The Ivy League Murder | Post Mortem | Forensic Files

[Music] Welcome to Postmortem. I'm your host, Ann Marie Green, and today we're actually discussing a case that I
reported on with 48 Hours producer Marie Weiss. It's about the murder of Kevin Jang and the incredible investigative
work done by multiple law enforcement agencies, including the US Marshalss, to find his killer. We're talking about 20
people were sent to uh arrest Kimchin Pan. Um Murray, thanks for joining me. It's always good to see you. Thanks for
joining me to break down this case. My pleasure seeing you again. Um so, as usual, a reminder to everyone if you
haven't listened to this 48 hours episode yet. You can find the full audio version just below this episode in your
podcast feed. So, go take a listen and then come on back so we can talk about this. So, this case has so many layers
to it, but there were different narratives, I think, that jumped out to both of us. You know, you're a longtime
New York City crime reporter. You've, you know, gone after mobsters and you name it. And I was really fascinated by
the characters, if you will. Here you have two young men. They're the only sons in their family, only children. Um,
they are incredibly talented and bright. They get into these prestigious universities. I mean, the world is kind
of like their oyster. They can go any way that they want, and then they take these divergent paths in life. They're
almost like two sides of the same coin, but your crime reporter mind was drawn to this case in sort of a different way.
How did you approach it? Well, uh, I agree with everything you said. You know, this is like an American dream
story, but it's a it's an American dream story obviously that turns into a nightmare. Our challenge is how do we
take this complicated story that involves two extraordinary gifted people and one of whom is murdered by another
one and try to tell it to the viewers so that it's clear what has happened here.
And I think the approach I decided was that there were a string of shootings that occurred in New Haven in advance of
Kevin's murder and that might be the starting point to introduce the viewers into what the police were seeing from
the get-go. So, it's a way of introducing the enormity of the not just the murder, but the investigative side
of it and ultimately how it led to this extraordinary person who turned out to be the killer. Indeed. Um, and you know,
as we reveal in the story, what really broke the case open was when investigators discovered that there
actually was a connection between Pan and Kevin, but it was not a very obvious one at all. They searched Pan's Facebook
account and they found that he was connected to Kevin's fiance, Zion Perry, who also attended MIT. Investigators
told us that Pan first met Zion through this Christian group at MIT. Um, you know, like a social group, but their
interactions were kind of fleeting. Correct. Once they got Pan's name and they determined he was from MIT, they
couldn't find a connection to Kevin. But then when they did see her name, Zion Perry, the fiance, they actually went to
talk to her and she was stunned that they even mentioned his name to her because um her interactions were so
minor that she had already graduated from MIT. She had moved on to Yale, right? And Pan was never more than an
acquaintance to Zion. There was no romance between them. She had no idea that he was even interested in her.
Well, the the leading theory um that the investigators had was that he somehow was fixated on her. You know, that that
there was some sort of obsession. There was a telling part where um when she graduated, he reached
out to try to, you know, have a like a FaceTime congratulatory, you know, meeting with her. and she um
she declined and in fact she posted the uh engagement proposal, the uh video of the proposal only a week before Kevin
was murdered. And we just want to remind people that it's never been determined that Zion was actually the motivation
for this murder. We still don't know why Pan did what he did. And we did try to talk to Zion as well, but she declined.
But we got full cooperation from the uh detectives and the law enforcement people all of whom spoke to her. I mean
these are extraordinary moments for homicide detectives where they have to go and break tragic news to to families
and relatives and people Zion Perry and the mom. I mean, they're completely crushed, crying, sobbing, uh, disbelief,
and yet the homicide people ultimately have to, you know, they become steely, and their goal is to get information out
of the key principal players really that are going to hopefully provide some leads that lead them to the killer. So,
let's actually get into that because the level of premeditation for this is astounding to me. these shootings that
