Who is Luigi Mangione, the suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO’s murder?

In an ostensible assassination that has captured the imagination of the public, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead last week by a masked gunman outside a New York City hotel.

The suspect draws his weapon and fires at least three shots at close range on the incident in early December 4 on surveillance footage. The 50-year-old CEO drops to the floor in the video, later dying from his wounds.

Police in the US state of Pennsylvania arrested 26-year-old Luigi Nicholas Mangione on Monday following days of rumors about his motives and identity.

Here’s what we know about the man named as a “strong person of interest” in the fatal shooting.

Arrest

New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a worker recognised the suspect from police photos and alerted authorities.

Authorities claim Mangione was discovered wearing a blue medical mask while staring at a silver laptop from a table.

When asked if he had been to New York recently, Mangione “became quiet and started to shake”, according to a criminal complaint.

Prior to the shooting, Mangione was reportedly using a fake ID, including one containing the name Mark Rosario, to check into a hostel in New York City.

According to the police, Mangione also had a gun and a silencer, both of which were “congruent with the weapon used in the murder.”

Police suspect the weapon to be a “ghost gun” – one assembled at home without a serial number, possibly made using a 3D printer.

Tisch said Mangione was carrying a “handwritten document” which outlines “both his motivation and mindset” for Thompson’s murder.

Authorities charged Mangione with murder, forgery, and giving false identification to police late on Monday.

Motivation

The police have not provided any information about the contents of that handwritten note in public.

US media, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, reported that the note contained the lines, “These parasites had it coming” and “I do apologise for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done”.

Investigators said last week the words “defend”, “deny” and “depose” were written on the casings of bullets found at the scene of the murder.

Many people believe Mangione may have acted in anger against the industry by nodding off to strategies allegedly employed by US health insurance companies to avoid paying patients’ claims.

A sympathetic review of Industrial Society and Its Future, also known as the Unabomber Manifesto, which appears to be Mangione’s account on the website Goodreads, can be found alongside his possible global impact.

Ted Kaczynski, who was to blame for a string of bombings that have claimed three lives and injured 23 others in the US for decades, is described as an “extreme political revolutionary” in the review.

To avoid some of the uncomfortable issues it addresses, it’s simple and reasonless to label this as a lunatic’s manifesto. However, “how prescient many of his predictions about contemporary society turned out to be impossible to ignore,” the review claims.

When all other forms of communication fail, “violence is necessary to survive,” according to the review, calling those who disagree with this definition “cowards and predators.”

The author Kurt Vonnegut’s quote, “America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are primarily 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

Background

Mangione was born into a wealthy family in the US state of Maryland, where he graduated from an elite all-boys private institution, the Gilman School, as high school valedictorian in 2016.

Mangione then attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating from the Ivy League school in 2020 with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science and a minor in mathematics.

A person by the same name, who works as the school’s head counsellor in the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies program, was employed by Stanford University between May and September of 2019.

Mangione, who developed a game app as a teenager, worked as a “data engineer” at a vehicle shopping firm called TrueCar from November 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. He hasn’t worked there since 2023, according to a TrueCar representative.

According to his X account, Mangione frequently posted about technological advancements like artificial intelligence, exercise, and other healthy living.

An X-ray of a person’s lower back with what appears to be plates and screws was displayed on his profile.

Source: Aljazeera