- Source: Luigi Mangione
Luigi Nicholas Mangione ( MAN-jee-OH-nee; born May 6, 1998) is an Italian-American man who was identified as a strong person of interest in the killing of Brian Thompson. Mangione was apprehended and arraigned in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on December 9, 2024. He has been indicted on eleven charges, including first-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Life and career
Mangione was born in Towson, Maryland, on May 6, 1998. He is the son of Kathleen and Louis Mangione and belongs to a prominent Maryland family known for their real estate and philanthropy.
He attended Gilman School, an all-boys private secondary school in Baltimore, where he graduated as valedictorian in 2016. From May 2016 to August 2017, he was a UI programming intern with the video game company Firaxis Games. He pursued higher education at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating cum laude and receiving a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) in computer engineering as well as a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE) in computer and information science in 2020. His undergraduate studies included a minor in mathematics, and his graduate curriculum concentrated on artificial intelligence.
Mangione began to work remotely in November 2020 as a data engineer for TrueCar, a car retailing website company headquartered in Santa Monica, California. His employment there ended at some point during 2023, according to the company. His last known residence was in Honolulu, Hawaii. In November 2024, Mangione was reported missing by his mother, who said the family had not heard from him since July of that year. It was around the same time during the summer of 2024 that Mangione stopped posting on social media. Mangione's mother contacted the San Francisco Police Department, as she believed that Mangione lived in San Francisco and still worked for TrueCar (which had an office in San Francisco).
Mangione suffers from spondylolisthesis. He underwent a spinal fusion surgery in July 2023.
Alleged role in the killing of Brian Thompson
Brian Thompson, the 50-year-old CEO of the American health insurance company UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on December 4, 2024. The shooting occurred early in the morning outside an entrance to the New York Hilton Midtown hotel. Thompson was in the city to attend an annual investors' meeting for UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare. The suspect, initially described as a white man wearing a mask, fled the scene.
The gunman was masked and had come to New York via a bus from Atlanta. On the bullet casings were the words "Deny", "Defend", and "Depose", which some have linked to criticism of health insurance companies not paying claims. The suspect possibly left the city, being seen at a bus terminal afterward. Anger erupted on social media platforms at Thompson, UnitedHealth, and the health insurance system generally, with many praising the killing. Mangione was never insured by UnitedHealthcare.
Capture
On December 9, 2024, local police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, arrested Mangione at a McDonald's restaurant in the city. An employee there called the police to say that a customer recognized the suspect from images released by the NYPD. Altoona is about 280 miles (450 km) west of New York City. In his bag they found a 3D-printed gun and a 3D-printed suppressor, which the police claim are consistent with the weapon used in the shooting, and a falsified New Jersey driver's license with the same name as the one used by the alleged shooter to check into a Manhattan hostel. The police also said that when they arrested Mangione, they found a three-page, 262-word handwritten document about the American healthcare system, which they characterized as a manifesto.
Mangione was charged in Blair County, Pennsylvania, with carrying a gun without a license, forgery, falsely identifying himself to the authorities, and possessing "instruments of crime" on December 9, 2024. He was arraigned at around 6 p.m. at Blair County Courthouse on firearms charges and questioned by the New York City Police Department, and was denied bail. By the end of the day, he was charged in Manhattan with second-degree murder, three counts of illegal weapons possession, and forgery. He is currently being held in the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon, a close-security state correctional facility in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.
When asked by the police if he had been to New York City recently, he was reportedly "visibly shaken". He was denied bail for the second time on December 10. Mangione's attorney Thomas Dickey said that Mangione will plead not guilty to all the charges against him, and will fight a prospective interstate extradition to New York. Mangione hired Karen Friedman Agnifilo, former prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and former legal analyst with CNN, as his New York case defense attorney on December 13.
New York governor Kathy Hochul said that she will sign a warrant for Mangione to ensure that he is "tried and held accountable". David Harris, a law professor, also said that his extradition will delay things to about "30 to 45 days, four to six weeks, in that range. But it will not stop the inevitable." Mangione is currently being held in the State Correctional Institution which is the oldest prision in the state of Pennsylvania which has a population of 1,853 which is at 99% capacity. There was also a GiveSendGo which raised about 31,000 dollars (as of December 12) with a goal of 200,000 dollars.
Incarceration
Ashleigh Banfield and Alex Caprariello of NewsNation interviewed Mangione's fellow inmates at State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon, who showed support for him.
Views
Mangione was allegedly found to have a three-page handwritten document that allegedly speaks to "both to his mind and his mindset" for the crime. Excerpts of the document included, "These parasites had it coming" and "I do apologize for any strife or trauma, but it had to be done". Mangione called health care companies parasites, and he had a disdain for corporate greed and power. He also said that the United States had the most high-priced health care system in the world, and said that profits continued to rise while the life expectancy of Americans did not. Mangione also left a four-star rating on the Unabomber manifesto, saying "Clearly written by a mathematics prodigy. Reads like a series of lemmas on the question of 21st century quality of life". Mangione also had backpains since childhood which possibly contributed to his anger about the healthcare system.
According to Business Insider, Mangione's social media posts showed apparent frustration with the medical field, skepticism of doctors, and supported the idea that "his worldview was influenced by reactionary right-wing thinkers". Mangione showed a skeptical attitude towards both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, while showing apparent support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s run for president in 2024. Time magazine said it could not discern whether his political views were left-wing or right-wing. The Spectator wrote that his worldview "wasn’t pinned to a standard left-right axis," while Jacobin stated that he held "a hodgepodge of views and political beliefs that don’t neatly map onto any one category on the political spectrum". His social media expressed concerns over the implications of pornography, DEI programs, falling fertility rates, wokeism, secularization, and the decline of Christianity, and he promoted traditionalist ideas. Multiple sources have noted that Mangione followed Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well as RFK Jr. and others, showing that he is politically uncategorized and mainly "anti-system".
Public reception
Following Mangione's arrest, some people began praising him on social media. People also began following his social media accounts, garnering him 270,000 followers after his identification. Mangione's account on Twitter was deleted but shortly reinstated. An imposter on YouTube acting as him was deleted after garnering large viewership.
Mangione's alleged actions were condemned by many politicians including Bernie Sanders, Tim Walz, Amy Klobuchar, John Fetterman, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump. Public polling found that the majority of Americans condemned Mangione's alleged actions. A survey from Emerson College found that 68% of respondents condemned the shooting, while 17% supported it. Amongst respondents under the age of 30, a small plurality of 41% supported the killing, while 40% opposed it. Across the political spectrum, 22% of Democrats, 16% of Independents, and 12% of Republicans found the shooting acceptable.
Look-alike contests have held in New York City's Washington Square Park and the University of Florida. Items and merchandise in support of Mangione were posted on Etsy, Amazon and other e-commerce sites before being removed. Crowdsourcing fundraisers were also started by supporters of Mangione to cover his legal costs on GoFundMe, before being removed. A GiveSendGo fundraiser has remained live; as of December 16, it has raised over $125,000. Other social media users linked Mangione's jail commissary account soliciting donations for "snacks, sodas, an iPad, etc."