As former Ivy League student Luigi Mangione remains in custody, identified as a person of interest in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, more details continue to surface about his arrest in Pennsylvania.
Mangione, 26, was arrested in a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a McDonald's employee recognized him and called 911, law enforcement sources told The New York Times. He was taken in by local police and will face charges in Altoona, police said, with authorities also finding a three-page-long manifesto that "speaks to both his motivation and mindset."
New York Police Department (NYPD) revealed on Monday that they were not investigating Mangione as a suspect in the case until he was detained. NYC's Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny added that Mangione was born and raised in Maryland and that his last known address was in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Regarding the gun, Kenny said that it "appears to be a ghost gun that may have been made on a 3D printer, capable of firing a 9 mm round." Mangione also had the same fake ID that was used to check into a New York City hostel in November.
Thompson, 50, was in New York City for the company's annual investors meeting Wednesday when he was ambushed by a masked shooter who fired off several rounds into his back and leg, leaving him mortally wounded.
Preliminary evidence indicated Thompson's murder was a "premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack," NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who confirmed the suspect was "lying in wait" for at least five minutes before he approached the victim, told reporters at a press conference last week.
At the crime scene, investigators recovered live 9mm rounds and three discharged casings engraved with words "deny," "depose," and "defend," as reported by the New York Post. The words appear to allude to the title of Jay Feinman's book "Delay, Deny, Defend," which criticizes the practices of insurance companies.
Mangione graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Masters in Computer Science in 2020, according to a LinkedIn profile of a person with the same name. He was previously named valedictorian at the Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland in 2016.
Originally published on Latin Times.
