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NEW HAVEN (REUTERS) – Police investigating the fatal shooting of a Yale University student officially named a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student as a murder suspect, escalating a nationwide manhunt.
The New Haven Police Department said in a Facebook post on Saturday (February 27) that it had obtained an arrest warrant charging Pan Qinxuan with murder and would provide additional information on Monday. Pan remained at large, he said.
Kevin Jiang, a 26-year-old graduate student from the Yale School of the Environment and a native of Seattle, was shot and killed outside of his car on February 6, shaking the campus of the prestigious Ivy League school, located about 130 km northeast of New York.
Police had previously identified 29-year-old Pan as a “person of interest” and warned that he could be armed and dangerous. He was enrolled in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an elite school not far from the suspect’s last known address in Malden, Massachusetts.
The Daily Mail reported that Pan is originally from Shanghai, China.
U.S. Marshals, who are assisting with the search for Pan, said on February 11 that he was last seen that day in Brookhaven or Duluth, Georgia, driving with members of his family.
Police have not released any suspicious motives for the murder.
The killing took place near the apartment of Jiang’s fiancee, Ms Zion Perry, also a Yale graduate student, the New Haven Independent reported on February 11.
Perry and Pan had crossed paths at MIT, where he earned his college degree, according to the newspaper, which posted a photo of the two at a social gathering in March 2020.
There is no evidence to suggest that Perry and Pan were in a romantic relationship, the New Haven Independent said.
However, during a press conference earlier this week, New Haven Police Chief Otoniel Reyes said investigators are not ruling out the possibility of a romantic rivalry, The Daily Mail reported.
Perry did not immediately respond to an interview request from Reuters.
A New Haven police spokesman declined to provide additional information, while the US Marshals Service did not respond to a request for comment.
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