The following arrests were made recently by local police departments. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Massachusetts’ privacy law prevents police from releasing information involving domestic and sexual violence arrests with the goal to protect the alleged victims.
LOWELL
• Tasha Perry, 39, 65 Summer St., Apt. 162, Lowell; warrant (failure to appear for assault and battery with dangerous weapon).
• Ibrahim Mbouemboue-Yogno, 35, 218 Wilder St., Apt. 24, Lowell; keeper of disorderly house, disturbing peace, assault and battery on police officer, assault and battery with dangerous weapon (door).
• Kenneth Eng, 21, 27 Hastings St., Lowell; operating motor vehicle after license suspension, making illegal turn from wrong lane.
• Jeremy McWhinnie, 35, 157 Summer St., Apt. L, Lowell; warrants (failure to appear for assault and battery on police officer, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct).
NASHUA, N.H.
• Kevin Mulligan, 29, 7 1/2 Martin St., Nashua; simple assault.
• Hayden Lee Wilburn, 32, 44 Amherst St., Nashua; warrant.
• Ricardo Encarnacion, 31, 290 Ruggles St., Roxbury Crossing; three counts of theft by unauthorized taking ($0-$1,000).
• David Perez, 37, 18 Mulberry St., Nashua; nonappearance in court.
• Brian Anthony Desautels, 54, 23 Cushing Ave., Nashua; simple assault.
• Hector Solano, 54, 25 Amory St., Roxbury; lane control violation, driving motor vehicle after license revoked/suspended, nonappearances in court.
PELHAM, N.H.
• Victoria Coyle, 38, Dracut; suspension of vehicle registration.
• Nicholas Gentile, 39, Chelmsford; suspension of vehicle registration.
• Sara Beaulieu, 46, Tyngsboro; suspension of vehicle registration.
• Jean Richard, 28, Lowell; suspension of vehicle registration.
• Heloisa Moreira Oliveira, 28, Lowell; suspension of vehicle registration.
• Michael Ingham, 50, Pelham; driving under influence.
• Brian Arsenault, 39, Tyngsboro; suspension of vehicle registration.
• Robert Carleton, 23, Pelham; simple assault (domestic violence).
• Daniel McGillicuddy, 45, Dracut; two counts of violation of protective order.
• Jessica Conway, 25, Dracut; driving motor vehicle after license revoked/suspended.
• Luis Lopez, 55, Lowell; suspension of vehicle registration.
• Tamy Smith, 33, Lowell; suspension of vehicle registration.
• Frantz Letang, 48, Andover; arrest on another agency’s warrant.
• Nathan Harrington, 49, Lowell; suspension of vehicle registration.
• Carmen Ruiz, 25, Hudson, N.H.; suspension of vehicle registration.
• James Frederick, 51, Hudson, N.H.; operating motor vehicle after certified as habitual offender, driving under influence (subsequent offense), driving motor vehicle after license revoked/suspended for driving under influence.
WILMINGTON
• Mohammed Ali Jones, 43, 25 School St., Apt. 2, Everett; operation of motor vehicle with registration suspended or revoked, uninsured motor vehicle, license not in possession.
• Nolan Patrick Vigeant, 22, 42 Hanover St., Wilmington; operation under influence of alcohol, two counts of leaving scene of property damage, marked lanes violation, speeding.
ESCONDIDO, Calif. (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers training at a local gun range largely went unnoticed by residents of one Southern California city for more than a decade, until President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and the recent fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal agents.
The arrangement in Escondido, a city of about 150,000 people north of San Diego surrounded by farms and horse ranches, has sparked weeks of demonstrations. Residents are demanding that the city stop allowing ICE agents to train at the local police department range, reflecting growing discontent across the country with the administration’s immigration actions.
“We don’t want ICE anywhere near Escondido or fraternizing with the police,” said Richard Garner, 71, while rallying against the deal outside the city’s police station.
A majority of Americans in recent polls have said Trump has “gone too far” in sending federal immigration agents into American cities. Beyond the mass street demonstrations in Minneapolis, people in communities from New York to California are objecting to longstanding contracts between ICE and local governments for services ranging from the use of training facilities to parking spaces. The agency has also angered local communities caught off guard by ICE’s plans to occupy giant warehouses, some that could house as many as 10,000 immigration detainees.
Amid the debate, funding for the Department of Homeland Security has been put on hold. Democrats are saying they will not help approve more money until new limits are placed on federal immigration operations following the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good last month in Minneapolis.
Escondido’s City Council is scheduled to discuss the contract with ICE at a meeting Wednesday.
Unlike many California cities, Escondido had an especially close alliance with ICE in the past that allowed immigration officers to work at police headquarters and coordinate on vehicle stops. That partnership ended after California passed a law in 2017 limiting such collaboration with immigration officials.
Protesters in Escondido said they were unaware of the contract allowing ICE to train at the gun range in the city’s hillsides until advocates found the agreement online. They said they fear word of the deal will make immigrants afraid to report crimes to local police, weakening public safety in a city where Latinos make up about half the population.
Some say they don’t want to give ICE agents a reason to come to their community or lend support to an agency they don’t trust will follow U.S. laws. The concern is high, both among immigrants and U.S. citizens who worry about masked federal immigration agents ′ use of deadly force.
Police Capt. Erik Witholt said Escondido provides the space under a deal signed by ICE in 2024 and renewed this year, though ICE has been training at the outdoor range off a winding road outside Escondido’s downtown for more than a decade.
The city will receive $22,500 a year for up to three years under the agreement involving the San Diego branch of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, which investigates crimes including human trafficking and drug smuggling.
“We don’t train with them. We don’t train them,” Witholt said, adding 22 agencies use the site and each brings its own range master, targets and ammunition.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not comment on the backlash and would not confirm locations where its officers train, citing security concerns.
But several of those locations have been brought to light as communities demand an end to such agreements.
Debates in other communities
In Cottage Grove, Minnesota, 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Minneapolis, Ruth Jones and other residents have been asking the community to end its contract allowing ICE to use its regional training center. But Mayor Myron Bailey said the center was built with state bond funding and is rented out to some 60 law enforcement agencies and other groups, including ICE.
“Contractually we cannot discriminate against any public agency,” Bailey said in a statement.
In Islip, New York, community members urged local officials last year to rescind a longstanding contract to use a rifle range for training, but the local government also kept the deal.
Hartford, Connecticut, has moved to end a contract for ICE employees to use a city-owned parking lot.
Not everyone in Escondido is opposed to the city’s contract with ICE. Luke Beckwith, 26, said he feels access to the site should be left up to police.
“I personally don’t care,” Beckwith said. “It’s bringing revenue to the city.”
Edgar, who is from Mexico and asked that his last name be withheld over deportation fears, said barring ICE from the city’s gun range will not remove the threat for immigrants like himself.
“If they want to come, they will come,” he said.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
LOWELL — The Phan brothers charged in the 2020 killing of Tyrone Phet are asking a Middlesex Superior Court judge to reconsider the bail orders that have kept them behind bars for nearly five and a half years, arguing that new allegations of misconduct by a State Police homicide detective have thrown the case off course.
In a motion filed on Feb. 13, attorney Mark Wester — representing Billy Phan — argues that the recent disclosure that State Police Sgt. Scott Quigley’s alleged intoxication and speeding in a 2023 fatal crash qualifies as the kind of “changed circumstances” that Massachusetts law requires for bail reconsideration, writing that the revelations have “delayed the just resolution of this case.”
In the motion, Wester asks Judge Chris Barry‑Smith to reconsider holding Phan without bail and “grant him a reasonable cash bail.”
Attorneys Lorenzo Perez and William Dolan filed similar motions on behalf of Channa Phan and Billoeum Phan.
The three brothers, all in their 30s, each face life in prison without the possibility of parole after being charged with first‑degree murder in the shooting of 22‑year‑old Phet outside his home at 50 Spring Ave. in Lowell during the early‑morning hours of Sept. 14, 2020.
Phet — a 2016 Chelmsford High graduate and former high school football standout — was struck by gunfire eight times, with one bullet passing through both lungs and his heart and another entering and exiting his brain.
Police recovered 21 spent shell casings at the scene, including ten 10mm casings and eleven .40‑caliber casings.
The Phan brothers have been held without bail since their arrests in October 2020.
Dolan said earlier this month that while defendants in first‑degree murder cases are typically held without bail, the circumstances surrounding Quigley’s alleged misconduct justify reconsideration.
Quigley — a key investigator in the Phan case — is accused of being under the influence of alcohol and speeding while on duty in a State Police cruiser when he crossed into oncoming traffic and caused the December 2023 Woburn crash that killed 37‑year‑old Angelo Schettino, a paraplegic man with special needs.
Dolan also pointed to the outcome of the brothers’ first trial in November 2024, which ended in a hung jury and a mistrial, forcing the case into a second trial cycle.
“Because (the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office) didn’t meet their burden in their first trial and because of all the other things going on, they shouldn’t have to wait in jail,” Dolan said of the Phan brothers.
The defense had asked that the bail review be taken up alongside an evidentiary hearing they are seeking into the handling of Quigley’s 2023 crash.
The defense has argued that the evidentiary hearing is necessary because they believe the State Police and the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office covered up information about Quigley after the crash.
Quigley, who was assigned as a homicide investigator to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office and played a central role in the Phan investigation, has since been suspended without pay. His crash has been referred to the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office for possible criminal charges. Schettino’s mother, Lynn Schettino, is also pursuing a civil‑rights lawsuit against the State Police over her son’s death.
Michael Mahoney, who represents Schettino’s mother in the civil‑rights case, said of Quigley, “It keeps coming for this guy.”
In the motion requesting the evidentiary hearing, the Phan brothers’ defense team states testimony from Quigley and another 18 members of law enforcement is needed to determine whether there was an effort to shield him from scrutiny and to establish why his toxicology results were not disclosed to the Phan defense until jury selection in January.
Prosecutors were originally ordered to respond to the evidentiary‑hearing motion by Friday, but the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office requested — and was granted — an extension until Monday.
Dolan said on Friday that he and his client were frustrated to learn the extension had been granted to the DA’s office, calling it “just more of the same dragging their feet.”
The requests for the bail and evidentiary hearings come as the brothers’ retrial remains frozen, with Barry‑Smith halting jury selection late last month and dismissing the 12 jurors who had already been seated.
The judge paused the proceedings after the disclosures about Quigley surfaced during jury selection, prompting the court to order a full review before the case could continue.
Defense attorneys have also moved to dismiss the charges against the Phan brothers entirely, stating the delayed disclosures and questions surrounding Quigley’s conduct have irreparably tainted the prosecution.
In the meantime, a new retrial date is currently scheduled to begin on April 27.
The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office was unavailable for comment on the status of its response to the evidentiary‑hearing motion.
Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.
Herman is also especially generous with the details, like a friend offering insightful advice. For example, here’s her precise description of her pool: “The pool measures 12 by 24 feet, mirroring the dimensions of the original gamecock house, now a dining pavilion. Three inch-thick, rock-faced bluestone coping edges the pool, which is finished in a French gray plate.” Likewise, her notes on plants are conversational and useful, like when she describes Orlaya grandiflora, Herman tells the reader, “It self-sows easily, making groupings achievable, but is not problematic or invasive.”
Above: Herman is especially fond of umbels like the vibrant Zizia aurea. Photograph by Neil Landino, from A Moment in Time.