that happened before Kevin's murder. In order to do them, Pan used different vehicles. He was able to get test drives
from these dealerships. Um, which I thought was so interesting because I mean I haven't gone out to test drive a
vehicle in a while, but usually the salesperson comes with you. He was able to grab these vehicles, disappear for a
few hours, and then come back. Um, there are a few other details that we didn't really get to in the hour. According to
US Marshalss, when he would go to these dealerships, he would ask a series of curious questions. He would recline in
the seats to see if he could lie down. And investigators speculated that he was kind of scoping out these cars to see if
he could actually hide in them. According to the police, he actually asked not only reclining in them in the
seat, said he wanted to go camping and maybe he'd be sleeping in it. He, you know, he he talked about the trunks. In
a couple of cases, he actually said he was gonna show it to his uh his mechanic to check out the car. And investigators
said they later determined that the dates that he convinced these dealership owners to lend him the car for a test
drive, he actually came down to Connecticut, fired bullets at these different homes. Now, this was in
December, starting in December of 2020, right? So the game plan according to the
police was to commit these random shootings and then when Kevin was killed they would never ever think that
somebody who's in Massachusetts who's an MIT student was coming down to another state and is in New Haven committing
these crimes. Right? So it was very very well thought out. Very very well thought
out. Very pre-planned. But here's the thing. You know, there's an incredible amount of planning for this, but the one
thing it seems like Penn doesn't plan for very well is how to get away. And that's what really jams him up. Um, you
know, he tries to flee the scene, but he ends up in a scrap metal yard and he is
stopped by law enforcement there. Well, that's a fascinating turn. You know, supervisory assistant state attorney
Stacy Miranda even said at the sentencing that Pan could have possibly gotten away had he not been stuck there
on the railroad tracks. And I think in this case, the theory is he drove into the scrapyard metal, that he knew it was
there and that it would be a safe and smart place to discard a murder weapon if you're in a It actually is the
largest scrapyard in all of Connecticut, that place. But also cleverly, the scrapyard is very near the interstate
highway. So it's very convenient for getting not only you could drive into it, throw the gun away, come out. I
mean, this is part of the theory that the investigators have that he would come out of the yard and then go back,
get on the highway, and drive to Massachusetts, and nobody would be the wiser. And we should point out that in
fact, the murder weapon was never found. Um, and that Sergeant Mills that you see
in the hour, this guy's like a dedicated officer, man. And he went back to that scrap metal yard several times looking
for this gun. Well, you should note he's the one who responded to the 911 call, the car on the tracks. Right. Right.
Exactly. Um, so he went back on his own time to look for this weapon, you know, in that yard and and it was just never
found. And and I will sort of point out one more thing about his encounter with Pan. It didn't rise to the level of
particular concern for him. Well, yeah. Well, to to a point you made earlier, it
was a it was a vehicle from a dealership and the dealership had gave him the car,
so it wasn't reported stolen or anything, right? And and probably even more importantly, Mr. Pan, the motorist,
was extremely calm and he had a clean criminal background, his license of his own, and he just seemed like, you know,
a guy who got lost. Then Sergeant Bills was u you know no harm no foul here kind
of thing. He didn't even know that a murder had been committed much less a crime that fit a description of the car.
So let's talk a little bit more about um Sergeant Mills. I see him as kind of a cop's cop. The guy's really dedicated uh
to his job. And in fact on the day that he got the call to go to the Arby's, it was like a he was working a half day. He
was going to go coach hockey. But he gets this call to go to the Arby's to investigate the gun and the ammunition
that was left in the parking lot. And by coincidence, Sergeant Mills, he responded to the 911 call the night
before of the guy on the track and convinced Pan to go to a Best Western Hotel overnight, which is right next
door to the Arby's. So the following morning when that 911 call came in and when he got there, he saw the clothing.
