Former MIT researcher who killed Yale graduate student sentenced to 35 years in prison
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A former researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was sentenced Tuesday to 35 years in prison for the killing of a Yale University graduate student found shot outside his car on a Connecticut street.
Qinxuan Pan, 33, who pleaded guilty to murder in February, apologized during a hearing in a New Haven courtroom packed with family and friends of the victim, Kevin Jiang.
“I feel sorry for what my actions caused and for everyone affected,” Pan said. “I fully accept my penalties.”
Jiang, 26, a U.S. Army veteran who grew up in Chicago and a graduate student at Yale’s School of the Environment, had just left his fiancée’s apartment in New Haven on the evening of Feb. 6, 2021, when he was shot multiple times by Pan, according to police and prosecutors. The couple had just gotten engaged days earlier.
Several of Jiang’s relatives and friends spoke in court before the judge handed down the sentence, which Pan agreed to as part of his plea bargain.