Herman is clearly a devoted plantswoman. The book features many hero shots of specific plants (all helpfully labeled). Of those close-up moments, she tells us, “I think it’s really important to have that sense of intimacy, paired with big, broad shots for context.” Herman says there easily could have been more, noting “it is about all those individual pieces that make up the greater whole.” Herman has included a Resources section at the back of the book with all her favorite places to buy plants, seeds, and garden ornaments, which will be of particular interest to gardeners in her region.
Above: Peony ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ is paired with the deep pink of Tanacetum coccineum. Photograph by Neil Landino, from A Moment in Time.
This book will appeal to anyone with an appreciation for formal, English-inspired gardens, but is also a surprisingly intimate book that any seasoned gardener will relate to.
Above: A Moment in Time: Designing a Country Garden by Kathryn Herman is available wherever books are sold including Bookshop.org.
In a recent opinion piece for the Taunton Daily Gazette, the author made the claim that consumers in Massachusetts “don’t need to be concerned with credit card ‘swipe fees.’” However, this could not be further from the truth. Costs are still on the rise for families in Massachusetts, and with the holiday season in full swing, that is more relevant now than ever before. While tariffs are certainly taking their toll, the impact of credit card swipe fees cannot be ignored as they now make up the second largest operating expense for business owners and drive prices higher for consumers.
While businesses in Massachusetts cannot add an upfront surcharge to account for swipe fees, there’s no doubt that when these fees rise, merchants are forced to increase prices across the board to keep their doors open. This means even those who use cash end up paying higher prices as a result of card users. Surcharging is just a band-aid for retailers to recoup some of these costs — but it is not a solution. Retailers don’t like them either as they get blamed for the credit card’s outrageous fees. Massachusetts law might block a line item surcharge, but make no mistake that merchants and consumers are still paying swipe fees.
The more those fees grow, the more merchants will have no choice but to raise their prices to account for the overhead, just as they would for any other expense. In fact, families here in state and across the country are paying an extra $1,800 a year on average as prices increase to account for the growing expense of swipe fees.
Whenever you swipe a credit card at your favorite restaurant or local shop, the business owner incurs a swipe fee, which is a percentage of the transaction that’s paid to credit card companies and major banks. In other words, Massachusetts’ small business owners have to watch while a portion of their hard-earned revenue is siphoned away from their communities to line the pockets of executives on Wall Street. In 2024 alone, our state paid over $2.9 billion in swipe fees, money that could have been used to increase wages, improve employee benefits, and lower costs.
Unfortunately, thanks to credit card companies, this issue will not fix itself. These companies dominate the payments industry, and increase swipe fees without hesitation thanks to the cartel-style price fixing scheme they’ve employed with major banks to ensure fees continue going up. Massachusetts simply can’t afford the status quo, especially as the cost of living exceeds the national average and the cost of things like raising a child in this state is 50 percent higher than the rest of the country.
It’s clear we need a legislative fix to level the playing field and thankfully one already exists in the form of the Credit Card Competition Act.
This bill, a bipartisan initiative supported by both Democrats and Republicans as well as the overwhelming majority of the public, would offer merchants and consumers the relief they’ve been seeking for years by allowing businesses to choose between at least two credit card networks for processing transactions. By fostering a competitive environment, the Credit Card Competition Act would incentivize credit card companies to lower their swipe fees and improve their services. The bill would save Massachusetts businesses and consumers an estimated $438 million a year, allowing merchants to not only pay their employees more but also lower prices for their customers who are still reeling from inflation and economic uncertainty.
The deck is stacked against Main Street when it comes to swipe fees. The only beneficiaries are Wall Street executives and bank CEOs. Until the Credit Card Competition Act is passed, swipe fees will continue burdening our local businesses and putting pressure on families who are already struggling to afford necessities. The Credit Card Competition Act can truly shake the status quo and bring about the change we desperately need. I hope U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey along with our entire congressional delegation will take this message to heart and throw their support behind this bill.
Tom Hoye is the former mayor of Taunton. He is currently the register of probate for Bristol County and the owner of several businesses.
What a touchdown of a day! Building Blocks Preschool in Tewksbury turned into the ultimate Patriots fan zone Friday, with kiddos decked out in red, white, and blue wearing their favorite Patriots attire. From football tosses to goalpost challenges, every classroom was buzzing with team energy.
The school even sent some serious Boston love westward with an epic balloon-o-gram — talk about spreading team spirit across the country! Building Blocks’ A-MAYE-ZING families brought in their favorite game-day snacks that made the celebration extra special.
LOWELL — The multi-family home at 12 Osgood St. sat open to the elements on Saturday afternoon, its shattered windows offering a clear view up through the space where the roof had burned away several hours earlier.
What turned out to be a two-alarm fire at the two-story structure was first reported at about 5:15 a.m. Saturday, when arriving crews found flames overtaking the attic.
Lowell Deputy Fire Chief Joe Roth said nine residents were displaced, though the building’s owner was able to provide another home for them to stay in.
“There was significant damage to the top floor, with the roof half burnt off,” Roth said. “Significant water and smoke damage throughout the whole building.”
“Uninhabitable at this time,” he added.
He stopped short of saying the structure would be a total loss, but added “there’s a lot of reconstruction there.”
Firefighters remained on scene for hours extinguishing hot spots, working in temperatures that dipped below zero overnight.
Roth said the extreme cold created some problems for crews.
“Ice, slips and falls,” he said, describing the challenges.
A supply line going into the engine truck in front of the building froze during overhaul operations, forcing crews to replace it. Some hand lines also froze.
Roth said the last of the crews left the scene at about 10:30 a.m.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
In the afternoon, the damage was evident at the home, with singed debris — including a pair of mattresses — lying on the ice-coated ground outside the structure. Icicles created by the water used to battle the flames hung off the home’s siding and from the branches of nearby trees.
The top of the structure’s brick chimney lay severed in a snowbank next to the building.
A woman who lives across the narrow street pointed out the sheet of ice completely covering her daughter’s car from the firefighting water, along with black embers still scattered across it.
A sign posted on the boarded-up front door of 12 Osgood St. stated, “Danger,” followed by “this structure is deemed unsafe for human occupation,” and “it is unlawful for any person to enter or occupy.”
Saturday morning’s blaze came less than two days after another two-alarm fire caused significant damage to a single-family home at 20 Otis St. That fire was also fought in sub-freezing temperatures, though the conditions were not as severe.
No injuries were reported in that fire, which also remains under investigation.
Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.
LOWELL — The murder retrial of Billy, Billoeum, and Channa Phan is officially ready to proceed.
Jury impanelment is scheduled to begin in Middlesex Superior Court on Monday morning — or Tuesday if the winter storm forces the Kiernan Judicial Center to close.
The schedule was set on Friday during the final pretrial hearing, where Judge Chris Barry-Smith also denied a defense motion to dismiss the indictment against one of the three brothers, each charged with first-degree murder for the shooting death of 22-year-old Tyrone Phet outside his Lowell home in 2020.
Barry-Smith rejected the bid by attorney William Dolan, who represents defendant Channa Phan, ruling that although the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office failed to turn over information tied to a gang-motive theory in a timely fashion, the lapse did not rise to the level requiring dismissal.
Prosecutors have argued the residence functioned as a stash house for the Outlaws, street gang, which they claim the Phan brothers are members of. Due to the shooting, a search warrant was obtained by the Lowell Police for the Wilder Street home, where officers seized guns, ammunition, 200 grams of cocaine, and 100,000 pressed pills containing methamphetamine.
The shooting — allegedly carried out by rival gang Crazy Mob Family — triggered a retaliatory motive for the killing of Phet less than 24 hours later.
Phet was not alleged to be a CMF member, but prosecutors contend he lived in the same Spring Avenue building where a CMF member once resided.
Phet was shot to death in a hail of gunfire while sitting in his car outside the multi-family residence at 55 Spring Ave. Phet — a 2016 Chelmsford High graduate and captain of the football team his senior year — was struck eight times during the shooting.
The Lowell Police recovered 21 spent shell casings at the scene from two different caliber guns.
Barry‑Smith said the prosecution’s decision to pursue a broader gang theory in the retrial “not surprisingly” prompted the defense to seek all information police and prosecutors possessed about the Wilder Street shooting and subsequent search warrant.
Prior to the first trial — which ended in a mistrial after jurors became deadlocked —prosecutors turned over the police report about the incident but not the underlying investigative materials, Barry‑Smith said. That omission was not a major point of contention at the time because the initial trial’s lead prosecutor — former Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Daniel Harren — had elected not to pursue a wide‑ranging gang theory.
Once the new prosecution team sought to expand that scope, Barry‑Smith said, they were obligated to produce the full set of Wilder Street information — something they did not do until recent weeks.
“The Commonwealth’s principal shortcoming is that failure to produce Wilder Street information once it determined Wilder Street was relevant to the case,” Barry‑Smith said, adding that a secondary issue was that prosecutors “were not adequately familiar” with what evidence had been turned over during the first four years of the case, leading to a misunderstanding.
The judge described the discovery violation as the product of “mistake, inadvertence, misunderstanding, and a failure to be fully familiar” with prior disclosures — not an attempt to ambush the defense.
“It was not delivered, nor was it designed to spring evidence upon the defense,” Barry‑Smith said.
The judge reiterated that he has already denied the Commonwealth’s request to expand the scope of gang evidence for the retrial, calling the proposed showing “too thin.”
The Wilder Street material may be considered for rebuttal, but that will depend on how the trial unfolds.
Because prosecutors have since turned over the missing materials, and because the expanded gang theory will not be permitted, Barry‑Smith said dismissal was not warranted.
“I don’t find that the District Attorney’s Office’s conduct was purposeful or egregious,” he said.
As for jury selection, the expectation is it will take two days to get the needed pool of 16 jurors.
The trial will run daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, with an hour‑long lunch break. Barry‑Smith said the case is expected to conclude by the end of the week of Feb. 9.
Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Thomas Brant told Barry-Smith that the prosecution intends to call more than 40 witnesses.
Brant also raised a scheduling wrinkle: Feb. 8 is Super Bowl Sunday, and with the New England Patriots still in contention for a spot in Super Bowl 60 as of the hearing, juror availability and the scheduling of witnesses could be affected.
“I don’t care, and my desire is to move the case as quickly as possible, but …” Brant said.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Barry‑Smith replied, adding that he may delay the Feb. 9 start time to as late as 10 a.m.
“I might delay things on that Monday, but I’m not going to call it off,” he said.’
The Sun will publish weekly wrap-ups on the trial’s progress, with summaries appearing this Sunday and again on Feb. 8. A final story detailing the verdict will follow shortly after the jury reaches a decision, with the latest possible publication date being Feb. 15.
Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.
On Feb. 6, 2021, Kevin Jiang, a 26-year-old Yale graduate student and former Army National Guardsman, spent the day with Zion Perry, his fiancée, who was also a graduate student there. The couple went hiking and ice fishing, followed by dinner at her home in the affluent East Rock section of New Haven. Police say that at around 8:30 p.m. Jiang left her apartment and headed off in his Prius to his house, where he lived with his mother.
Kevin Jiang was a 26-year-old Yale graduate student, an Army veteran, and, his friends say, a man of faith who volunteered with the homeless.
Kevin Jiang/Instagram
He barely made it two blocks before his car was struck from behind by a dark SUV in what appeared to be a minor fender bender. Police believe he got out of his car, likely to check on how the other driver was and exchange information. Instead, the other motorist shot Jiang eight times — with several bullets fired so close to his head that the exploding gunpowder left burn marks on his face.
