Two grandparents in California now face murder charges. Police say they shot their son-in-law in a busy park parking lot. It was a Saturday afternoon. Kids were nearby.

Shouyong Zhang and his wife, Shili Chen, are both 77. They live in Dublin, a city east of San Francisco. The man who died was their son-in-law, Jonathan McKinsey. He was 40.

He was killed one week before a hearing in his divorce from their daughter.

The shooting happened at about 3:05 p.m. on Sept. 26. It was at the Dublin Sports Grounds, a park with sports fields and a playground.

A police sergeant was driving nearby. He saw a man lying in the lot. At the same time, 911 calls started coming in. McKinsey had been shot more than once. He died there.

People at the park pointed to a black Honda Civic pulling out of the lot. Cops stopped it. Chen was driving. Zhang was in the passenger seat.

Police say they found a gun on Chen. They found a second gun in the car.

Prosecutors say Zhang later admitted he shot McKinsey. They say he also admitted he used that second gun. Chen used her right to stay quiet.

A court document filed by investigators says three witnesses pointed to the couple as the shooters. It says video shows both of them shooting McKinsey. It says they did it "in concert," which means together.

The document also says they carried it out "with blatant disregard for public safety."

The Alameda County District Attorney's Office charged both with murder. The charges add a "special circumstance" called lying in wait. That means prosecutors say they watched and waited for him, then struck by surprise. The charges also say they used a gun.

If they are found guilty, they could get life in prison with no chance of parole, prosecutors said.

The couple went to court on Wednesday. Both needed a Mandarin interpreter. Neither one entered a plea. Chen told the judge she did not have money for a lawyer.

On Thursday, the judge gave Chen a lawyer named Curtis Briggs. The plea was put off again. Briggs said she will plead not guilty.

Briggs also put the focus on McKinsey. "Court documents show Mr. McKinsey was extremely violent and dangerous to his family," Briggs said.

He said his client is a "loving, devoted grandmother." He said she weighs about 80 pounds. He wants her out of jail while the case goes on.

Zhang's lawyer is a public defender, Jennie Otis. She asked the judge to have Zhang checked by a doctor. She did not say why. Both are being held with no bail at Santa Rita Jail.

Police and prosecutors have not said why it happened. Court records do show a long, bitter fight in the family.

McKinsey and his wife had been married since 2011. They have three young children. Last fall she got a court order to keep him away. She said he had hurt her and the kids. She said that in 2010 he grabbed her arms in a fight and she hit a table. She said it broke a bone in her back.

In October 2025, McKinsey was charged with two misdemeanors. Misdemeanors are less serious crimes. One said he slapped their oldest son. The other said he left their 2-year-old alone at home. He pleaded not guilty. He said his wife set him up. That case was still open when he died.

McKinsey asked for his own court order in December. He said his wife abused him for years. He also filed for divorce.

McKinsey was a transgender man. In court documents, he said his in-laws were cruel to him over that. He said Chen used slurs against him and his oldest child. He said Zhang punched him in the chest while he was healing from surgery.

In late August, a judge let McKinsey see his kids in public with no one watching. Before that, he had two hours a week of watched visits.

Briggs said the in-laws did not act out of hate for transgender people. "That's not the case at all," he said. "They seem to have been fairly supportive."

So why did it happen? The court records tell two very different stories. Prosecutors have not said which one, if either, explains the shooting.

McKinsey was an engineering boss for the games team of a big newspaper. He had been there since January 2023.

Everyone is presumed innocent until proved otherwise.