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After UnitedHealthcare CEO was shot dead on a New York on the sidewalk, police searched for the masked attacker with dogs, drones and divers. Officers used the city’s muscle-surveillance system. Investigators analyzed DNA samples, fingerprints and Internet addresses. The police went door to door looking for witnesses.
When the arrests were made five days later, those extensive investigative efforts were credited to the instincts of an alert civilian. A McDonald’s customer in Pennsylvania spotted another patron who looked like the man in the slanted security camera photos released by the NYPD.
Luigi Nicholas Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family, was arrested Monday in the killing Brian Thompsonwho headed one of the largest medical insurance companies in the United States.
He remained in a Pennsylvania prison, where he was originally charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. By late evening, Manhattan prosecutors had added the murder charge, according to online court records. He is expected to be extradited to New York eventually.
It’s unclear if Mangione has an attorney available to comment on the allegations. Asked at Monday’s arraignment whether he needed a public defender, Mangione asked if he could “answer that in the future.”
Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a McDonald’s customer recognized him and alerted an employee, authorities said. Police in Altoona, about 233 miles (375 kilometers) west of New York, were soon called.
They arrived to find Mangione sitting at a table in the back of the restaurant, wearing a blue medical mask and looking at a laptop, according to a Pennsylvania State Police criminal complaint.
He initially gave them a fake ID, but when the officer asked Mangione if he had been to New York recently, he “became quiet and started shaking,” according to the complaint.
When he took off his mask at the officers’ request, “we knew it was our guy,” rookie police officer Tyler Frye said at a news conference in Hollidayburg.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference in Manhattan that Mangione was carrying a gun like the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the shooter used to check into a New York hostel, along with a passport and other fake identification.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione also has a three-page, handwritten document that shows “some ill will toward corporate America.”
A law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said the document included a sentence in which Mangione claimed he acted alone.
“For the feds, I’ll be brief, because I respect what you do for our country. To save you a long investigation, I clearly state that I did not work with anyone,” the document states, according to the official.
It also had a line that read, “I’m sorry for the fight or the trauma, but it had to be done. Honestly, these parasites just made it happen.”
Pennsylvania State Attorney Peter Weeks said in court that Mangione was found with a passport and $10,000 in cash, $2,000 of which was in foreign currency. Mangione disputed the amount.
Thompson, 50, was shot and killed last Wednesday as he walked alone to a midtown Manhattan hotel for an investor conference. Police quickly came to see the shooting as a targeted attack by a gunman who appeared to be waiting for Thompson, came up behind him and fired a 9mm handgun.
Investigators said the ammunition found near Thompson’s body had “deposit,” “reject” and “reject” written on it. The words mimic a phrase used to criticize the insurance industry.
Based on surveillance footage, New York investigators concluded that the gunman fled on a bicycle into Central Park, emerged, and then took a taxi to a bus stop in northern Manhattan.
Once in Pennsylvania, he left Philadelphia for Pittsburgh, “trying to keep a low profile” by avoiding cameras, said Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens.
The grandson of a wealthy, self-made real estate developer and philanthropist, Mangione is a cousin of a current Maryland state legislator. Mangione was the valedictorian at his elite prep school in Baltimore, where in his 2016 graduation speech he praised the “incredible courage of his peers to explore the unknown and try new things.”
He went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 at the University of Pennsylvania, the spokesman said.
“Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” Mangione’s family said in a statement released on social media late Monday by his cousin, Maryland Rep. Nino Mangione. “We send our prayers to Brian Thompson’s family and ask people to pray for everyone involved.”
Luigi Nicholas Mangione worked for car-buying website TrueCar for a while and left in 2023, CEO Jantoon Reigersman said via email.
From January to June 2022, Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a “co-living” space on the edge of Honolulu’s tourist mecca of Waikiki.
Like other residents of the shared penthouse that caters to remote workers, Mangione underwent a background check, said Josiah Ryan, a spokesman for owner and founder RJ Martin.
“Luigi was just considered a great guy. There were no complaints,” Ryan said. “There were no signs that would point to these alleged crimes that they say he committed.”
At Surfbreak, Martin learned that Mangione had severe back pain since childhood that interfered with many aspects of his life, from surfing to romance, Ryan said.
“He went surfing with RJ once, but it didn’t work out because of his back,” Ryan said, but noted that Mangione and Martin often went to the climbing gym together.
Mangione left Surfbreak to operate on land, Ryan said, then later returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment.
Martin stopped hearing from Mangione six months to a year ago.
Although the gunman covered his face during the shooting, he left a trail of evidence in New York, including a backpack he left in Central Park, a cell phone found in a pedestrian plaza, a water bottle and a protein bar wrapper.
In the days after the shooting, the NYPD collected hundreds of hours of surveillance video and released more clips and photos in hopes of drawing the public’s attention to help find the suspect.
“This combination of old-school detective work and new-age technology is what led to this result today,” Tisch said at a news conference in New York.
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Scolforo reported from Altoona and Hollidayburg, Pennsylvania. Associated Press writers Cedar Attanasio and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed; Michael Rubinkam and Maryclaire Dale in Pennsylvania; Lea Skene in Baltimore and Jennifer Cinco Kelleher in Honolulu.