David Zaweski, the lead homicide detective in Jiang’s murder, talked with “48 Hours” correspondent Anne-Marie Green for “The Ivy League Murder.” An encore of the broadcast is streaming on Paramount+.
Zaweski said that one witness told investigators she heard the minor fender bender, looked out a window, heard gunshots and saw muzzle flashes from a weapon. And another witness added that she not only heard the gunshots, but she saw the shooter — dressed all in black — standing over his fallen victim, continuing to fire bullets into him after he was down. Detectives would later recover a chilling home surveillance video that virtually captured Kevin’s final moments alive, confirming the witness’ accounts.
But deepening the mystery was the fact that the eight spent shell casings lying near Jiang were .45 caliber bullets — and they were similar to .45 caliber shell casings found at the scene of four recent shootings in the area.
According to police, a gunman had fired .45 caliber bullets into four homes over the last several months. In those cases, no one had been hurt. Investigators interviewed the homeowners but were unable to find any connection between them.
At first glance, Jiang’s murder had all the earmarks of a violent case of road rage. But Zaweski and his colleague Steven Cunningham quickly began to wonder if there was more.
“It seems a little bit more personal,” Zaweski told Green. “When you have someone laying on the ground and not moving, what would cause someone to continue firing?”
Cunningham questioned the car accident. “Was it deliberate to get him out of the vehicle? Possibly something that was planned?” he said.
“And if he was specifically targeted,” Zaweski continued, “what could have happened in his life to drive someone to do this?
It was a logical investigative avenue to pursue, but after breaking the tragic news to Jiang’s mother and his fiancée, investigators say the portrait that emerged of Kevin was that of a gifted young man who couldn’t have had an enemy in the world. He was living with, and taking care of, his mother, whom he brought from Seattle to live with him. He volunteered to work with the homeless, was deeply religious, and was a former lieutenant in the U.S. Army National Guard. Just a week earlier he had proposed to Perry, which she posted on Facebook, virtually on the anniversary of their meeting at a Christian retreat.
Kevin Jiang and Zion Perry
Facebook
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson summed up the young newly engaged couple for Green. “They clearly shared a lot in common,” he began. “They both loved nature. Zion was a scientist studying molecular biophysics and biochemistry… he was in the School of the Environment. They’re both brilliant and hardworking students,” he said, “and yet they didn’t feel like their accomplishments were what defined them at the deepest level.”
Zaweski and Cunningham knew they faced a daunting investigation. Jiang’s murder may just have been another random shooting by the mysterious .45 caliber gunman. Whoever the shooter was, he was still on the loose.
“The suspect was out there,” Zaweski said. “He wasn’t identified. We didn’t know where he went … and we didn’t know what he would be doing next.”
With few leads to pursue and a vague image of a dark SUV from surveillance footage at the scene, they knew they likely would need a break. And they got one the following day when they received an urgent call from Sgt. Jeffrey Mills of the nearby North Haven police. He provided them with startling information about two different 911 calls.
The first one occurred about a half hour after Jiang’s murder. A motorist had gotten stuck on a desolate snow-covered railroad track outside a scrap metal yard he had accidentally driven into, he said, while looking for a nearby highway entrance. The motorist, Qinxuan Pan, was from Malden, Massachusetts. His record was clean, and he was calm with an excuse that Mills had heard before from others who got lost near that scrap yard. So, he helped Pan get a tow and a nearby hotel room. At the time, Mills was unaware that there had been a murder in New Haven.
But about 15 hours later, at 11 a.m. on Feb. 7, Mills responded to another 911 call at an Arby’s, where employees had found a bag containing a gun and box of .45 caliber bullets. The Arby’s was right next door to the Best Western hotel where Pan had been taken. And by then he knew Kevin Jiang had been murdered, by someone driving a dark SUV similar to Pan’s. That’s when he reached out to New Haven homicide.
It turned out Pan had checked into the hotel but never stayed there. And when Zaweski sent detectives to Malden, where Pan went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and lived with his parents — no one was home.
Zaweski turned to his computer searching for Pan, hoping to find a connection to Jiang. “We’ll use Facebook as a tool to try and get a background on an individual, who they’re friends with,” Zaweski explained. But there seemed to be no connection with Jiang.
“And so, you’re going down the list of names,” Green says, “Nothing, nothing, nothing, and then you’re like, ‘whoa.’”
“There’s our connection,” Zaweski replies. That connection was Zion Perry, who was listed as a friend of Pan. She and Pan had met each other at a Christian group when Perry was an undergraduate at MIT. And although Perry was barely an acquaintance of Pan and hadn’t communicated with him since she left MIT and moved to New Haven to attend Yale, the homicide detectives felt they had more than a break. They had a potential suspect who was missing from his home. And a possible motive: an obsession with Perry.
“It did seem like there was a secret obsession of Pan’s going on behind the scenes that Kevin wasn’t aware of, and that Zion wasn’t aware of,” Zaweski said. After all, Jiang’s murder occurred just one week after Perry posted their engagement on Facebook, along with previous photos of them dating.
Qinxuan Pan
Qinxuan Pan/Facebook
Investigators believe Pan was also responsible for the four .45 caliber shootings, and that the shootings were part of a premeditated plan. They theorized that those shootings were done to mislead them when Jiang was eventually killed, to make them think his death had been just another random incident.
“He planned it, Cunningham said. “And he knew we’d be looking at these other things.”
“This wasn’t a random incident out there,” Zaweski added. “He was targeted.”
Now, their homicide investigation, and the massive manhunt for their brilliant, tech-savvy MIT fugitive took off. U.S. Marshals joined the case and learned that Pan’s family had access to millions of dollars in assets. Pan was missing, and they worried he might be trying to flee the country. The pressure was on.
“This became so high profile so fast,” U.S. Marshal Joe Galvan told “48 Hours.” “It was just heightened.”
The Marshals galvanized their vast resources to track down Pan. They noticed Pan’s parents had withdrawn large sums of cash, and that they had taken a long trip south with their son right after the murder. When the parents had been stopped in Georgia, they were in the car, but their son was gone. They said he’d simply gotten out of the car and walked away, and they didn’t know where he’d gone. Investigators were skeptical.
“They would go to the ends of the earth to help support and hide him,” said Matthew Duffy, a supervisor of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Connecticut. The Marshals focused in on the parents as their way to find Pan. They knew finding him would take patience as they utilized all their surveillance techniques to track the family.
Weeks went by, but eventually, their patience paid off. Pan’s mother finally made a mistake that would lead the Marshals straight to her son. She made a phone call from a hotel using a clerk’s phone. Investigators spoke to the clerk and were able to track that call, leading them to Pan’s location at a boarding house in Alabama.
“They went there with a small army,” Duffy said. “Around 20 guys … he just came out and said, ‘I’m who you’re looking for.’”
At the time of his arrest, Pan had on him approximately $20,000 in cash, multiple communication devices, and his father’s passport. He was charged with Jiang’s murder, accepted a plea deal, and was sentenced in April 2024 to serve 35 years in prison.
Pan’s parents were never charged with anything. “48 Hours” reached out to the Pans, but they did not respond to our request for comment.
Investigators believe that had Pan not gotten stuck on the train tracks on that fateful February night, Jiang’s murder may never have been solved.
“Could he have gotten away with murder?” Green asked Zaweski.
“He very well could have,” Zaweski replied. “If he had not gotten caught up on those tracks … it would’ve been very difficult.”
Though investigators, friends, and family were relieved that Pan had been caught and brought to justice, Jiang’s mother spoke at Pan’s sentencing to say she felt that 35 years was too short a sentence for the man who’d killed her only son.
Perry agreed. “I wanted to address Pan specifically,” she said at the sentencing. “Although your sentence is far less than you deserve … there is also mercy. May God have mercy on you. And may he have mercy on all of us.”
Even four years after Jiang’s death, friends wonder what Kevin, a man of deep faith, might have thought about his killer.
“Do you think Kevin would’ve forgiven Pan?” Green asked Jamila Ayeh and Nasya Hubbard, who served with Jiang in the military.
“Yes, I do,” said Hubbard. Added Ayeh, “Without a doubt.”
A newly engaged Yale graduate student is gunned down by an unknown attacker after a fender bender. Was it extreme road rage or was he targeted? “48 Hours” correspondent Anne-Marie Green reports.
It was a cold night in New Haven, Connecticut, in February 2021 when lead detective David Zaweski and his colleague Steven Cunningham arrived at the crime scene.
Det. David Zaweski: The patrol officers had already been out there canvassing the area. They were knocking on doors looking for anyone that might’ve seen anything or heard anything.
Det. David Zaweski: The crime scene detectives were starting to locate all the, uh, shell casings.
Kevin Jiang, 26, was a graduate student at Yale University’s School of the Environment.
Det. David Zaweski: His body was still on scene … covered in a white sheet.
Anne-Marie Green: When you saw the body … what did you see?
Det. David Zaweski: What we could see were gunshot wounds to his upper body and to his head. And you could see stippling on the left side of his head.
Stippling is a burn pattern caused by gunpowder exploding from a weapon fired at close range.
About a hundred feet down the street —
Det. David Zaweski: There was a Prius just parked in the middle of the road with its hazards on.
They quickly discovered the Prius belonged to Kevin. Crime scene detectives noticed a peculiar bit of damage that suggested it had been hit from behind.
Det. David Zaweski: There was an impression that was left on the back bumper that looked like a license plate holder.
Anne-Marie Green: So, this is like a fender bender. It’s not a violent crash.
Det. David Zaweski: No. There’s not much damage.
One witness told detectives she heard the sound of an accident and went to the window to look.
Det. David Zaweski: When they look out, they see a Prius come to a stop and put its hazards on. They see a dark colored SUV pull up behind it and then reverse back toward the intersection. They see the operator of the Prius walk out and approach the SUV – most likely to see how they were, exchange insurance information. When the operator gets to the black SUV, they hear a round of gunshots and they see the muzzle flash from the gun from the driver’s side of the SUV.
Another witness heard the first round of gunshots and went to her window.
Det. David Zaweski: When she looks outside, she sees a subject, wearing all black, standing over another individual who’s laying on the ground. … she hears another round of gunshots and she can see the muzzle flash from the gun as he’s firing.
Det. David Zaweski: But she sees someone standing over another person, which means the victim is already down. And they’re still shooting.
Det. David Zaweski: Yes.
Anne-Marie Green: What did you think?
Det. David Zaweski: There’s a little bit more to it. It seems a little bit more personal. When you have someone laying on the ground and not moving, what would cause someone to continue firing at them?
The detectives were able to confirm these accounts when they got a look at video from a neighbor’s security system.
Det. David Zaweski: It was located on the inside of a window, facing outward.
Det. David Zaweski: We hear the collision between the two cars.
Det. David Zaweski: And that’s when you see Kevin’s Prius pull into frame … and the SUV pulls up behind him. And then reverses out of frame. You see Kevin exit his vehicle and then walk out of frame to approach the SUV.
Det. David Zaweski: You then hear two gunshots.
Det. David Zaweski: A scream.
Det. David Zaweski: And then six more gunshots.
Moments later, the video shows the SUV driving off into the night.
Anne-Marie Green: Can you make out any details when it comes to the SUV?
Det. David Zaweski: Unfortunately, not. … You could kind of get the idea of the potential make and model of it with the taillights, but you couldn’t discern any identifying features.
WERE RANDOM SHOOTINGS IN NEW HAVEN RELATED?
