Luigi Mangione, who was accused of killing the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare during an event for the company’s investors, was arrested with a notebook that detailed plans for the shooting, according to two security officials.
The notebook described going to a conference and killing an executive, officials said.
“What do you do? You eliminate the CEO at the annual parasite accountants convention. It is targeted, precise and does not put innocent people at risk,” was one of the excerpts written in the notebook, the officers said.
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The murder of the executive, Brian Thompson, occurred early on December 4, as Thompson arrived at a Hilton hotel on West 54th Street to prepare for a UnitedHealthcare investor meeting. Her attacker escaped on a bicycle and disappeared.
Mangione, 26, was captured on Monday following a tip from a McDonald’s employee in Altoona, Pennsylvania, who was alerted by a customer who recognized him.
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Mangione, who faces a murder charge and has been denied bail, is fighting transfer to New York, a process that could take weeks. “He is disputing this,” his lawyer, Thomas Dickey, said on Tuesday (10).
The suspect was found with a “ghost gun,” a silencer and false identification documents similar to those believed to have been used by the killer, officials said. In addition to the false documents, he also carried identification with his real name.
Authorities were able to match Mangione’s fingerprints to those found on a water bottle and a cereal bar wrapper recovered near the crime scene, said another senior security official familiar with the investigation. Fingerprints were also found on ballistic evidence at the scene.
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When Mangione was arrested, authorities also found a 262-word handwritten note on him, which begins by appearing to take responsibility for the murder. The note, which officers described as a manifesto, also mentioned the existence of a notebook. The recovery of the notebook was initially reported by CNN.
The suspect saw the murder as a “symbolic takedown,” according to an internal New York Police Department report that detailed portions of a three-page manifesto found on him at the time of his arrest. The report added that the suspect “probably sees himself as a kind of hero who finally decided to act against such injustices” and expressed concern that others might see him as a “martyr and an example to be followed.”
Entering the courtroom Tuesday afternoon, Mangione shouted about “an insult to the experience of the American people and their lives.”
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It wasn’t exactly clear what he was referring to as officers tried to push him into the courtroom. On Wednesday, Blair County Sheriff James E. Ott said Mangione had not otherwise caused trouble for officers.
Mangione, part of a prominent and extended Baltimore family, attended an elite school in the city and studied at the University of Pennsylvania. He has worked at several technology companies and has had a long interest in computer games.
In years of posts on a Reddit account, he described a series of life-altering health problems. He said his back pain worsened until surgery in 2023 and that he battled “brain fog.” However, his only reference to insurance coverage in the posts mentioned that Blue Cross Blue Shield had covered testing for irritable bowel syndrome.
Mangione stopped communicating with friends and family about six months ago. His mother filed a missing persons report last month.
Ben Brafman, a prominent New York defense attorney whose clients have included Sean Combs, Harvey Weinstein and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said Wednesday that police had accumulated an “overwhelming” amount of evidence that left little room for Mangione to mount a defense. viable at trial.
“This was a pretty bold act of violence,” Brafman said. “Given that there does not appear to be an inch of Manhattan that is not covered by video recording devices, it is difficult to explain what happened.”
Still, he said that didn’t mean the prosecutors’ job would be easy. They will have a hard time finding jurors who don’t feel they are treated unfairly by the healthcare industry.
“I think most people, when asked about this issue, will say, ‘Yes, I dealt with a healthcare industry that I wasn’t happy with,’” he said. “But they didn’t go around executing the head of an insurance company.”
Just hours after Mangione’s arrest Monday at the McDonald’s in Altoona, a young woman stood outside the fast food restaurant holding a sign that read “Corrupt Insurance CEOs Have to Go.”