He saw a bag that he recognized was in the vehicle that it helped the night before. By then, he knew there was a
homicide in in New Haven that involved a dark SUV. So, this is one brave character. I mean, he knows that he's
going to go to the Best Western and he's going to try to speak to a man that may
be a murderer and committed a very brutal murder just the night before. So, he's a guy who's willing to walk up to
you and uh and confront you if you're a killer. Absolutely. I give him a lot of,
you know, credit and courage to be able to do that. Welcome back. So, when the US Marshall
gets involved in this case, they knew that King Chin Pan was on the run. He's very smart. He's techsavvy. So their
sort of first order was to kind of get into his mind, figure out who this guy is. Correct. And not only that, to see
what kind of resources he has around him. They checked the financial records and saw that that his parents had made a
modest withdrawal of money on the night uh that he disappeared in New Haven from
the hotel. You know, one of the marshals said something like, "There's two difficult types of fugitives for us to
track. There's the ones who have no resources, no help, and are desperate. Then the other ones are the ones who
have resources and intelligence, and those are probably more difficult to track and more dangerous." And they said
he fit into that category. One of the things that the marshall said to us is that Pan thought he was the smartest guy
in the room. And when they spoke to someone who he had interviewed with for I think it was a coding job, that guy
said, "Yeah, you know, he's really smart. He's an MIT guy, but you know, his coding actually wasn't as good as he
thought it would be." So, he's a smart guy, but maybe he thought he was smarter than he actually was. That's what the
marshals were told when they went around scoping out stuff on him. And uh I I'm not saying it gave him additional hope
that he wasn't as sharp as they thought because if uh you recall his attorney described him as a genius who was
studying artificial intelligence and he was an MIT student. So at the end of the
day, he had a shortcoming clearly and he didn't get that job, but that didn't make him any less uh uh a formidable
foe, if you will, for the marshals to track. Uh US Marshals actually finally tracked down Pan by tracing a phone call
made to him from his mom. She used the phone of a hotel clerk. Yeah, that's an extraordinary moment for the marshals
actually. Yeah, in my opinion, you know, it took months before they actually caught up with Mr. Pan there. But, uh,
that phone call for them was a Eureka moment and that number led them to a boarding house in Alabama where they
sent uh a team of marshals y hopefully to find Mr. Pan. And I just want to sort of reinforce that Pan's parents, they
were never charged with anything in connection with Kevin's murder or Pan being on the run or anything along those
lines. Correct. But speaking of um a team, um Matthew Duffy, supervisor of the US Marshall's Violent Fugitive Task
Force in Connecticut, called this team a small army. You know, these are people who are trying to find somebody who has
committed a extraordinarily vicious murder. He's been on the run for 3 months. They know that he had
pre-planned this. He had already committed four other shootings. So, how do you want to approach somebody like
that? The simple answer is there's safety in numbers here. And it's very wise because it if it prevents the
suspect from getting violent, it actually not only protects the law enforcement people, but any other people
who are in that boarding house at the time. Well, it worked. They got their man. And no one was hurt in the process.
Yeah. He just came out and said, "I'm, you know, I'm your guy that you're looking for." He did. Yeah. Totally. Um,
so there are still a number of unanswered questions here, right? and and one of them is, you know, why why
did this happen? And we attempted to actually talk to Pan and ask him that question, right? Yeah. We wanted to see
if he would confirm what the theory of the police were, you know, that there was some sort of hidden obsession. Um,
it didn't work out for us, though. No, unfortunately, he didn't want to. At the end of the day, he he was yes, no, yes,
no, but no. So, that question remains unanswered. Um, at least at this point. Yeah. So Pan initially pled not guilty
um and was sticking to that for quite a while. Eventually though there was a tremendous amount of evidence he agreed
to plead guilty. In the hour we see some of his statement at sentencing, but we want to play an extended clip for you.
What I'm thinking about is my action and the horrible consequences. I'm thinking about as I
learn as I learn that the victim was an only child victim's family came from Taiwan to the US to a new place and the