Investigators soon felt the dark SUV and the .45 caliber shells recovered at the scene pointed to a potential link to earlier shootings around the area that police had been investigating. Four times over a two-month span, someone fired shots into family homes – the fourth incident occurred just one hour before Kevin’s murder.
Det. David Zaweski: We had detectives in the bureau looking into each of the incidents to see if there’s any more of a connection to link them.
Paul Whyte (points out where the bullets came in): Two bullets came in from this window and ended up in this wall.
Paul and Nyree Whyte’s home was the target of the third shooting.
Paul Whyte: We had just finished dinner … I had a fire going.
Nyree, a schoolteacher, headed upstairs to take a shower. Paul — an educator with degrees from Yale, Harvard, and Columbia University — was sitting downstairs.
Paul Whyte: All of a sudden, something comes through this window. … then a second bullet came through – you heard the pop and the glass going everywhere with that one.
Paul shouted a warning to Nyree.
Paul Whyte: Get down. Someone’s shooting.
Nyree Whyte: And then I heard bang-pop again and I turn, and I literally saw the frame of the door just splinter.
Anne-Marie Green: And then she yells back at you.
Paul Whyte: Right, that someone’s shooting upstairs.
It was over in a matter of moments and no one was injured.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you feel lucky?
Paul Whyte: Yes.
Nyree Whyte: Absolutely.
Paul Whyte: Absolutely.
Detectives interviewed the Whytes and the occupants of the other houses.
Det. David Zaweski: There didn’t seem to be any connection between them.
And none of them, investigators say, had any connection to Kevin Jiang. But the shell casings from all the shootings would later tell a different story.
Det. David Zaweski: When the casings are sent to the lab, they all came back as matches to the casings found at the homicide.
The casings matched, but Kevin was the only person murdered, and detectives didn’t know why.
Det. David Zaweski: It could have been a road rage incident that turned a little too violent.
Or was Kevin targeted?
Det. Steven Cunningham: The car accident … was it deliberate … to get him out of the vehicle … Possibly something that was planned.
Det. David Zaweski: And if he was specifically targeted, what could have happened in his life to drive someone to do this?
SURVEILLANCE VIDEO CAPTURES KEVIN JIANG’S FINAL MOMENTS
It was late when detectives Zaweski and Cunningham left the crime scene on Feb. 6. They went to Kevin’s home looking to find a family member to notify about what had happened. His mother, Linda Liu, came to the door.
Anne-Marie Green: It’s got to be the hardest conversation.
Det. David Zaweski: It is. They always are.
Det. David Zaweski: You want to be direct and upfront and make it clear. As horrific as it is … for them. … So, we explained to her that he was shot and killed in the area of Lawrence and Nichols Street in New Haven.
Anne-Marie Green: Can she even comprehend that?
Det. David Zaweski: She’s absolutely devastated. She falls to the ground crying.
The detectives wanted to know everything about Kevin and why he may have been targeted that night. Liu began to tell them about her son.
Det. David Zaweski: It was just the two of them. And he was actually supporting her.
Kevin Jiang
Trinity Baptist Church/YouTube
Det. David Zaweski: She told us that he was a grad student at Yale University and was in the Army National Guard.
Kevin was deeply religious. He and his mother were part of the congregation at Trinity Baptist Church. Pastor Gregory Hendrickson knew them both and says that Liu, a divorced single parent, got Kevin through a tough childhood where he was often bullied.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: She was very committed to sort of seeing him come through and eventually he thrived on the other side of that … I think he had a sense of … honoring his mom by, as she had cared for him when he was a child … caring for her as she was getting older.
Kevin bought a house in 2019 and Hendrickson says he invited his mother to come live with him.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: She was living alone, she was living on the other side of the country, she didn’t have a lot of family support around her and … he … wanted … her to come and be with him during his studies at Yale.
Kevin Jiang had recently proposed to his girlfriend Zion Perry. “Oh, Kevin. Oh wow, oh yes, yes! Definitely! Wow, this is so pretty!” she replied.
Zion Perry/Facebook
Police also learned then that Jiang had recently gotten engaged to his girlfriend of a year, Zion Perry. She posted the proposal on Facebook. This was just one week before he was murdered.
Nasya Hubbard: He was so in love with Zion — you could tell — he didn’t even have to really say too much.
Nasya Hubbard served with Kevin in the Army National Guard.
Nasya Hubbard: I — oh my gosh. … I remember one time … he was on the phone with her and I was like, wow, like you could hear the genuineness and his love towards her. And I was like, wow. I hope I find someone like that.
Perry grew up in Pennsylvania, where she was an honors high school student. The couple met in January 2020 when Zion was still an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: He said, you know … I met her at Christian Retreat … she is very kind and we enjoy talking and um, just have great conversations together. … then she, uh, came to do her PhD at Yale.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: They clearly shared a lot of common — they both loved nature. … I mean, Zion was … a scientist … she is studying molecular biophysics and biochemistry. … So, you know, he was studying the — in the School of the Environment … they’re both brilliant and hardworking students … and yet … they didn’t feel like their accomplishments were, what, defined them at the deepest level.
Zaweski and Cunningham then interviewed an emotional Perry, and she told them she and Kevin had spent the day together.
Det. David Zaweski: They had gone ice fishing and had dinner at her house … and then he left her house around 8:30 that night.
Kevin Jiang and Zion Perry
Kevin Jiang/Facebook
Kevin didn’t get far. His Prius was struck by the dark SUV just two blocks from Perry’s house — close enough for Perry to hear the gunshots that followed.
Det. David Zaweski: She remembers hearing the gunshots, but she thought there was a good five or ten minutes after he’d left to when she heard the gunshots. So, she didn’t think he was anywhere near the area and didn’t think twice about him potentially being involved in any way.
Anne-Marie Green: Did she have any idea who would have done something like this?
Det. Steven Cunningham: At that point, no. Nothing that she told us that she — she could think of.
After speaking with Perry, detectives were no closer to figuring out why Kevin would be a target.
Det. Steven Cunningham: It seemed like just an innocent — innocent guy.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you think this was gonna be a tough case though?
Det. David Zaweski: That night —
Det. Steven Cunningham: Yes.
Det. David Zaweski: — we had a little bit, but there wasn’t a lot to go on.
But just 15 hours after the shooting, they got a huge break.
Det. David Zaweski: Little did we know that we’d get the phone call …
Det. Steven Cunningham: And it was like, wow.
THE MAN STUCK ON THE TRAIN TRACKS
News of Kevin Jiang’s murder spread among his loved ones and closest friends.
Nasya Hubbard: And I was at home and I actually got a phone call from another soldier … And she was saying, I know you guys were close … And then … like, her voice cracked. … and … she told me that he had passed away … And I was like not comprehending what was going on. … So I text him … And I was like, “answer your phone please.” And obviously, he never answered me.
Hubbard reached out to Capt. Jamila Ayeh. And if sharing the news about Jiang wasn’t tragic enough, someone posted the chilling video of his murder online, and his fellow soldiers now saw and heard Kevin’s final moments alive.
Nasya Hubbard: … to this day. … I can still hear him — hear him screaming … I was like, why did I listen to that?
Detectives Zaweski and Cunningham were back at their desks in headquarters, struggling for answers and leads to pursue.
Anne-Marie Green: Day two … you get a phone call.
Det. David Zaweski: Yes.
The call, from a sergeant at nearby North Haven Police Department, was urgent.
Det. David Zaweski: … two incidents had happened in North Haven the night before and then earlier that morning.
It began with a 911 call from a local scrap metal yard around 9 p.m. – less than a half hour after Kevin was killed.
911 CALL: I’m the, uh, security guard at … Sims Metal Management. … I just had somebody drive through my yard here … they didn’t know where they were going. … So I’ve been chasing them around the yard and, uh, they just pulled way in the back, off the property … it’s like a black minivan, SUV type of thing.
Sergeant Jeffrey Mills and Officer Marcus Artaiz responded and spotted that vehicle stuck on snow-covered railroad tracks, not far from the rear exit of the Sims scrap metal yard. They approached the driver.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: How you doing?
QINXUAN PAN: I’m stuck.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Oh, yeah. What are you doing back here?
QINXUAN PAN: Stuck here.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: What are you doing back here, though?
QINXUAN PAN: I just got it here accidentally, and I got stuck. … Is there any way to get unstuck here?
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Uh, the only thing I can do is call you a tow truck.
QINXUAN PAN: OK, cool. Thanks.
A still from police bodycam video shows Qinxuan Pan talking with North Haven police after officers responded to a 911 call about a trespasser on private property.
North Haven Police Department
The motorist was 29-year-old Qinxuan Pan from Malden, Massachusetts.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: OK. Do you have your driver’s license on you?
QINXUAN PAN: Yes.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Registration?
QINXUAN PAN: Yes. You can take this. OK.
His driver’s license and criminal background were clean. During the encounter, Mills noticed a yellow jacket on the passenger seat. He also saw a blue bag and a briefcase in the backseat, but not much else.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS (bodycam): He took a wrong turn. … He got lost, and he thought the Jeep was probably chasing him, the security guy.
Because Sgt. Mills hadn’t heard about Kevin’s murder, he wasn’t particularly concerned.
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ (bodycam): So, it’s nothing you think?
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Yeah, he’s —
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ: He doesn’t look like he’s got any scrap on him or anything.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: No.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: I’ve been on the tracks I don’t know how many times with vehicles that were, you know, called into suspicious or whatever but kids go back there … people always come down there, um, according to the security guard … and they turn around in the front lot and they leave ’cause they missed the highway or something.
Anne-Marie Green: Yeah. Did he look nervous?
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: He wasn’t nervous at all … He was perfectly calm.
QINXUAN PAN (bodycam): So what — what do you recommend I do? … I mean if I can get it off the track, I prefer to drive — drive it myself.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: He was just like, well sorry. I got stuck on the tracks can you help me get off?
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ (bodycam): So how about you get a hotel for the night. We’ll have the tow truck drop you off at the hotel and you pay with credit card and you can arrange pick it up the car in the morning.
QINXUAN PAN: OK, let’s get the hotel then.
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ (bodycam):: Yeah let’s do that.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: That’s probably the safest thing to do.
QINXUAN PAN: OK.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: OK.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: The tow truck came, uh, took a little work, but it got it off the tracks. … he gave, uh, Mr. Pan, uh, ride back to Best Western and I cleared the call like any other call.
But hours later, there was another call to 911.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: February 7th, around 11:00 a.m.
911 OPERATOR: Hello. Can I help you? … This is the police department.
CALLER: Uh hello, I work at Arby’s here in North Haven.
911 OPERATOR: Mm hmm.
ARBY’S EMPLOYEE: … we found a gun … and probably like, uh, 10 boxes of, um –
911 OPERATOR: Bullets?
ARBY’S EMPLOYEE: … bullets.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: An employee found a couple of bags on the grass at the north entrance here. When they brought ’em in …
Fifteen hours after the first 911 call, Sgt. Jeffrey Mills responded to another 911 call at an Arby’s, where employees had found a bag containing a gun and box of .45 caliber bullets. The Arby’s was next door to the Best Western hotel where Qinxuan Pan had been taken.
North Haven Police Department
OFFICER #1 (bodycam): There were three bags … this one, that one, and this.
OFFICER #2: Got it.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: I took a better look at the bags that it came in … And here’s a … blue retail bag with the Massachusetts logo on it and a small leather black briefcase. And it instantly hit me. These are the bags that were in Mr. Pan’s car the night before.
