On Monday, US police arrested Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the main suspect in the recent murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, one of the world's largest insurers. After a race against time in recent days, law enforcement identified and apprehended Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old who was found with a silenced weapon, fake IDs, and a handwritten three-page manifesto criticizing healthcare companies.
An employee at the restaurant identified him from security camera images distributed after Thompson's execution, where he was shot multiple times in the back last week outside a New York hotel early in the morning. Mangione, who has not been formally charged yet as the investigation is ongoing to determine if he acted alone or had accomplices, identified himself to the police using the same fake New Jersey ID used by the person who checked into a motel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on November 24, as explained by investigators to the media. It is believed that he arrived in Pennsylvania, over 300 kilometers away, by bus, the same mode of transportation used to enter New York the day before the shooting.
He was also found with the weapon believed to have been used in the attack, known as a ghost gun, assembled from parts purchased online, often made with 3D printers. This explains why he had to reload after each shot, as seen in the video of the murder. Over the weekend, the police released two new images of the suspect, including one of him in a taxi on the day of the shooting, with his face covered by a surgical mask. Additionally, the police found a backpack full of Monopoly money in Central Park, believed to be the one carried by the killer and possibly discarded while fleeing on a public bicycle.
Investigators believe he spent 10 days in New York and confirmed that the bullet casings used in the murder had the words "depose," "deny," and "delay" written on them, referencing arguments used by insurers to avoid paying their clients' claims, reminiscent of a famous book denouncing predatory practices in the industry.
Attention is now focused on the handwritten manifesto, described as a scathing critique of healthcare companies and insurers for prioritizing profits over citizens' health. Initial investigations suggest more ideological than personal motivations against major insurers.
Mangione comes from a wealthy and well-known family in Maryland. His Italian immigrant grandfather amassed a fortune, and his heirs own significant real estate properties. The suspect attended a private school costing nearly $40,000 a year during high school. During those years, he volunteered at a rehabilitation clinic within the family's empire.
During a briefing, Detective Joseph Kenny explained that Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, with ties to San Francisco, and recently lived in Hawaii. He has no known criminal record, at least not in New York. It is known that he attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a bachelor's and master's degree in engineering, with a particular interest in the world of video games. He had profiles on platforms like Steam and co-founded UPGRADE, the first video game development club at the University of Pennsylvania.
Political Admiration for Unabomber
According to his LinkedIn profile, upon graduating, he worked for various technology companies, video game companies, and startups. His online presence shows accounts on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and profiles on Goodreads, where he commented on videos. His recent history is eclectic, ranging from fascination with figures like Jonathan Haidt or Peter Thiel to the more unsettling: Unabomber.
In early 2024, a Luigi Mangione who appears to be the same suspect read the work of Ted Kaczynski, the mathematician better known as Unabomber for the bombs he used to terrorize and kill people across the US before his 1996 arrest. And he liked it. "It is easy to quickly dismiss it as the manifesto of a lunatic to avoid confronting some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it is simply impossible to ignore how prophetic many of his predictions about modern society turned out to be," Mangione wrote about the manifesto that the press had to publish in 1995 out of fear of more attacks. "He was a violent individual, rightfully imprisoned, who mutilated innocent people. Although these actions are often characterized as those of a crazy Luddite, it is more accurate to see them as those of an extreme political revolutionary," he added in the positive review of the text.