ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) — After the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot on a New York City sidewalk, police used dogs, drones and divers to search for the masked gunman. Officers took advantage of the city's powerful surveillance system. Investigators analyzed DNA samples, fingerprints and internet addresses. The police went door to door looking for witnesses.
When an arrest was made five days later, these extensive investigative efforts demonstrated the instincts of a vigilant civilian. A customer at a McDonald's restaurant in Pennsylvania noticed another customer who resembled the man in the slanted security camera photos released by the New York Police Department.
Luigi Nicholas Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family, was arrested Monday in the killing of Brian Thompson, the head of one of the nation's largest health insurance companies.
He remained incarcerated in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and presenting false identification to police. According to an online court file, prosecutors in Manhattan filed the murder charge late in the evening. He is expected to be extradited to New York at some point.
It is unclear whether Mangione has an attorney who can comment on the allegations. When asked at Monday's arraignment whether he needed a public defender, Mangione asked if he could “answer that question at a later date.”
Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after the McDonald's customer recognized him and notified an employee, authorities said. Police in Altoona, about 230 miles west of New York City, were soon called.
When they arrived, they found Mangione sitting at a table in the back of the restaurant, wearing a blue medical mask and looking at a laptop, a Pennsylvania police criminal complaint states.
He initially gave them a fake ID, but when an officer asked Mangione if he had recently been to New York, “he became quiet and began shaking,” the complaint says.
When he pulled down his mask at the officers' request, “we knew that was our guy,” freshman Tyler Frye said at a news conference in Hollidaysburg.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference in Manhattan that Mangione was carrying a weapon like the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the shooter had used to check into a New York hostel, as well as a passport and other fake IDs.
Joseph Kenny, chief of NYPD detectives, said Mangione also had a three-page, handwritten document that showed “some antipathy toward corporate America.”
A police 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 line in which Mangione claimed to have acted alone.
“To the Feds: I’ll be brief because I respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state clearly that I have not worked with anyone,” the document said, the official said.
There was also a line that said, “I apologize for any disruption or trauma, but it had to be done.” Honestly, these parasites just had it.”
Pennsylvania Attorney General Peter Weeks said in court that Mangione was found with a passport and $10,000 in cash, including $2,000 in foreign currency. Mangione disputed the amount.
Thompson, 50, was killed Wednesday as he walked alone to an investor conference at a midtown Manhattan hotel. Police quickly realized the shooting was a targeted attack by a gunman who appeared to wait for Thompson, stood behind him and fired a 9mm pistol.
Investigators said ammunition found near the body of Thompson, head of the largest subsidiary of Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group, had “delay,” “deny” and “depose” written on it. The words mimic “delay, deny, defend,” a phrase used to criticize the insurance industry.
New York investigators showed from surveillance videos that the shooter fled on a bicycle to Central Park, came out and then took a taxi to a bus station in northern Manhattan.
Once in Pennsylvania, he traveled from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and “tried to keep a low profile” by avoiding cameras, said Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police. Altoona is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh.
Mangione is the grandson of a wealthy, self-employed real estate developer and philanthropist and a cousin of a current Maryland state legislator. Mangione was valedictorian at his elite preparatory school in Baltimore, where in his 2016 commencement speech he praised his classmates' “incredible courage to explore the unknown and try new things.”
He then earned bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020, a spokesman said.
“Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” Mangione’s family said in a statement posted on social media by his cousin, Rep. Nino Mangione of Maryland, late Monday. “We are praying for Brian Thompson’s family and asking people to pray for everyone involved.”
Luigi Nicholas Mangione worked for car-buying website TrueCar for a time and left the company in 2023, CEO Jantoon Reigersman said via email.
From January to June 2022, Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a “co-living” area on the edge of touristy Waikiki in Honolulu.
Like other residents of the shared penthouse that houses remote workers, Mangione underwent a background check, said Josiah Ryan, a spokesman for owner and founder RJ Martin.
“Luigi was generally considered a great guy. There were no complaints,” Ryan said. “There were no signs pointing to the alleged crimes he was alleged to have committed.”
At Surfbreak, Martin learned that Mangione had had severe back pain since childhood, affecting 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 a climbing gym together.
Mangione left Surfbreak to have surgery on the mainland, Ryan said, then later returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment.
Martin didn't hear from Mangione for six months to a year.
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 cellphone found in a pedestrian mall, a water bottle and protein bar packaging.
In the days following the shooting, the NYPD collected hundreds of hours of surveillance video and released clips and still images in hopes of attracting the public's attention to help find a suspect.
“This combination of old-school detective work and modern technology has led to this result today,” Tisch said at the New York press conference.
By MICHAEL R. SISAK and MARK SCOLFORO, Associated Press
Scolforo reported from Altoona and Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. Contributing writers included Associated Press writers Cedar Attanasio and Jennifer Peltz in New York; Michael Rubinkam and Maryclaire Dale in Pennsylvania; Lea Skene in Baltimore; and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu.
