ALTOONA, PA. (AP) — Following the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO on a sidewalk in New York, police used scuba divers, dogs, and drones to hunt find the masked shooter. The city’s muscle surveillance system was deployed by the officers. Investigators examined fingerprints, IP addresses, and DNA samples. Police searched every home for witnesses.
Those extensive research efforts were credited alongside the senses of a vigilant civilian when an arrest was made five days later. A customer at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania spotted another client who looked like the man in the oblique security camera images that the New York police had released.
Luigi Nicholas Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a well-known Maryland real estate family, was taken into custody on Monday in connection with the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of one of the biggest health insurance firms in the US.
In Pennsylvania, where he was first accused of forging documents, giving police false identification, and possessing an unregistered pistol, he stayed incarcerated. According to an online court docket, Manhattan prosecutors had added a murder charge by late evening. It is anticipated that he will eventually be extradited to New York.
It’s unknown if Mangione has a lawyer who can address the accusations. When asked if he required a public lawyer during his arraignment on Monday, Mangione requested if he could respond to that question later.
According to investigators, Mangione was taken into custody in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a McDonald’s patron recognized him and alerted a staff member. Soon after, police were called to Altoona, which is located roughly 233 miles (375 kilometers) west of New York City.
According to a criminal complaint filed with the Pennsylvania police, they came to discover Mangione seated at a booth in the rear of the eatery, gazing at a laptop while donning a blue medical mask.
He initially gave them a fake ID, but when an officer asked Mangione whether he d been to New York recently, he became quiet and started to shake, the complaint says.
We knew it was our guy when he removed his mask at the officers’ request. rookie Officer Tyler Frye said at a news conference in Hollidaysburg.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a Manhattan news conference that Mangione was carryinga gunlike the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the shooter had used to check into a New York hostel, along with a passport and other fraudulent IDs.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione also had a three-page, handwritten document that shows some ill will toward corporate America.
A law enforcement official who wasn t authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said the document included a line in which Mangione claimed to have acted alone.
I’ll keep this brief for the Feds because I appreciate what you do for our nation. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn t working with anyone, the document said, according to the official.
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.
Pennsylvania prosecutor Peter Weeks said in court that Mangione was found with a passport and $10,000 in cash $2,000 of it in foreign currency. Mangione disputed the amount.
Thompson, 50, was killed last Wednesday as he walked alone to a midtown Manhattan hotel for an investor conference. Police quickly came to see the shooting as a targeted attack by a gunman who appeared to wait for Thompson, came up behind him andfireda 9 mm pistol.
Investigators have said delay, deny and deposewere writtenon ammunition found near Thompson s body. The words mimic a phrase usedto criticize the insurance industry.
From surveillance video, New York investigators gathered that the shooter fled by bike into Central Park, emerged, then took a taxi to a northern Manhattan bus terminal.
Once in Pennsylvania, he went from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, trying to stay low-profile by avoiding cameras, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said.
A grandson of a wealthy, self-made real estate developer and philanthropist, Mangione is a cousin of a current Maryland state legislator. Mangione was valedictorian at his elite Baltimore prep school, where his 2016 graduation speech lauded his classmates incredible courage to explore the unknown and try new things.
He went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, a spokesperson said.
Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi s arrest, Mangione s family said in a statement posted on social media late Monday by his cousin, Maryland lawmaker Nino Mangione. We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.
Luigi Nicholas Mangione worked for a time for the car-buying website TrueCar and left in 2023, CEO Jantoon Reigersman said by email.
From January to June 2022, Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a co-living space at the edge of Honolulu tourist mecca Waikiki.
Like other residents of the shared penthouse catering to remote workers, Mangione underwent a background check, said Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for owner and founder R.J. Martin.
Luigi was just widely considered to be a great guy. There were no complaints, Ryan said. There was no sign that might point to these alleged crimes they re saying he committed.
At Surfbreak, Martin learned Mangione had severe back pain from childhood that interfered with many aspects of his life, from surfing to romance, Ryan said.
He went surfing with R.J. once but it didn t work out because of his back, Ryan said, but noted that Mangione and Martin often went together to a rock-climbing gym.
Mangione left Surfbreak to get surgery on the mainland, Ryan said, then later returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment.
Martin stopped hearing from Mangione six months to a year ago.
Although the gunman obscured his face during the shooting, he left a trail of evidence in New York, including abackpackhe ditched in Central Park, a cellphone found in a pedestrian plaza, a water bottle and a protein bar wrapper.
In the days after the shooting, the NYPD collected hundreds of hours of surveillance video and released multiple clips and still images in hopes of enlisting the public s eyes to help find a suspect.
This combination of old-school detective work and new-age technology is what led to this result today, Tisch said at the New York news conference.
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Scolforo reported from Altoona and Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. Contributing were Associated Press writers Cedar Attanasio and Jennifer Peltz in New York; Michael Rubinkam and Maryclaire Dale in Pennsylvania; Lea Skene in Baltimore and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu.
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