NEW YORK (AP) They don’t know his name, but they have seen him grinning on a hostel surveillance video. They don’t know where he went, but they did find the backpack he threw away while running.
Investigators are facing a perplexing dilemma as they continue to search for the murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson: while having a wealth of evidence, the gunman is still unknown.
Police are certain that it was a targeted attack rather than an act of randomness, but they do not know who he is, where he is, or why he did it.
“The net is getting tighter,” said Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, on Saturday.
The killer ran to a pond in Central Park following the shooting, and police divers were spotted scouring there hours after he spoke. For days, police have been searching the park for any hints.
Police said they have used surveillance footage to trace the gunman’s movements and found that he apparently took a bus out of the city shortly after the shooting outside the New York Hilton Midtown on Wednesday morning. About forty-five minutes later, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said he was seen on camera at an uptown bus station.
In addition to the NYPD’s reward of up to $10,000, the FBI said late Friday that it was offering a $50,000 reward for information that led to an arrest and conviction as the well-publicized search spread across state boundaries. The culprit, according to the police, acted alone.
Even though the shooter is still at large, detectives are asking for patience since police did not give any fresh information on the hunt on Saturday. Hundreds of investigators are searching social media and video records, screening public tips, and speaking with everyone who may have anything, such as Thompson’s relatives, coworkers, and the shooter’s randomly chosen roommates at the Manhattan hostel where he stayed.
It’s not Blue Bloods here. On Friday, Kenny told reporters, “We’re not going to solve this in 60 minutes.” We are meticulously reviewing every piece of evidence we can find.
The shooter is suspected of using cash for taxi rides and other transactions, paid with cash at the hostel, and showed what police believe to be a forged ID. He avoided interacting with other people at the hostel and nearly always wore a mask over his face, only taking it off to eat.
But shortly after landing in New York on Nov. 24, investigators were given a break when they discovered security camera footage of an unguarded moment in which he momentarily revealed his face.
According to Kenny, police have shared the photos with news organizations and on social media, but they haven’t been able to identify him by face recognition yet, either due to the photos’ angle or restrictions on the technology’s use.
According to police, investigators discovered the gunman’s rucksack in Central Park on Friday night. They stated that it will be examined and tested but did not immediately disclose what, if anything, it contained.
According to Kenny, a fingerprint found on a product he bought at a Starbucks just before the shooting has not yet been used as a potential indication to identify him.
Police have been able to follow the shooter’s path thanks to CCTV cameras on almost every block and building.
They are aware that he used a 9 millimeter handgun, similar to those used by farmers to quietly kill animals, to ambush Thompson at 6:44 a.m. when the executive arrived at the Hilton for his company’s annual investor meeting. They are aware that the terms “delay,” “deny,” and “depose,” which were used by critics of the insurance industry, were printed on ammunition discovered next to Thompson’s body.
According to Kenny, the gunman may have been a dissatisfied employee or client because he knew the UnitedHealthcare group was having a meeting at the hotel and the possible path Thompson may take to get there.
According to camera footage, the gunman abandoned his bicycle at 85th Street at before 7 a.m. and went into Central Park.
The George Washington Bridge Bus Station, which is close to Manhattan’s northern edge and provides commuter service to New Jersey as well as Greyhound services to Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, is where he arrived at 7:30 a.m. after walking a few blocks and boarding a taxi.
What transpired next is unknown to investigators. Although they are looking through further surveillance footage, they have not yet found any footage showing the shooter leaving the station or boarding a bus.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told CNN on Friday, “We have reason to believe that the person in question has left New York City.”
Although it’s unclear if the gunman boarded the Greyhound bus there or at one of the roughly six stops along the way, police have concluded from the video that he first arrived at the main bus terminal Manhattan on a Greyhound bus that left Atlanta.
According to Kenny, he immediately got a taxi to the area around the Hilton and spent roughly thirty minutes there.
He took a taxi to the HI New York City Hostel at approximately 11 p.m. He quickly removed the mask and grinned there while chatting with a staff member in the foyer, providing detectives with the fleeting sight they now depend on to find and apprehend a murderer.
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Contributions were made by Associated Press writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; Jake Offenhartz, Cedar Attanasio, and Karen Matthews in New York; and Michael Balsamo in Washington.
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