The Arby’s was right next door to the Best Western where Pan was dropped off. And by then, Mills had heard about the murder in New Haven.
Anne-Marie Green (with Mills outside Arby’s): What’s going through your brain?
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: At that point … knowing … that New Haven had a homicide … they were looking for a dark-colored GMC SUV. Um, now, we’ve got a firearm. And then Officer Bianchi shows me a yellow jacket that was in it … And the suspect was wearing a yellow jacket.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS (bodycam): So, he might be at Best Western right now.
OFFICER #1: Let’s go over there.
OFFICER #2: I’m gonna go over there.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: And when we got here I went in to the front desk and spoke with the attendant there and asked if Qinxuan Pan had checked in. Which they checked and said yes he did … I mean he hasn’t checked out yet.
That’s when Mills alerted New Haven homicide about Pan.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you immediately think there might be a connection with the homicide?
Det. David Zaweski: There’s a very good chance. … the vehicle matched. And … the items that were left behind at the Arby’s restaurant … it included a .45-caliber handgun and that matched the casings that were at the scene.
Zaweski immediately sent detectives to meet Mills at the Best Western.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: Uh so we got a key, went to room 276 … We knocked on the door, we entered the room. And the room was clean. … Nothing in it. It didn’t appear that anybody stayed in it for the night. … At first, we were like, oh, we lost him.
Qinxuan Pan, 29, was a graduate student at MIT studying artificial intelligence
Qinxuan Pan/Facebook
New Haven police sent investigators, including Detective Joe Galvan, to track down Pan. Galvan went to Malden, Massachusetts, where Pan lived with his parents and was a graduate student at MIT.
—
Det. Joe Galvan: … right outside of Boston …very affluent homes … There’s no one there. … so we knock on the door. … So … the day after the homicide, we were unsure if, uh, maybe the family, um, was on vacation. … out of state, out of the country.
But police were also worried.
Det. Joe Galvan: … were they — given the heinous act that occurred in New Haven the day before, were they potentially kidnapped by their own son? Were they victims of another … hor-horrible crime?
WAS AN OBSESSION A MOTIVE FOR MURDER?
With Qinxuan Pan and his parents missing from their home, Detective David Zaweski turned to his computer searching for Pan.
Det. David Zaweski: The first thing I wanna know is, who he is … and if there’s any connection between him and Kevin. … I see that he has a Facebook page.
Anne-Marie Green: What was his page like?
Detectives searched Qinxuan Pan’s Facebook account for possible clues.
Qinxuan Pan/Facebook
Det. David Zaweski: There was not much activity at all. His last, uh, post was back in 2016, and he had a few photos with some other students, but that was it.
Anne-Marie Green: Is that when you first found out that he’s an MIT grad student?
Det. David Zaweski: Yes that was the first time we got the connection between him and MIT.
Det. David Zaweski: So, I check his friends list to see if Kevin is in there.
Anne-Marie Green: Is he?
Det. David Zaweski: Kevin is not listed, but I do notice that Zion Perry is listed.
Zion Perry, Kevin’s fiancee, who also went to MIT.
Det. David Zaweski: Now we have a connection … I got in contact with her. … she explained that they had met at MIT back in, uh, 2019. And they were more associates than friends.
Anne-Marie Green: Nothing romantic?
Det. David Zaweski: No. … She said that they never dated, they never had any romantic relationship.
Det. David Zaweski: The last time she spoke with him was May of 2020 … he reached out to her through Facebook Messenger … to congratulate her on graduating. … He asked to FaceTime with her and she politely declined it.
Anne-Marie Green: She must have been wondering why you asking me so many questions about this guy. What’d you say to her?
Det. David Zaweski: She was, and that’s when I told her that he was a person of interest in this and she was completely shocked. … he was barely a part of her life. … and why he would’ve been involved with this in any way.
Anne-Marie Green: What did she have posted on her page?
Kevin Jiang and Zion Perry after Kevin’s proposal.
Zion Perry/Facebook
Det. David Zaweski: The last things that she had posted were the engagement between her and Kevin.
Anne-Marie Green: Are you starting to formulate a theory about the case that goes a little beyond possible road rage?
Det. David Zaweski: Yes … It did seem like there was a secret obsession of Pan’s going on behind the scenes that Kevin wasn’t aware of and that Zion wasn’t aware of.
The next day, Zion Perry joined Kevin’s mother, Linda Lui, and father, Mingchen Jiang, and nearly 700 people on a virtual vigil for Kevin. Perry addressed the mourners.
ZION PERRY: One day, I — I will get to see … Kevin again, yeah, in heaven and then everything is made right … I thank Miss Liu and Mr. Jiang for raising such a fine young man and for, yeah, bringing him into the world.
LINDA LIU: He gave me a lot of joy. He’s very thoughtful, warm boy taking care of me. And, uh, I miss him.
MINGCHEN JIANG: He’s a nice boy. Everybody likes him. (CRYING) Thank you. … Thank you, you all.
That week, Pastor Hendrickson eulogized Kevin at his funeral.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson:We come to you today, remembering Kevin, grateful for his life, grieving over his loss.
Perry read a poem Kevin wrote to her. It began –
Zion Perry: “If this world falls apart, it will be all right, because we have each other’s hearts.”
A medical officer also trained to operate tanks, Kevin was buried with full military honors, just two days before his 27th birthday, on Valentine’s Day.
Meanwhile, Galvan, a member of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Connecticut — along with supervisor Matthew Duffy and Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault — were utilizing their vast resources to urgently gather intelligence on Pan.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: MIT graduate … not socially active … degree in computer science.
Lawyer William Gerace.
William Gerace: … grad student … in artificial intelligence.
Anne-Marie Green: Genius?
William Gerace: Genius. … socially not a genius.
The Marshals discovered Pan had three active phones, and they noticed that in the months before Kevin was killed, Pan was using one of those phones to contact car dealerships.
Det. Joe Galvan: He would tell them all the same thing. … um, said he was going for a test drive. I believe he said he was going on a camping trip.
Investigators were able to match the date of Pan’s test drives with each of the .45 caliber shootings in New Haven, including Kevin’s murder. It was all part of a plan, investigators say. They believe that Pan likely fired shots into those homes to ultimately mislead them, hoping that they would think Kevin’s murder was just another random shooting.
Det. Steve Cunningham: … he planned it … and he knew we’d be looking at these other things.
Det. David Zaweski: Yeah he did his best to … to mislead us.
Det. David Zaweski: Now we knew that, yes, this wasn’t a random incident out there … That he was targeted.
They also discovered that not long after Kevin’s murder, Pan called his parents, and they made a cash withdrawl of about $1,000.
William Gerace: They had tremendous assets somehow from Shanghai.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Access to large sums of money … several million dollars.
The Marshals zeroed in on Pan’s parents and picked up a ping on their phone at a North Carolina gas station.
Det. Joe Galvan: Our task force … found it on — on the … on the ground.
The cellphone was crushed.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Like a car ran over it.
Three days later, investigators caught up with Pan’s parents driving near Atlanta, Georgia.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Georgia state police pulled them over.
Anne-Marie Green: He’s not in the vehicle.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Nope.
Police told them they suspected their son had killed someone.
Anne-Marie Green: Were they shocked?
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: No.
Anne-Marie Green: They weren’t shocked that their son was being investigated in connection with the cold-blooded murder.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: They may have been, but they didn’t — they didn’t lead on to us at all. They didn’t lead on to us at all.
Det. Joe Galvan: The father said our son called, said he was in Connecticut and needed help. He asked us to bring cash. Then once we picked him up in Connecticut,he took the wheel. … they take this very long drive down south …
Pan’s father didn’t say why his son was heading that direction.
Det. Joe Galvan: And he says he is quiet, acting weird. Doesn’t really say what’s going on. … they make it down to Georgia and … he pulls over … and he gets out of the car and walks away. … he said, no words to them, just walked away from the car. … That was their story
Pan’s parents agreed to be photographed. Pan’s mother declined to answer any questons without an attorney, but she later volunteered that her son walked away from her and his father and likely killed himself. The Marshals were skeptical.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: We knew after talking to the parents that they would go to jail for him. … knowing the degree that the parents were helping him … And his resources, his intelligence, we had to take a different approach on it …
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: … we needed to focus in on the parents … they probably would lead us to him.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: … they would go to the ends of the earth to help support and hide him.
Anne-Marie Green: And what does that mean?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Patience.
And they would need plenty of it. Weeks went by without an arrest. They wondered if they missed something — and if their murder suspect had outmaneuvered them?
UNRAVELING QINXUAN PAN’S PLOT
Five weeks passed without a solid lead on the MIT student wanted for Kevin Jiang’s murder.
Anne-Marie Green: Can you give me a real sense of the pressure.
Det. Joe Galvan: Yeah, because this became so high profile so fast … it was — it was just heightened.
Then the manhunt for Pan suddenly heated up. Police said his mom told them she suspected her son killed himself. But they noticed his parents had a lot of banking activity.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: We start to see large sums of cash being withdrawn.
Anne-Marie Green: How much?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: At that time it was about $5,000, $10,000.
Det. Joe Galvan: That’s a large sum of money that someone could use to get out the country.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: They still have family in China.
And then Pan’s parents rented a car.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: And they start traveling south again.
But the vehicle’s GPS system the Marshals were tracking went dark.
Anne-Marie Green: Did they turn it off?
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: It was disabled.
By then, investigators said they knew that their son had disabled GPS systems in several cars he drove in the runup to Kevin’s murder.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Counter tactics.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Counter tactics …
At one point, surveillance cameras at a Georgia mall recorded Pan’s father purchasing a computer.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Now this is during COVID. So everybody has their masks on. … We see the father walk in. … And probably about 10 minutes later, we see an individual fitting the description of the son. … So, the story of the suicide out in the woods … that’s — that’s not true.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: So from there … the parents end up traveling back north and —
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Once they’re in Connecticut, the GPS comes back on.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: We felt — we felt the clock was really ticking.
And it ticked away for nearly two more months until May 4, 2021, when Pan’s parents drove off for a third time. But there was a difference.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: They were traveling with another couple …
Anne-Marie Green: What do you think the deal was with the other couple?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Yeah, make it appear that it’s a regular trip … There’s no big deal, we’re just going on a trip, meet some friends … we’re not here to help our son.
Pan’s parents and their unwitting companions were eventually placed under surveillance at a North Carolina hotel, where Marshals interviewed a clerk after the Pans checked out.
Det. Joe Galvan: At one point … Quixuan Pan’s mother. … came to the clerk’s desk late at night and asked to borrow his phone.
This is a picture of Qinxuan Pan’s mother Hong Huang making the call at a Georgia hotel that broke the case wide open.
U.S. Marshals
Det. Joe Galvan: After she used his phone, she deleted the number from his phone.
Anne-Marie Green: Were you able to find that number?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Yes.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: We were.
The Marshals tracked the phone to a boarding house near the University of Alabama in Montgomery.
Anne-Marie Green: So, you guys are closing in —
Det. Joe Galvan: Yeah.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: They went there with a small army, around 20 guys … they ended up finding his room and they knocked on it and he just came out and said, I’m who you’re looking for.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: He had, uh, approximately $20,000 cash on him. He had his father’s passport … And he had had multiple communication devices on him.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Seven SIM cards —
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Seven SIM cards and um —
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: — and the computer.
Pan was arrested for the murder of Kevin Jiang and brought back to Connecticut. He maintained his innocence, but a judge ordered him held on $20 million bond.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Huge relief …
His case was delayed by the pandemic, but investigators had amassed a trove of evidence.
