A man suspected of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York was charged with murder. A quick-thinking McDonald’s customer in Pennsylvania identified him from a recently released surveillance photo.
According to the Associated Press (AP) news, Luigi Nicholas Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate is from a prominent Maryland real estate family. The gun he has is believed to be the one used in last Wednesday’s shooting of Brian Thompson, his writings too suggested anger with corporate America.
The customer’s chance sighting at the restaurant in Altoona led to a dramatic break in a challenging, fast-moving investigation that gripped the public in the past five days since the shooting that rocked the business community.
Late on Monday, Manhattan prosecutors filed murder and other charges against Mangione. He remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. Mangione was sitting in the rear of the McDonald’s wearing a blue medical mask and looking at a laptop computer.
The customer saw him and an employee called 911.
Altoona Police Officer Tyler Frye said he and his partner recognised him immediately when he pulled down his mask. “We just didn’t think twice about it. We knew that was our guy,” he told AP.
In his backpack, police found a black, 3D-printed pistol and a 3D-printed black silencer. These ghost guns can be assembled at home from parts without a serial number, making them difficult to trace. The pistol had a metal slide and plastic handle with a metal threaded barrel. He was taken into custody at about 9:15 am. His clothing and mask were similar to those worn by the shooter and a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching the one the suspect used to check into a New York City hostel before the shooting, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch told AP.
Police found a three-page document with writings suggesting that Mangione had “ill will toward corporate America, the document “speaks to both his motivation and mindset,” Tisch said. Mangione further wrote, “To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone,” as per AP.
It also had a line that said, “I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.”
A passport was found in Mangione’s possession and $10,000 in cash, $2,000 of it in foreign currency.
Mangione attended an elite Baltimore prep school, graduating as valedictorian in 2016, according to the school’s website. He went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, as per AP.