The person of interest in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killing has been identified as a 26-year-old computer whiz who graduated as valedictorian from his Maryland prep school.
Luigi Mangione, of Towson, Md., was carrying a weapon similar to the one used in the fatal shooting of Thompson when he was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania on Monday, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters.
“At this time, he is believed to be our person of interest in the brazen, targeted murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, last Wednesday in midtown Manhattan,” Tisch said at a press conference Monday.
The break in the case came from a Pennsylvania McDonald’s employee, who noticed as Magione was “sitting there eating” that he resembled the suspect seen on the New York Police Department’s wanted posters, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
He had identification with his name on it, as well as a fake I.D., when he was taken in for questioning, law enforcement sources told the New York Times.
Luigi Mangione was carrying identification with his name on it when he was taken into custody at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. / Luigi Mangione/Facebook
He also had a “manifesto” on his person, law enforcement sources told the New York Times. The cache of documents criticized health care companies for putting profits above care.
“We don’t think there’s any specific threats to other people mentioned in that document, but it does seem that he has some ill will towards corporate America,” Kenny said.
Mangione, who is one of six kids, graduated as valedictorian from the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he played soccer, according to the New York Post. Upon graduating, he said he intended to study artificial intelligence at the University of Pennsylvania.
Social media accounts believed to belong to Mangione paint him as an anti-capitalist who liked online quotes from “Unabomber’’ Ted Kaczynski that blasted the medical community.
Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that he subscribed to anti-capitalist and climate-change causes online, as well as raged against the state of healthcare in the U.S.
Mangione had a
Police have been hunting since Wednesday for the man who executed 50-year-old Thompson as he was heading to an investors’ meeting at the New York Hilton in Manhattan.
The executive was transported six blocks away to Mount Sinai West hospital and pronounced dead just as the conference was getting underway at 8 a.m.
Leading up to the shooting, the suspect seemed to be “lying in wait” for Thompson, with several witnesses spotting a man matching Magione’s description on the premises around 6 a.m.
Thompson’s wife Paulette told NBC News that her husband had received several recent threats.
“Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details,” she said. “I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”
