After his arrest, the Manhattan CEO killer took over social media overnight.
What is known so far about Luigi Mangione (26), the main suspect in the murder of Brian Thompson (CEO of United Healthcare): The CEO-killer comes from a wealthy and influential family in Baltimore, Maryland, and has an impressive academic career – according to After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, he worked as a data engineer at TrueCar. Friends and colleagues described Mangione as “normal,” “considerate” and “intelligent,” according to reports from ABC, CNN and BBC.
It is now known that Mangione is struggling with severe back pain. A former roommate and work colleague was allowed to take a look at his X-rays: “It looked hideous, with huge screws in his spine.” Mangione had tried to surf in Hawaii, but was unsuccessful and had to spend a week in bed. Frustration set in as the chronic pain caused him to take strong painkillers. These, together with depressive moods, are likely to have gradually had a negative impact on his psyche. There were also specially engraved balls on which the terms “deny”, “defend” and “depose” were engraved, which are said to have a medical background.
Mangione's social media activity, however, provides more information about his radical side: there he praised, among other things, the manifesto of the notorious Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski. All in all, Mangione received little attention on social networks – but that suddenly changed after his arrest.
From killer to social media star
Almost overnight, interest in Mangione's online profiles flared dramatically until Meta deleted his accounts on Instagram and Facebook. And the number of X followers also rose to over 64,000 within a short period of time, while his old posts received millions of views and received countless comments.
© X/tmz
Particularly disturbing: Many of the comments included messages of appreciation, like one fan who thanked Mangione for “sacrificing himself for the good of society.” He and others are calling for the CEO killer's immediate release. A GoFundMe fund campaign for Mangione's defense has even been launched.
© gofundme
The media's veneration of murderers is shocking, but by no means new. The Austrian woman murderer Jack Unterweger was once publicly celebrated by giving interviews on TV shows and magazines as a reformed killer, and he was even present at celebrity parties. The same topic is also dealt with in the 1994 film Natural Born Killers, in which a couple is accompanied by journalists on their killing spree.
