made a phone call from a hotel using a clerk’s phone.
Investigators tailing the fear-stricken parents later spoke to the clerk and were able to track the call, eventually leading them to Pan’s location at a boarding house in Montgomery, Alabama – over 1,100 miles from the New Haven crime scene.
‘They went there with a small army,’ Duffy said. ‘Around 20 guys… he just came out and said, «I’m who you’re looking for.»‘
At the time of his arrest, Pan had approximately $20,000 in cash, multiple communication devices, and his father’s passport.
He was later charged with Jiang’s murder, accepted a plea deal, and was sentenced in April 2024 to serve 35 years in prison.
Investigators now believe that had Pan not gotten stuck on the train tracks on that fateful February night, Jiang’s murder may never have been solved.
‘He very well could have [gotten away],’ Zaweski said. ‘If he had not gotten caught up on those tracks … it would’ve been very difficult.’
Though investigators, friends, and family were relieved that Pan had been caught and brought to justice, Jiang’s mother spoke at Pan’s sentencing to say she felt that 35 years was too short a sentence for the man who’d killed her only son.
‘Do you think Kevin would’ve forgiven Pan?’ the 48 Hours interviewer, Anne-Marie Green asked Jiang’s friends, Jamila Ayeh and Nasya Hubbard, who served with him in the military. ‘Yes, I do,’ said Hubbard. Ayeh confidently added, ‘without a doubt’
The former MIT student is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence at Cheshire Correctional Institution in Cheshire, Connecticut
Perry agreed. ‘I wanted to address Pan specifically,’ she said at the sentencing. ‘Although your sentence is far less than you deserve … there is also mercy. May God have mercy on you. And may he have mercy on all of us.’
Even four years after Jiang’s death, friends wonder what Kevin, a man of deep faith, might have thought about his killer.
‘Do you think Kevin would’ve forgiven Pan?’ the 48 Hours interviewer, Anne-Marie Green asked Jiang’s friends, Jamila Ayeh and Nasya Hubbard, who served with him in the military.
‘Yes, I do,’ said Hubbard. Ayeh confidently added, ‘without a doubt.’
The former MIT student is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence at Cheshire Correctional Institution in Cheshire, Connecticut.