victim's mom had to raise him by herself. The vict the victim was also a devout Christian did missionary
work in Taiwan and and was a promising student at Yale feel sorry for what my actions
caused and for everyone affected. It was a very emotional kind of sentencing. The leadup to that was
victim impact statements were made uh for about an hour. Kevin's mom spoke, other people spoke, people that were
friends with him with the military and his fiance Zion Perry spoke and during that entire presentation of victim's
statements and there were some of them were enormously sad and spoke about Kevin and and and the loss of Kevin, you
know, in front of the judge. Um, he just sat there pan through the entire thing looking kind of down, not at any of the
people who were speaking. And the only time he actually turned then to look at the podium where they were speaking was
when Zion Perry spoke and that was shortly before he allocuted for himself. Then he accepted his plea and admitted
you know what he did and uh expressed remorse for it. We talked a little bit about this earlier that Kevin Jang was
just a absolutely remarkable human being. So much so that we almost I don't think we could put everything in the
hour, you know, dedicated to his studies and dedicated to his military endeavors.
He was just sort of dedicated to being a good human. I've been around the crime stories a long time. You'd be shocked
how many tens of thousands of murders I've actually covered. Kevin was absolutely one of the most remarkable
young people to be, you know, caught up in such a sad, tragic story. Um I mean, he worked with the homeless. He cared
for his mom. He was at Yale and studying the environment. Kevin had a YouTube channel that was dedicated to teaching
fitness and health. And his fiance, you know, their pastor, if you recall, made a very telling remark about them that
that their achievements as students wasn't really their touchstone. It was, you know, their deeds and what they
planned on doing together in life. And that was very rare. And, you know, we talked earlier about the the two
families here in the show. you see the virtual vigil and Kevin's dad is speaking and he is by far the most
emotional out of everyone that you see and and here's what people don't know is that Kevin comes from a divorced family
and one of the things that we learned from Kevin's friends is that Kevin and his dad had not been very close for a
number of years and they had actually started to rekindle that relationship and in fact he went to go visit his dad
with Zion and they were rebuilding those connections. And so to have his son ripped away from him at such a crucial
time, it just sort of adds to the sadness of this whole thing. Yeah, 100%. And that vigil you referenced, nearly
700 people got on that vigil was during the pandemic, so you had to, you know, make an effort to get on a Zoom. It's
just an incredible waste and an incredibly heartbreaking case. But I have to tell you, Murray, it was also a
very complicated story to tell and the way you weaved all the elements together, I thought was just exceptional
and it was fantastic working with you. Thank you very much. Same here. Well, I want to thank everyone for listening to
this hour. Listen, if you like this series, Postmortem, please rate and review 48 hours on Apple Podcasts. You
can follow 48 hours wherever you get your podcast. And you can also listen adree with a 48 hours plus subscription
on Apple Podcasts. Thanks again for listening.

Watch "The Ivy League Murder" and then catch up with "48 Hours" correspondent Anne-Marie Green and producer Murray Weiss on "Post Mortem" as they discuss the murder of Kevin Jiang, a newly engaged Yale grad student who was gunned down by an unknown attacker in February 2021. They discuss how investigators discovered the unusual connection between Kevin and the killer, Qinxuan Pan, and the interstate manhunt to find Pan when he fled authorities.

Crime. Social justice. Impact. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

The episode details Kevin Jang's murder, Kimchin Pan's arrest, and the emotional fallout from the crime.

Key points

The Murder of Kevin Jang. A deep dive into the tragic murder of Kevin Jang and the investigation that followed.
The Investigation Unfolds. Exploring the intricate investigative work that led to the arrest of Kimchin Pan.
Pan's Arrest. The US Marshals track down Pan after a phone call from his mother leads them to him.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is like an American dream story, but it turns into a nightmare.

Discussing the complexity of the case.

1:48WatchJun 2, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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