Remember that license plate imprint on Kevin’s car? Police say it matched the plate on the bumper of the SUV Pan was driving when Kevin was rear ended.
And forensic tests revealed that Pan’s DNA was on the gun and ammo found outside Arby’s…and Kevin’s blood was also on Pan’s hat, and on the gear shift of the SUV pan was driving the night Kevin was murdered.
Anne-Marie Green: Was there anything missing?
Stacey Miranda: The murder weapon.
Turns out, the gun recovered at the Arby’s was not the gun that was used to kill Kevin.
“Who knows where that murder weapon ended up,” said Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Stacey Miranda.
But there was so much other evidence that Pan’s lawyer William Gerace recommended he cut a deal.
William Gerace: Overwhelming evidence. Overwhelming evidence.
Qinxuan Pan was charged with Kevin Jiang’s murder, accepted a plea deal, and was sentenced in April 2024 to serve 35 years in prison.
U.S. Marshals
On Feb. 29, 2024, three years after Kevin’s killing, Pan pleaded guilty to his murder in exchange for serving 35 years in prison without parole.
Stacey Miranda: … and had he not been stuck on the railroad tracks, this still might not be a solved case. We might not know who did this.
At his sentencing in April, Pan sat silently as Kevin’s loved ones and friends described their loss. By court order, the camera was fixed on him. Some of Kevin’s mother’s remarks were read by a family friend.
ESTHER: I was dreaming that Kevin will have a few beautiful children after getting married. … this beautiful and joyful dream is destroyed. I am left alone by myself. … I will never see Kevin smile again. (emotional)
Then Kevin’s mother decided to speak.
LINDA LIU: To charge the murderer, Pan, 35 years in prison is too short and too light …
Qinxuan Pan, who sat with his head bowed during sentencing, looks up in court when Zion Perry rose to address him.
CBS News
Pan never explained why he killed Kevin, but the only time he looked up was when Zion Perry rose to speak.
ZION PERRY: I wanted to address Pan specifically. … Although your sentence ifs far less than you deserve … there is also mercy. May God have mercy on you. And may he have mercy on all of us.
Then Pan briefly addressed the court.
QINXUAN PAN: Your honor, um, what I’m thinking about is my action and the horrible consequences. … I feel sorry for what my actions caused and for everyone affected … I fully accept my penalties.
JUDGE HARMON: Court is gonna impose the agreed upon sentence of 35 years.
Finally, Judge Harmon passed sentence, and Pan was led away in handcuffs.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you ever consider charging his parents?
Stacey Miranda: We couldn’t charge them … because we couldn’t prove that they knew when they picked him up that he was — had committed a murder.
Anne-Marie Green: So they might be lucky that they didn’t find themselves charged as well.
Stacey Miranda: 100%.
“48 Hours” reached out to Pan’s parents for comment but did not hear back.
Now Kevin’s friends are left to wonder what Kevin, a man of deep faith, might have thought about his killer.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you think Kevin would’ve forgiven Pan?
Nasya Hubbard: Yes … I do.
Capt. Jamila Ayeh: Without a doubt.
Nasya Hubbard: Yeah.
The officers visited Kevin’s grave after they spoke to “48 Hours.” Hubbard recalled her first time there when she says she felt Kevin’s presence.
“He gave me a lot of joy,” Linda Liu said of her son.
Kevin Jiang/Instagram
Anne-Marie Green: And did something happen?
Nasya Hubbard: It’s just like wind blew, you know? And I was —
Anne-Marie Green: Did you feel like it was him?
Nasya Hubbard: Um, I felt like it was definitely different, as if like a peace kind of like, I want you to carry on, don’t be — don’t be sad that I’m gone. … Just keep going.
Qinxuan Pan is scheduled to be released in 2056, when he is 65 years old.
Produced by Murray Weiss. Emma Steele is the field producer. Elena DiFiore, Marc Goldbaum and David Dow are the development producers. Gary Winter and George Baluzy are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
Two players in Connecticut have won big after buying winning tickets in the CT Lottery’s scratch-off games. One of them experienced a $4 million windfall, while the other took home $1 million.
A Change in Routine Resulted in a $4M Payday for a Lucky Man
A few days ago, the CT Lottery confirmed that a player from Tolland has won a life-changing seven-figure sum from one of its games. As it turned out, the man in question was on his way to a job site and had to take a different route due to a larger-than-expected trailer tow. As a result, the player had to refuel at a different station than his usual one, since the latter couldn’t accommodate his trailer.
The unexpected change in routine on that rainy Friday morning turned out to be fateful. While at the station, the man had a short wait, so he decided to try his luck at one of the lottery games sold there. This led him to purchase a $4,000,000 Fortune scratch-off ticket. Once he scratched it, he was shocked to learn that he had become the latest recipient of a top prize of $4 million.
I had a half hour to kill before we clocked in, so I scratched the ticket. It said $4,000,000 and I started shaking. I scanned the QR code and everything was legit. I just kept shaking… I couldn’t believe it. I was a millionaire.
CT Lottery winner
The winning ticket was purchased at Gulf Convenience Mart on Meriden-Waterbury Turnpike in Cheshire, which will receive a $40,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket. The store manager congratulated the player on his win, saying that she was thrilled that one of the station’s customers had won such a big prize.
In an interview with lottery officials, the man said that he plans to use the money to take a vacation and invest. After that, he plans to continue working as usual.
Player Who Forgot His Glasses Was Shocked to Hear How Much He’d Won
A few days later, the CT Lottery announced another winner of a top prize from a scratch-off ticket. This time, the player took $1 million from the lottery’s Best Chance to Be a Millionaire game.
Officials said that the winner was a man from Fairfield who described himself as a longtime fan of the lottery’s games. While the player opted to remain anonymous, he revealed that when he bought the ticket, he didn’t have his glasses on and couldn’t check whether he’d won. That’s why he asked the clerk to just scan the ticket and was shocked to learn that he had just won a million dollars.
Officials added that the winning ticket was sold at News Express on Tunxis Hill Road in Fairfield.
At least 45 people in nearly two dozen states have been sickened with salmonella food poisoning tied to a brand of “super greens” diet supplement powder, federal health officials said Wednesday.
Superfoods Inc., which makes Live it Up-brand Super Greens powder, recalled products including its original and wild berry flavors with expiration dates of August 2026 to January 2028. Consumers should not eat, sell or serve the products and should throw them away or return to the place of purchase.
lllnesses tied to the supplement were reported from Aug. 22 to Dec. 30, 2025. At least 12 people were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The products were distributed nationwide. Case have been reported in 21 states: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
An FDA investigation is continuing and additional products could be contaminated, the agency said.
Symptoms of salmonella poisoning usually start within hours or days of eating a contaminated food product. They include diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps. Most people recover without treatment within a week, but infections can be serious in children younger than 5, adults 65 and older and people with weakened immune systems.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
LOWELL — During separate meetings, both the School Committee and the Board of Health weighed in on suspected lead contamination at a worksite at Washington Elementary School, with the BOH requesting protocols on future projects.
At the Nov. 19 School Committee meeting, Superintendent of Schools Liam Skinner assured the body that the official report of in-depth testing, performed by Titan Lead Testing LLC on dust generated by recent repair work, showed that “there are no lead levels of concern in the school.”
“We’re pleased that the situation was mitigated in the way that it was,” Skinner said.
The school, which Skinner described as one of the district’s oldest buildings, was built in 1910.
According to previous Sun reporting, a section of the ceiling collapsed in the basement in early fall. But the cleanup of the debris and repair of the area by employees with the Department of Public Works spread dust throughout the building that is home to pre-K through grade 4 students and staff.
The school district uses the buildings, but almost all are owned by the city. The district is responsible for custodial services, like cleaning, while the city is responsible for repairs and improvements.
“It seems as though the area was wrapped in such a way that dust should not have escaped from the area where the construction was going on, but that was clearly not sufficient or didn’t work well,” Skinner said. “So, dust from the area did travel. It was quite remarkable to witness the extent to which dust could travel from the lower areas to the upper areas.”
An over-the-counter kit indicated that there might be lead in the dust, and the district ordered testing through Titan, as well as a thorough cleaning of the school over the weekend of Nov. 15-16.
Skinner said School Deputy Facilities Director John Leahy oversaw the weekend cleaning. The former School Committee member, District 3 – Belvidere city councilor and mayor owned and operated Leahy Painting for 25 of the 40 years that he was a professional painter. He gave up his private contracting business to take a position in the Facilities Department of Lowell Public Schools.
“John Leahy was quite familiar with lead paint and lead paint dust issues and knew the correct procedure for cleaning that,” Skinner told the committee. “He was able to be there and instruct people on the proper techniques and the proper equipment.”
School reopened that Monday.
The lead conversation was raised in the Board of Health meeting held Jan. 7 at City Hall. Unlike the School Committee meeting, the Titan report was attached to agenda packet and part of the public record.
Health and Human Services Director Lisa Golden said that although the school does have some lead paint in it, all the testing came back negative.
Titan referenced the issue of undisturbed lead, noting that when renovation, repair or painting activities are performed in premises identified as housing or child-occupied facilities, work must be done in accordance with the “RRP Rule” as described in the Code of Massachusetts Regulations, 454 CMR 22.00.
“Renovation and demolition activities that impact surfaces where lead may be present require specific work practices and disposal requirements,” said the report written by Master Inspector/Risk Assessor David Pesce, and addressed to DPW Commissioner Paul St. Cyr.
“These regulations require the use of trained workers and firms, including a certified Lead-Safe Renovation Supervisor, notification to occupants, occupant protections, posting of signs, use of containment, lead-safe work practices, cleaning requirements, and post-cleaning verification or clearance,” Pesce said.
The report recommended that an ongoing operations and maintenance plan should be developed in order to identify surfaces containing lead-based paint which may be disturbed by renovation and maintenance activities such as painting or repairs.
“This plan would outline procedures for testing surfaces, training of workers, worker protection, occupant protection, and post-work cleanup of work areas,” Pesce said.
Given the age of the building, state regulations and the Titan report, BOH member Kathleen Cullen-Lutter questioned what process was in place to address present or potential lead-based work.
“Maybe [Golden] can clarify with Mr. St. Cyr that there is a process if they were to disturb the lead that they would have that process in place,” Chair Jo-Ann Keegan said.
Environmental issues surrounding aging facilities in district buildings have dominated the city-school discourse. For years, the almost 60-year-old Pawtucketville Memorial Elementary School, located at 425 West Meadow Road, has had a proclivity for mold growth that has, at times, delayed the opening of the first day of classes.
In 2024, a “considerable” amount of asbestos was found in parts of the 1922 building that is under renovation during the $422 million Lowell High School renovation and rebuilding project. Construction dust was monitored during the project after high levels were found in adjacent classrooms.
More recently, the Sullivan Middle School experienced flooding when four heating coils froze in early December, flooding the school library.
Pesce’s report cautioned that not all surfaces were tested at the Washington School, suggesting that a protocol for future work would be warranted.
“Additional lead-containing building substrates and components may be present in other building areas or hidden by floor, wall and ceiling finishes or otherwise may be inaccessible,” his report said.
LOWELL — For U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, 2025 went about as she expected with the return of the Trump administration, which she thinks has been much like the first term, but with things moving much faster than before.
That expectation was set, she said, by documents like Project 2025, a 900-page document compiled by the Heritage Foundation outlining a blueprint for a dramatic shakeup of the U.S. government under the next conservative president, which ended up again being President Donald Trump.
