Qinxuan Pan Pleads Guilty To 2021 Murder Of Kevin Jiang of West Haven

NEW HAVEN, CT — Qinxuan Pan, 32, pleaded guilty to murder Thursday in the 2021 slaying of a Yale graduate student, John P. Doyle, Jr., State’s Attorney for the New Haven Judicial District announced.

On Feb. 6, 2021, New Haven police got several 911 calls reporting that a person had been shot near the intersection of Lawrence and Nicoll streets. When cops got there, they found Jiang suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was later pronounced dead.

Pan, who in 2021 was a MIT scientist, has been held on a $20 million bond since his arrest. Pan was on the run for months after the February slaying, hunted by US Marshals and found in Alabama with almost $20,000 in cash and a family member’s passport.

Jiang, then 26, was a U. S. Army veteran and was engaged to be married to a woman who Pan also knew from MIT. Pan was a suspect early in the investigation.

Pursuant to a plea agreement, Pan faces a total effective sentence of 35 years in prison when he is sentenced in New Haven Superior Court on April 25, Doyle said.

Jiang was a graduate student at the Yale School of the Environment and days away from his 27th birthday when murdered. He was an Army veteran and was recently engaged, according to his Facebook profile.

A faculty adviser said Jiang was a "voracious learner with a smile that seemed to come from deep inside him.” The school said Jiang would have completed his master’s degree in environmental science in the fall of 2021.

In the Army, he was a tank operator and chemical, biological, radiation and nuclear officer. He was also a member of the Connecticut National Guard's 118th Medical Battalion.

Yale said Jiang worked at a homeless shelter, volunteered at his church and was a mentor to young people.