From playing killer in a video game to items found in his backpack upon arrest that he says were planted, here’s what we know about Luigi Mangione
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After a manhunt that spanned two states, a suspect has been charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was fatally shot last week in New York City.
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In the early hours of Dec. 4, Thompson was on his way to a conference at a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan when he was approached by a suspect who was “lying in wait,” New York Police Department said at a press conference. Items left at the scene such as bullet casings inscribed with the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” ABC News reported, and the possible use of a silencer on the suspect’s weapon led police to deem the killing a “targeted attack.”
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A photo of the suspect was released as police traced his whereabouts leading up to the murder using video surveillance footage from around the city.
The manhunt came to an end on Monday, less than a week after Thompson was killed, when police arrested a 26-year-old man identified as Luigi Mangione.
Police were called to a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania after an employee recognized the suspect from photos released by authorities. “Altoona Police Officers were dispatched to a McDonald’s Restaurant for reports of a male matching the description of the United Healthcare CEO murder suspect,” according to the department’s Facebook page. “Officers made contact with the male who was subsequently arrested on unrelated charges.”
Mangione was charged with forgery and false identification to law enforcement, according to court documents, the Associated Press reported. The documents also said Mangione was carrying a backpack with a 3D-printed pistol and 3D-printed black silencer.
He was later charged with one count of second-degree murder, two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of second-degree possession of a forged document, and one count of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, CNN reported.
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Who is Luigi Mangione?
After his arrest, more information about the suspected gunman is emerging online. According to a LinkedIn profile of a man with the same name, Mangione received his high school diploma in 2016 and was valedictorian. He went on to study at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2020 with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Science in Engineering (BSE), Computer and Information Science.
His most recent place of work on LinkedIn was as a data engineer at TrueCar, Inc, a tech company based in Santa Monica, California. However, Mangione’s location on LinkedIn was listed as Honolulu, Hawaii. He was previously a teaching assistant at Stanford University and at the University of Pennsylvania, per his LinkedIn page. He was also the founder of the University of Pennsylvania’s first video game development club.
He reportedly comes from a “prominent” real estate family from Maryland, according to the New York Post, but lost touch with them weeks ago after getting back surgery. His mother reported him missing on Nov. 18. Police said his last known address was in Honolulu.
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Last year, he was fined $100 for not abiding by the rules at Nuuanu Pali Lookout, a scenic Hawaiian landmark, CNN reported.
One of Mangione’s roommates from Honolulu told CNN he was “beyond shocked” to learn of the arrest.
R.J. Martin lived with Mangione in a co-living and co-working community.
“He was a very thoughtful person. Communicated really well, was friendly, had good relationships with everyone. He was even, in some ways, a bit of a leader,” Martin said. “When I first interviewed him, before he moved in, I remember he said he had a back issue, and he was hoping to get stronger in Hawaii.”
Mangione told Martin about getting surgery, Martin said, and that he had screws in his back.
The background photo of an X profile of a person with the same name as Mangione shows an X-ray image of what appears to be four pins in someone’s lower back.
Martin said that Mangione showed him X-rays that looked “heinous.” Martin added that Mangione never spoke about guns and “was absolutely a not violent person, as far as I could tell.”
Although his X account remains online, Meta removed Mangione’s Instagram and Facebook accounts, according to finance news site Benzinga.
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‘Not sure if it was planted’
In court on Monday night after his arrest, Mangione — who prosecutors said had US$8,000 in cash in his backpack and $2,000 in foreign currency — insinuated it was planted. Prosecutors said that he used a Faraday backpack that could block cellphone signals. They used these points to explain why Mangione was a sophisticated criminal who should be held without bail.
“I don’t know where that money came from,” Mangione said, according to CNN reporter Danny Freeman, who was in the courtroom. “I’m not sure if it was planted.”
He also said that his “bag was waterproof” and he didn’t “know about criminal sophistication.”
Freeman described Mangione as “visibly distressed.”
Mangione will likely be extradited to New York to face charges, Bloomberg reported.
‘Ironic’: Mangione played killer in video game
A fellow University of Pennsylvania student told NBC News that the suspected gunman enjoyed playing a video game called “Among Us.”
“Crewmates can win by completing all tasks or discovering and voting the impostor off the ship. The Impostor can use sabotage to cause chaos, making for easier kills and better alibis,” according to the game’s Google Play profile.
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“I just found it extremely ironic that, you know, we were in this game and there could actually be a true killer among us,” said former University of Pennsylvania student Alejandro Romero.
To Romero, Mangione “seemed like any other normal frat dude that you could see at a frat party.” Romero said he has not seen or spoken to Mangione since 2020, when students were sent away from campus due to COVID-19.
The two previously were part of the same group on Discord, an instant messaging platform.
A profile on Goodreads, an online community dedicated to books and reading, that is believed to belong to Mangione shows his interests through his reading history. He reviewed the Unabomber Manifesto by Ted Kaczynski, according to NBC News. Kaczynski mailed and hand-delivered bombs across the United States over a period of almost 20 years.
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