In USA, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead in Manhattan on 4 December by a masked man who pulled out his gun and fired at least three close-range shots. 50-year-old Brian Thompson soon passed away from his injuries. The incident has since captured people’s attention and has been a hot topic on social media.
Now, in another twist in the ongoing investigation, one Luigi Nicholas Mangione (26) was taken into custody by police in the US state of Pennsylvania on 9th December (Monday) following days of speculation and debate on the identity and motivation of the shooter. According to Commissioner Jessica Tisch of the New York Police Department (NYPD), Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, over 400 kilometre away from New York, after a staff member recognized the suspect from police images and informed the police. Officials from the New York Police Department reported that he is anticipated to be extradited to New York.
Authorities informed that Mangione was wearing a blue surgical mask and sat at a table, looking at a silver laptop. A criminal complaint disclosed that he “became quiet and started to shake” when questioned if he had lately visited New York. Tisch added that when Mangione was apprehended, he had several false identification documents with him, including a passport from the United States and one using the name Mark Rosario, which he had used to check into a hostel in New York City prior to the shooting.
He revealed his true name after being warned that lying about it would result in his arrest. “I clearly shouldn’t have” was his response to inquiries as to why he lied. Authorities mentioned that he also possessed a gun and a silencer, “both consistent with the weapon used in the murder.” Police believe the weapon to be a “ghost gun,” which is a handgun that is put together at home without a serial number and could have been produced with a 3D printer.
A loaded magazine containing six rounds of 9mm ammo were found when his backpack was searched. He was also carrying $10,000 in cash, including $2,000 in foreign currency, per the prosecution, but Mangione denied the figure in court. He initially provided his home address as Towson, Maryland and stated that he had been employed as an engineer until a year ago. Later, he maintained that he relocated regularly while giving an address in Honolulu. He claimed to be drug and alcohol-free and to have no criminal background.
Tish indicated that he had a “handwritten document” with him that details “both his motivation and mindset” for killing Thompson. Mangione was accused by authorities late Monday with murder, unlawful firearm possession, forgery and presenting a false identity to police. Homicide charges would be brought against him later. He was earlier considered a person of interest in the case and only faced gun charges without any charges for the murder.
Mangione was earlier caught trespassing a State Parks sign located at the Nuuanu Pali Lookout on 12th November 2023, in Honolulu, revealed a criminal affidavit. According to court documents, he was convicted and fined $100.
Message and motivation
The handwritten message and its contents have not been made public by the police. The words “These parasites had it coming” and “I do apologise for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done” were included in the note, per media, which cited anonymous law enforcement sources. Investigators unveiled the words “defend,” “deny” and “depose” were inscribed on shell casings recovered at the murder scene.
Many people have speculated that Mangione might have acted out of resentment at the US health insurance business by interpreting the remarks as a reference to strategies reportedly employed by the company to avoid paying claims to patients. An empathetic critique of Industrial Society and Its Future, widely known as the ‘Unabomber Manifesto’, published from what seems to be his Goodreads account offers further insight into his potential reasoning.
According to his review, Ted Kaczynski was a “extreme political revolutionary” who carried out a decades-long bombing campaign around the United States that left three people dead and twenty-three injured. It further read, “It’s easy to quickly and thoughtlessly write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.”
The review also labelled people who disagree with the idea that “violence is necessary to survive” when all other means of communication are ineffective as “cowards and predators.” Author Kurt Vonnegut’s quote, “America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves,” was also liked by the same Goodreads account.
a liked quote from (what seems to be) Luigi Mangione's Goodreads account pic.twitter.com/vUjGgWsFsa
— Jessica (Ka) Burbank (@JessicaLBurbank) December 9, 2024
New York Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny also informed that a three-page handwritten memo discovered in his possession indicated that he harbored “ill will towards corporate America.”
Background and origin
Luigi Mangione was born into an affluent family in Maryland, United States where he was named valedictorian of his high school class in 2016 after graduating from the Gilman School, a prestigious private school exclusively for males. He comes from the famous Baltimore family. His grandmother, Mary C. Mangione, is a philanthropist and his grandfather, Nicholas Mangione, is a well-known real estate developer in Baltimore.
He also had ties to San Francisco, California. Afterwards, he went to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science with a minor in mathematics from the Ivy League university in 2020. Mangione used to play assassins with a gang of Ivy League gamers. Some of the players in the game “Among Us” are secretly assigned to be killers in space, performing various tasks while attempting to keep other players from suspecting them. He reproduced the same in his life after the killing and took measures to try to avoid being noticed by authorities.
Nino Mangione, his cousin, is a Republican congressman in Maryland. He took to X (previously Twitter) share a post by the latter’s family who are “shocked and devastated over his arrest,” adding they cannot comment on the reports. “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved,” they further voiced.
A Statement From The Mangione Family Regarding Luigi Mangione pic.twitter.com/6E6E2CfgFv
— Nino Mangione (@NinoMangione42) December 10, 2024
Stanford University revealed that an individual with the same name worked as a head counselor for the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies program from May to September 2019. According to his LinkedIn profile, Mangione, who created a game app as a youngster, began working as a “data engineer” at TrueCar, a car-buying company, in November 2020 and left it in 2023, based on a spokesperson of the firm. Mangione’s X account stated that he lived in Hawaii and frequently shared posts on fitness, artificial intelligence and healthy living. His last known address was in Honolulu, Hawaii.
He recently reposted about American neuroscientist Andrew Huberman’s podcast episode about anxiety and depression as well as author Jonathan Haidt’s latest book, “The Anxious Generation.” Another repost complained about the void created by religion’s decrease in the West and the rise of progressive ideas like diversity, equity and inclusion in its stead. An X-ray of a person’s lower back with what looked like screws and plates implanted into it was included in the banner on his profile. Furthermore, additional reviews about health and back pain relief might be found on Mangione’s Goodreads account, such as Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery.
Interestingly, he enjoys a large following on social media. One person wrote in October that “nobody has heard from you in months” in a series of posts to his account on X which implied that friends had been repeatedly attempting to get in touch with him.
