A five-day manhunt for the shooter who killed an executive at the largest health care insurance company in the United States ended on Monday, after the suspect was spotted at a McDonald's, hundreds of kilometers from crime scene, police said.
Local authorities arrested Luigi Mangione, 26, after a customer recognized him as eating at the restaurant in Altoona, Pa., investigators announced Monday. Police said he was found carrying a gun matching the one used by the shooter who attacked Brian Thompson, 50, outside a New York hotel last week.
At a news conference Wednesday, New York Police Department officials outlined officers' efforts to apprehend Mangione, the circumstances surrounding the arrest and the next steps for eventual prosecution.
Late Monday, Manhattan prosecutors filed murder and other charges against Mangione, according to an online court docket. Mangione is facing several other charges in Pennsylvania, including whistling and carrying a firearm without a license. He will eventually be extradited to New York to face charges there as well, police said.
Here's what we know so far.
What do police say Mangione had on him?
Mangione was found with a ghost gun — a homemade, nearly untraceable weapon — and a suppressor. He also had several fake pieces of identification similar to those believed to be used by the killer, officials said, as well as similar clothing.
One of those fake IDs was the same New Jersey ID the gunman used to enter a New York hostel before the shooting.
Authorities also found a handwritten, three-page document they said spoke to Mangione's “motivation and mindset.” Detective Chief Joseph Kenny later said it was clear from the document that Mangione had “some ill will toward corporate America,” but did not describe what was written.
Mangione also had a U.S. passport, but investigators don't believe he had any plans to leave the country. Ken said he had no criminal record.
Police said investigators are still combing through his online accounts for evidence. Kenny said they watched thousands of hours of video and reviewed hundreds of tips over the past five days, using drones, K-9 teams, scuba divers, flying canvas and work door to door to find the suspect.
The suspect was difficult to identify because he was hidden in surveillance footage. Police released a pair of photos from the back of a taxi on Saturday showing more of his upper face.
What do we know about Mangione?
Kenny said Mangione was born and raised in Maryland. He is from a prominent family in the state; one of his cousins is Nino Mangione, a Republican Maryland state legislator.
Mangione attended high school at the all-boys Gilman School in Baltimore, where he was valedictorian in 2016.
Statement posted to Facebook by Nino Mangione that the Mangione family was shocked by Luigi's arrest and offered prayers to the Thompson family.
“We ask people to pray for everyone involved,” the statement said.
The family could not comment on news reports, the statement said, and only knew what they had read in the media.
“We are disappointed by this news,” the statement said.
One of his classmates at Gilman School, Freddie Leatherbury, called him a skilled, friendly and athletic student, who came from a wealthy family, even by private school standards.
“He doesn't seem like the type of guy who would do this based on everything I knew about him in high school,” Leatherbury told The Associated Press. He hasn't spoken to Mangione since they graduated. .
Mangione has bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a data engineer, according to Kenny. He also had ties to San Francisco and was recently listed with an address in Honolulu, Hawaii.
An account that looked like Mangione posted an online review of Ted Kaczynski's manifesto to the book review site Goodreads in January.
Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, planted bombs that killed three people and injured nearly two dozen more before his arrest in 1996. In his manifesto, he blamed business for destroying the natural environment. He was sentenced to life in prison and died last year.
In a Goodreads review, Mangione described the manifesto as revolutionary.
“When all other forms of communication fail, violence is needed to survive,” the post read. “Violence has never solved anything” is a statement that cowards and predators speak.
A Reddit user later claimed credit for the quote, saying it was copied from their own Reddit post on the Kaczynski document.
Mangione's Goodreads account has since been set to private.
Online accounts similar to Mangione's were flooded Monday with condolences and praise from users. The latest post on the Instagram account was filled with comments for the police to release the “king” or the “GOAT” – the acronym for “greatest of all time”.
Who was Brian Thomson?
Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the insurance arm of UnitedHealth Group which has about 50 million American customers. The unit saw US$281.4 billion in revenue in 2023, nearly double that of the next largest US health insurer.
Americans consistently pay more for health care than people in any other country.
Widespread rage at the state of the trillion-dollar industry found an unexpected outlet in Thompson's death in recent days.
The CEO was fatally shot from behind on December 4 just before 6:45 a.m. ET in front of the New York Hilton Midtown, where he had been attending an investor conference.
Brian Thompson, the CEO of a major American health insurance group, was shot and killed on a sidewalk in New York City in what police are calling a 'brazen, targeted attack'. His masked killer escaped on an electric Citi bike and is still at large.
A Facebook post from UnitedHealth Group mourning Thompson's death was met with tens of thousands of user comments – most of them smiling emojis. Some wrote cutting articles indicating that the US$10,000 reward for information on Thompson's killer was less than the annual insurance deductible, while others discouraged those with information about the person's whereabouts. -shoot from calling the police.
In a statement Monday, a UnitedHealth Group spokeswoman told the AP that the company hoped “today's awareness will bring some relief to Brian's family, friends, colleagues and many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy of victory.”
“We thank law enforcement and will continue to work with them on this investigation. We ask everyone to respect their family's privacy while mourn.”