“I think we were all sort of ready for a different cadence in this term, but it certainly started before the inauguration. We had a bipartisan package of health care bills, of all this legislation on its way to passage at the end of the year,” Trahan told The Sun Tuesday.
“Elon Musk basically in a tweet said ‘it’s way too complicated, legislation shouldn’t be this long,’ and he killed it.”
Despite the tumultuousness that followed in the federal government for the rest of 2025, Trahan once again closed out the year with a report from her office on what she sees as her biggest accomplishments of the year, even within a Congress she said took on “irrelevance” rather quickly.
Those highlights included the more than $200 million in federal funding for the long-awaited Rourke Bridge project in Lowell, her support for online privacy protections through the reintroduction of the DELETE Act and the fight to restore Affordable Care Act premiums that expired at the end of the year.
On Tuesday, Trahan sat down with The Sun to talk about her hopes for 2026, the upcoming midterm elections and what ways Democrats can counter President Trump with a slim minority in Congress.
Trahan remarked that she was shocked how quickly Congress was pushed to the side in 2025 as Trump issued a record number of executive orders, but expressed confidence Democrats can reassert that authority in the coming midterms in November.
“I think people want a check and balance on this administration, especially after living through this year, (having) Republicans in charge has really just meant chaos, it has meant higher prices, no checks on tariff policy, no checks on changes to children’s vaccine schedules, no checks on a potential war with Venezuela,” said Trahan. “The president has bombed seven countries since he has been in office and he ran on ending forever-wars (and not) getting the United States involved in foreign wars. People are tired, they are exhausted. They are really trying to make ends meet, trying to establish a better life for their families and themselves, and they are facing higher prices everywhere.”
Trahan noted her support for a war powers resolution which had yet to be taken up by the Senate and would prohibit the president from waging war in Venezuela. The bill has since been passed in the Senate 53-47, and has yet to be taken up in the House of Representatives. The Senate margin would not be enough to overcome a veto by Trump, which would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers.
Given the challenges her party faces in getting legislation through without control of any branch of government, Trahan said her aims in 2026 are centered around things like the stabilization of our local health care system after the Nashoba Valley Medical Center closure in 2024.
“No Plan B until the governor stepped in, working with UMass to come up with a path forward there, but there is anxiety in that region around not having a full community hospital operation,” said Trahan. “What the Big Beautiful Bill did … was really undermine and destabilize our entire hospital system. Without those Medicaid payments, we are absolutely going to see a loss of vital hospital services. We have already seen some of the less profitable services close … that is going to continue.”
On top of that, Trahan said, the Affordable Care Act premiums expired on Jan. 1, and her office has heard from constituents whose health insurance premiums have since risen to as high as an extra $11,000 a year.
“It is just incredible to see how beneficial those tax credits were for people, and how unaffordable it is without them,” said Trahan.
“When you have young, healthy people … who say ‘this is unaffordable for me, I am going to roll the dice,’ one: something catastrophic can happen to them and they are not even going to be able to afford the ambulance bill, never mind what it will take to treat them in the hospital,” said Trahan. “But two: it increases everybody’s premiums because then the insurance pool is older and sicker, people who can’t not have insurance.”
Trahan and the rest of the House Democrats got the support of nine Republicans to sign a discharge petition to force a vote on a clean three-year extension of the ACA tax credits. The subsequent vote passed the House 230-196 with 17 Republicans joining all Democrats to vote in favor. That bill faces a questionable future in the Senate as of Friday.
Trahan currently does not have an opponent for this year’s midterm elections, which would be the second straight election she goes uncontested if that remains true. While Trahan could have little to worry about her own seat, Democrats are currently facing a historic popularity crisis according to a number of polls over the past year.
“We have to reconcile a lot of polls. The institution that has the lowest approval rating is Congress, but there is a difference when you ask how people feel about their own congressperson,” said Trahan. “I have a lot of humility around the state of favorability for the Democrats.”
Despite the polling challenge, after the off-year 2025 elections across the country showed promising signs for Democrats, the party has expressed confidence it will take back seats from what is currently a very narrow Republican majority. Trahan said that can happen by the Democrats “making the case for a check and balance on this administration.”
“On any administration, but this administration in particular. Congress has to reassert their authority so the questions people have back home we are actually asking in the halls of Congress and committee rooms,” said Trahan.
Points of contention for voters who subscribe to Trump’s “America First” messaging might be the military’s intervention in foreign countries, Trahan said, or things like the $40 billion bailout given to Argentina.
“I think that is why you are seeing some disruption and questions in the Republican Party … My hope is that pressure people feel at home will start to come to Congress with them, and people will start surfacing those questions and having hearings, and forcing the president to not bypass Congress, but instead to work with us,” said Trahan.
Despite the division, Trahan said she has still been able to find common ground with her Republican colleagues on certain issues. She pointed to two bills, the reauthorization of the Creating Hope for Kids Act and there is the Accelerating Care for Kids Act, on which she has worked for four years with Republicans in the House and she feels confident will pass this year.
Just a bit into 2026, and closing in on one year since a new administration and new session of Congress, Trahan said the midterms come down to how “people don’t feel like they are better off right now.”
“People do feel betrayed … they thought [Trump] was going to make a concerted effort to bring their prices down. That is not happening. That is where Democrats know people expect the government to do something,” said Trahan.
Trahan and all but one member of the House voted in November in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a bill to compel the Department of Justice to release all documents related to the investigation into deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his clients. The DOJ had a Dec. 19 deadline to release the trove of documents, but those that were released by that time were heavily redacted, and the DOJ said there are millions more documents that needed to be processed for release.
Trahan said with the DOJ missing deadlines compelled by the law, the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees are “spending a lion’s share of their time just watching the DOJ and making sure they are following the letter of the law.”
“This was incredibly bipartisan, it was the result of victims coming to Washington and demanding that these files be released, which by the way, this president promised he would make transparent. It shouldn’t have even gotten to the point where that was forced upon his Department of Justice,” said Trahan.
One of the biggest changes of 2025, which is poised to continue to be a flashpoint in 2026, has been the federal policies surround immigration and its enforcement. Trahan’s office has been tracking 15 cases within her district where immigration enforcement agents have arrested immigrants who in some cases had legal status.
“We work with legal services … we work with [U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services] on where they are if they are in Burlington or if they have already gone to Maine, or in horrible cases to Louisiana or somewhere else,” said Trahan.
Another way her office helps is by advising all immigrants facing these issues to sign a privacy consent release form.
“It is just one of those things people would never know to ask for, but we can’t be helpful until that piece of paper has been signed, and there has been a lot of obstruction of a detainee getting that piece of paper, getting it signed and getting that communication to us, but once we have all that in place we can work on someone’s behalf in a myriad of ways,” said Trahan.
Growing up, Trahan said, her family only wanted was to know “that if we worked hard we could get ahead.”
“Right now that is not the reality,” said Trahan, calling health care and the high cost of living the biggest challenges facing Americans right now. “Families like the one I grew up in are really struggling … they are not seeing their government acknowledge they cannot afford health care coverage.”
Seven years into her congressional tenure, Trahan said she still sees the job similarly to what she expected going into her first term, which she credits to her decade of experience as a congressional staffer.
“I started in the second half of Trump’s first term. I am now going to serve, hopefully if I win my reelection, through another Trump term, and I think what has changed has been the abdication by the Republican majority’s authority to the president,” said Trahan. “In 2018 we were part of this blue wave that was part of the backlash of the first two years of President Trump being in office. I got to see a Congress that exerted its authority on a rogue presidency. I have also lived through this first year where we did not have that check and balance. That is really dangerous for our country.”
NEW YORK (AP) — New York‘s attorney general sued the Trump administration on Friday over its decision to halt two major offshore wind projects expected to power more than 1 million homes in the state.
State Attorney General Letitia James said in legal challenges filed in federal court in Washington that the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Dec. 22 order suspending construction on the projects off Long Island, citing national security concerns, was arbitrary and unwarranted.
The Democrat said Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind projects had already cleared more than a decade of security and safety reviews by federal, state and local authorities. She said pausing them now threatens New York’s economy and energy grid, and she asked the court to intervene.
“New Yorkers deserve clean, reliable energy, good-paying jobs, and a government that follows the law,” James said in a statement. “This reckless decision puts workers, families, and our climate goals at risk.”
Spokespersons for the Interior Department and its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which are both named in the litigation, declined to comment Friday, citing the pending litigation.
The Interior Department’s order last month suspended Sunrise Wind, Empire Wind and three other offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast. The department maintains that the movement of massive turbine blades can cause radar interference called “clutter” that can obscure legitimate moving targets and generate false ones.
Empire Wind is located about 14 miles (22.5 kilometers) southeast of Long Island and is projected to power more than 500,000 homes. Equinor, the Norwegian company developing the project, has said it’s about 60% complete.
Sunrise Wind is located about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of Montauk and is expected to power about 600,000 homes. Orsted, the Danish energy company developing the project, has said it’s roughly 45% complete.
James previously led a coalition of attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C., in challenging Trump’s executive order pausing approvals, permits and loans for all wind energy projects, both onshore and offshore.
Last month, a federal judge in Massachusetts sided with the attorneys general and vacated the Jan. 20, 2025, order. Days later, the Trump administration issued the stop-work order on the East Coast projects.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Four Northeast governors on Wednesday demanded a classified briefing from the Trump administration to understand the national security risks underlying the pause on offshore wind project leases.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee also called for the pause to be lifted immediately on the five offshore wind projects, including Vineyard Wind 1 off the coast of Nantucket.
“It strains credulity to believe that vital, substantial projects that underwent many federal reviews and processes, including by the DoD (Department of Defense), all of a sudden present new, existential, unforeseen threats,” the governors wrote in a letter to U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
The Department of Interior announced Monday that it was pausing all large-scale offshore wind leases immediately in response to “national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports.” The department said it would work with the Department of War and other government agencies to “assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects.”
In their requested briefing, the governors said they want a “clear description of the specific national security risks” and “[i]dentification of the particular project components, if any, alleged to give rise to those risks.”
The governors wrote that federal officials did not notify states about “any purportedly new risk” before the project suspensions.
“The sudden emergence of a new ‘national security threat’ appears to be less a legitimate, rational finding of fact and more a pretextual excuse to justify a predetermined outcome consistent with the President’s frequently stated personal opposition to offshore wind,” their letter says.
In its announcement, the Department of Interior pointed to national security risks that are “inherent” to large offshore wind projects and invoked unclassified federal government reports that “have long found that the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called ‘clutter.’”
The governors argued that, “If ‘clutter’ were such a grave threat, it might also apply to the thousands of oil rigs and other seaborne infrastructure in our coastal waters.” They also emphasized the projects have already been vetted by federal officials, including at the Department of Defense.
“The military had the opportunity to raise concerns and object. They did not, and further certified there was no threat to national security,” their letter says. “To claim a threat exists now, after billions of dollars have been invested in these projects and reviews fully completed, is the height of irrationality.”
Fifty iron workers lost their jobs just before the holidays due to the halted work on Vineyard Wind, Ironworkers Local 7 said Tuesday. The union said it is “thoroughly disgusted and furious” at the administration’s action.
“If we are serious about making energy more affordable and strengthening American industry, we need more energy projects of all types, not fewer,” the union said. “We call on the president to reverse this decision so our members can get back to work providing reliable, affordable power for Massachusetts.”
