Fingerprints belonging to the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson have been linked to prints discovered near the Manhattan crime scene where the 50-year-old executive was fatally wounded, a senior law enforcement official revealed on Wednesday.
It remains unclear which items matched Luigi Mangione's fingerprints. Investigators collected several critical pieces of evidence from the area in the hours following the shooting, according to NBC.
Investigators are working to transfer Mangione to New York City to face charges of second-degree murder in connection with Thompson's death.
The move bought his defense team time to contest his Pennsylvania arrest, according to WABC-TV.
Mangione's attorneys have 14 days to file motions with the court and prosecutors will have 30 days to obtain a warrant from the governor of New York, officials said, according to the outlet. The court will then decide how to rule on the extradition.
It may take up to 45 days to get Mangione back in New York, prosecutors said.
While being escorted by officers into the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania a day after his preliminary hearing on gun charges, a seemingly agitated Mangione shouted to reporters, in part, "... completely out of touch, and insults the intelligence of the American people," according to video reviewed by the Lawyer Herald.
"We don't think there's any specific threats to other people mentioned in that document, but it does seem that he has some ill will towards corporate America," NYPD Chief Joseph Kenny told reporters.
Police believe he acted alone.
Thompson 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, killing him outside a Manhattan hotel.
He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Mangione, who immediately fled the scene and evaded capture for nearly a week, has no prior criminal record in New York, police said. He was not on police radar prior to his capture.
Mangione is from an affluent Maryland family, and is cousins with state Republican Delegate Nino Mangione.
He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Masters in Engineering in 2020. Before then, he attended an all-boys preparatory school in Baltimore where he was valedictorian.
The suspected murderer reportedly suffered from chronic back pain and his family reported him missing Nov. 18, after he cut off communications following a spinal surgery months prior, the New York Post reported.
