Suspect Luigi Mangione is brought to the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Benjamin B. Braun/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP
ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) — Authorities analyzed a fingerprint on a cellphone found after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO as suspect Luigi Mangione fought to be sent from a Pennsylvania prison to New York to face murder charges should.
New York Police Department chief investigator Joseph Kenny told CBS New York on Tuesday that no prints were found on bullets that killed Brian Thompson, but a fingerprint was found on a cellphone. He said the evidence was being processed and did not say whether it appeared to match Mangione, the 26-year-old charged in last week's shooting in midtown Manhattan.
Authorities said the writings found in Mangione's possession indicated a hatred of corporate greed.
They recovered a spiral notebook that Mangione had kept and a three-page handwritten letter found when he was arrested, a police official said Wednesday. Police did not disclose what was in the notebook.
The letter, found during Mangione's arrest Monday in Altoona, Pennsylvania, raised the possibility that clues to the attack – “a few scattered notes and to-do lists that shed light on the heart of the matter” – could be found in the notebook, he said the police officer said. The official was not authorized to release information about the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Kenny told CBS New York that the motive may be related to an accident that sent Mangione to the emergency room on July 4, 2023.
A law enforcement bulletin obtained by the AP earlier this week said the letter expressed anger at what Mangione called “parasitic” health insurance companies and a disdain for the companies' greed and power. According to the Bulletin, the preparatory student and Ivy League graduate wrote that the United States has the most expensive health care system in the world and that the profits of large corporations continue to rise while life expectancy does not increase.
In his first public words since his arrest, Mangione got out of a patrol car on Tuesday and shouted an “insult to the intelligence of the American people” as officers pushed him into a courthouse. Mangione remained jailed without bail in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with weapons offenses and forgery.
Manhattan prosecutors worked to bring Mangione to New York. At a brief hearing Tuesday in Pennsylvania, defense attorney Thomas Dickey said Mangione would not waive extradition and instead wanted a hearing on the issue.
“You can’t rush to judgment in this case or any other case,” Dickey said afterward. “He is presumed innocent. Let’s not forget that.”
Mangione was arrested in Altoona, about 230 miles west of New York City, after a McDonald's customer recognized him and notified an employee, authorities said.
NYPD officials said Mangione was carrying a gun like the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the suspected gunman used to check into a New York City hostel, as well as a passport and other fake IDs.
Thompson, 50, was killed Dec. 4 as he walked alone to an investor conference at a Manhattan hotel. Based on surveillance video, New York investigators determined that the shooter quickly fled the city, likely by bus.
His movements after that are unclear, but authorities believe he took steps to stay off the radar. Prosecutors said at his hearing in Pennsylvania on Tuesday that he had cases for his cellphone and laptop when he was arrested, which prevent such devices from sending signals that authorities could use for tracking.
Mangione, a grandson of a prominent Maryland real estate developer and philanthropist, had a computer science degree and worked for a time at a car-buying website. In the first half of 2022, he stayed in a “co-living” area in Hawaii, where, according to his acquaintances, he suffered from severe and sometimes debilitating back pain.
His relatives said in a statement that they were “shocked and devastated” by his arrest.
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