Photo: Luigi Mangione/Instagram
This is a developing story.
A portrait of the man accused of gunning down a health-insurance executive in Manhattan, drawing sympathy from the public, started to take shape in the hours after authorities say they arrested Luigi Mangione in connection with last week’s targeted killing.
Mangione, 26, is being held on weapons charges in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he was apprehended by police following a tip that a suspicious man matched the identity of the gunman who shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson to death 300 miles away. Mangione has not been charged with Thompson’s murder, but at a press conference announcing the arrest, Mayor Eric Adams said that “we have a strong person of interest” in the crime following a five-day manhunt.
A handwritten document described as a manifesto was recovered alongside a “ghost gun,” silencer, and fake IDs that officials say ties him to the murder. “I don’t want to cause any trauma, but it had to be done,” the document stated, according to CNN. When police proceeded the scene of Thompson’s murder, they found “delay” and “deny” scrawled on shell casings — terms often used by insurance companies when they deny patients’ claims. It was an early clue that Thompson, 50, was purposely killed in a potential act of vengeance against the nation’s largest insurer. The anger at the insurance industry was shared by a huge swath of the public, which reacted with sympathy for the killer, sometimes slipping into glee for the heinous crime.