TEWKSBURY — The first consequences seem to be arriving for the remaining cities and towns out of compliance with the MBTA Communities law after Tewksbury Public Schools was informed it not be receiving certain state grant funding in fiscal 2026 as a result of the town’s noncompliance.
A little more than a dozen towns remain out of compliance with the MBTA Communities law, which compels 177 communities in eastern Massachusetts to create zoning that would allow the creation of multifamily housing by right.
Tewksbury is among the communities who remain out of compliance after Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly to reject the proposed zoning in town in 2024. An effort to bring the measure back to Town Meeting in 2025 was blocked by the Planning Board.
In the Dec. 17 Tewksbury School Committee meeting, Superintendent of Schools Brenda Theriault-Regan said the district was recently notified it was “currently ineligible for certain educational grant funding due to the town of Tewksbury’s noncompliance with the MBTA Communities Act.”
That funding includes an Early College planning grant for $50,000, an Early College designation funding grant for $250,000 over five years, a time-out practices implementation grant for $50,000, which Theriault-Regan said was meant to support the district with resources to help it comply with new Department of Elementary and Secondary Education regulations on “seclusion and restorative practices.”
“DESE also shared with us that Tewksbury Public Schools’ participation in current 2026 state-funded grants and future grants remains at risk until the town remediates this compliance issue,” said Theriault-Regan.
The superintendent referenced how earlier this month Gov. Maura Healey’s administration said Wachusett Regional High School and South Shore Vocational Technical “were mistakenly informed that they were not eligible for Credit for Life grant awards,” as reported by the Boston Herald. A spokesperson for the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation told The Herald the mistake had been corrected, and those districts were eligible for that grant.
“That was the only grant the article referenced, so we are very much concerned that our students could lose out on the programs and resources we depend on through grant funding, especially for factors outside the School Department’s control,” said Theriault-Regan. “But the article I referenced certainly gave us hope that maybe the state leaders and legislators will look at educational grant funding differently moving forward, aside from the MBTA Community Act compliance.”
Theriault-Regan said the district was committed to working with town and state officials to “see if we can resolve this barrier and secure essential resources for our students.”
In a phone call Tuesday, Tewksbury Select Board Chair Mark Kratman, a consistent critic of the MBTA Communities law, said there has been little communication from the state to the school district when it comes to grant funding eligibility.
“When the schools try to reach out, they are not getting a clear answer … When they are applying for grants, we are getting crickets,” said Kratman.
“Grants are nothing more than taxpayer dollars that have been given to the State House, and they are supposed to be fairly distributed to all the cities and towns,” Kratman continued. “We are sending our money there, and with that they are supposed to govern, they are not supposed to dictate.”
In Greater Lowell, Tewksbury is joined by Dracut and Wilmington in still being out of compliance with MBTA Communities. In addition to the loss in state grant funding, towns out of compliance with the law have been threatened with the imposition of a special master that would impose a version of the zoning without input from the town.
WASHINGTON, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Four Democratic governors wrote to U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday to ask the Trump administration to lift its halt on five offshore wind projects on the U.S. East Coast.
The Department of the Interior on Monday attributed its suspension of the leases for the projects to national security concerns.
However, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee rejected those claims, saying that the projects had already undergone extensive federal review, including an assessment that addressed national security considerations.
They said neither the Interior Department nor any other agency, including the Pentagon, informed their states about a new risk prior to the suspensions.
“The sudden emergence of a new ‘national security threat’ appears to be less a legitimate, rational finding of fact and more a pretextual excuse to justify a predetermined outcome consistent with the President’s frequently stated personal opposition to offshore wind,” the governors wrote.
The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suspension was the latest blow for offshore wind developers that have faced repeated disruptions to their multi-billion-dollar projects under U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he finds wind turbines ugly, costly and inefficient.
Agencies including the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency have been implementing a directive to suspend all new approvals needed for both onshore and offshore wind projects pending a review of leasing and permitting practices.
Earlier this month, a federal judge rejected the Trump administration’s halt to all federal approvals for new wind energy projects.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell)
As Clement Moore’s “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” tells it, families sleep soundly as Santa approaches.
As the new year nears, several election contests may prove just as quiet – until close results suddenly come into focus. Here are five potential sleeper races to watch in 2026:
1. MISSISSIPPI’S 2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, has not often had to worry about a general election challenge since he won a special election on April 13, 1993.
Predecessor Mike Espy, who recently unsuccessfully ran for Senate in a narrow runoff with Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., had resigned to accept President Bill Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of Agriculture.
Thompson’s closest race was that one – against Republican Hayes Dent – at 55% to 45%.
Since then, Thompson has never looked back, and instead made himself a nationally-recognized figure later in his tenure.
He chaired the House Select Committee on January 6, and recently went viral for calling the shooting of West Virginia National Guardsmen allegedly by an Afghan refugee an “unfortunate accident.”
Thompson’s district, spanning from Jackson west to Yazoo City and Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, is one of the poorest in the country – landing at 3rd out of 435 with a median income of $37,372, according to data published by the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio.
Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) speaks to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania on Monday, July 22, 2024.(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital )
Only Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., and Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y. preside over a poorer population.
Last week, an attorney and former counsel to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., mounted a surprise primary bid against Thompson.
Evan Turnage, 33, who has been alive just about the same time Thompson has been in Congress, made the idea of fighting the region’s persistent poverty paramount to his new campaign, according to Black Press USA.
“I’ve dedicated my life to leveling the playing field so people can not only get by, but get ahead, and raise a family right here,” Turnage said, according to the outlet.
On the Republican side, retired Army captain and Vicksburg cardiothoracic surgeon Ron Eller will fight an uphill battle to unseat the winner of the Thompson-Turnage bout.
2. CONNECTICUT’S 5TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Connecticut is another state that is typically not in political conversation as hosting nail-biter partisan elections.
During the Bush-Clinton years, however, the state was competitive if not outright Republican-favored.
Former Gov. John Rowland was the first in decades to be elected to more than two terms. He ended up resigning in 2004 amid the threat of impeachment over accusations contractors with the state were doing work on his vacation home.
After he resigned, his wife famously wrote a poem critical of the media’s coverage of Rowland’s case, based on Moore’s holiday favorite and called “A Lump of Coal for All the Reporters.” Rowland’s lieutenant, Gov. M. Jodi Rell, took over and was reelected once before retiring in 2010.
Since then, the state has been reliably Democratic – save for former Sen. Joe Lieberman changing his affiliation to independent.
In 2022, then-State Sen. George Logan – the first Black man elected to Hartford’s upper chamber — mounted a bid against Rep. Jahana Hayes and lost by less than one percentage point.
Jahana Hayes D-CT (left) and her 2024 GOP challenger George Logan (right)(Getty & AP )
Logan tried again in 2024, but lost by a slightly wider margin.
While Logan is not on the ballot at least yet for 2026, recent history shows Republicans could have an outside chance of ending Democrats’ full control of New England’s congressional delegation.
3. MARYLAND’S 6TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Republicans have wanted to win back Maryland’s sixth congressional district ever since partisan gerrymandering was blamed for booting 20-year incumbent Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., from office in 2012.
Bartlett, an eccentric conservative who later relocated to the West Virginia wilderness to live off-the-grid, is now 99, and was known for addressing various topics that were sometimes ignored but have received newfound attention at present, including warnings about the strength, reliability and hardening of the U.S. power grid.
Bartlett won his last campaign by 28 points but then lost by about 20 after the rural district encompassing the entire Maryland Panhandle was adjusted to incorporate the edges of densely-populated Washington, D.C. suburbs.
He was defeated in 2013 by then-Rep. John Delaney, a finance executive – before Delaney was replaced by Total Wine mogul David Trone, who has largely self-funded his campaigns to the tune of millions of dollars.
Trone won reelection before opting in 2024 to pursue retiring Sen. Benjamin Cardin’s, D-Md., seat – which was ultimately won by Democrat Angela Alsobrooks.
He announced this year that he would challenge Rep. April McClain-Delaney, D-Md., the wife of former Rep. John Delaney.
Meanwhile, former longtime state Del. Neil Parrott, R-Antietam, is mounting his fourth consecutive bid for the seat. McClain-Delaney beat Parrott 53-47 in 2024.
The closest that Republicans have gotten to taking back the seat since Bartlett was defeated came in 2014, when now-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino narrowly lost to Trone by about a point.
Bongino notably sought to nationalize the race, pulling in endorsements like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and rebuking Delaney as someone who could “write himself a check for a million dollars” if he needed to in order to win.
Del. Neil Parrott, left., former Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., right.(Tom Williams/Getty Images)
The future G-man suggested at the time he would rather knock on doors in far-flung communities like Oakland and Grantsville, where he said, “nobody seems to know who [John Delaney] is,” according to the Maryland Reporter.
Given newly-drawn, friendlier maps following litigation over O’Malley-era gerrymandering, Republicans may have a chance to surprise in a district in one of the most Democratic-majority states in the country.
4. NEBRASKA’S 2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
While not typically considered a swing state, or one that gets much attention in federal elections, Nebraska’s only urban-leaning district may decide the future of the House of Representatives if the overall contest is as close as it has been in recent years.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., one of few in his party who have publicly lambasted President Donald Trump, is retiring. The district – centered in Douglas and Saunders counties; including Omaha and Ashland – already has a slew of candidates on both sides hoping to take the moderate’s seat.
Omaha City Councilman Brinker Harding leads state Sen. Brett Lindstrom, R-Omaha, in fundraising, while on the Democratic side, at least five people, including congressional staffer James Leuschen and state Sen. John Cavanaugh, D-Omaha, have tossed their hats in the ring, according to the Nebraska Examiner.
Bacon, who hails from suburban Sarpy County, won his last race against former state Sen. Anthony Vargas, D-Omaha, by less than one percentage point.
After a recent wave of GOP losses in Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey, the district shapes up as a tough hold for Republicans in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide since Ben Nelson retired in 2012.
5. NEW MEXICO GUBERNATORIAL RACE
While Nebraska is a red state that doesn’t often garner national attention, on the blue ledger lies New Mexico.
Topographically and culturally similar to red neighbor Texas and formerly red neighbor Arizona on the other side, the Land of Enchantment is often one that enchants the observer that looks closer at its politics.
Notably, its mountainous border with Mexico has largely kept it out of politically-contentious Trump-wall debates focused on the flatter, desert and river boundaries of its neighbors.
US Capitol Building at sunset on January 30th, 2025 (Emma Woodhead/Fox News Digital)
While it lacks the urban population that is typical of most blue states like New York, California, New Jersey and Maryland, Republicans have been increasingly out of power there for years.
Former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., was the last such lawmaker to represent the state in the upper chamber.
He retired in 2008 and was replaced by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., whose surname is the Mountain West’s equivalent of Cuomo or Casey. The Interior Department headquarters is named after Udall’s father.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is term limited. While she was preceded by a Republican, Susana Martinez, her state has been trending more toward Democratic reliability otherwise.
Deb Haaland, a former New Mexico congresswoman who was also former President Joe Biden’s Interior Secretary, is the biggest name in the Democratic field, while Greggory Hull, the longtime mayor of Rio Rancho, is such for the GOP.
Rep. Gabe Vasquez held off a challenge from predecessor Yvette Herrell in the 2nd congressional district, which spans the southwestern part of the state including Alamogordo and Las Cruces, in what was seen as the GOP’s best chance to make inroads again in the border state.
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.
Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital.
Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to charles.creitz@fox.com.
