Luigi Mangione is being held in Blair County Prison after a judge denied him bail. He was arrested on December 9, 2024, after a McDonald’s employee in Altoona, Pennsylvania, reported him to police. Mangione was charged with illegal gun possession and presenting false identification to police. Once he is extradited to New York, prosecutors intend to charge Mangione further with second-degree murder and multiple weapon-related and forgery charges. Thomas Dickey, representing 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, has informed the media that his client intends to plead not guilty to all charges brought against him in Pennsylvania and Manhattan.
The Assassination
Luigi Mangione is suspected of murdering Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, on the morning of December 4, 2024. The nationwide manhunt for the murder suspect ensued immediately and lasted less than a week before they arrested Mangione. He was found carrying a silencer, a ghost gun, and several fake IDs when the police detained him. One of the fake IDs he had in his possession resembled the one used by the assailant at a hostel in New York.
The Evidence
Police discovered a notebook that allegedly belonged to Luigi Mangione which contained a detailed plan of attack and reasoning for said attack. CNN was the first to report the notebook, and later confirmed by the New York Times and the New York Post. In the notebook, there is a section where the author decided to launch an attack “at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention” rather than using a bomb that “could kill innocents.”
In more recent news, authorities have matched the shell casings found at the crime scene to the gun that Luigi Mangione possessed at the time of his arrest. Additionally, multiple news outlets have reported that authorities recovered a set of fingerprints from the crime scene that match Mangione. They were on a cell phone, which was recovered from a nearby alley. They also recovered a bottle of water and protein bars that the assailant purchased at a Starbucks before the shooting and are running forensic tests. DNA from the water bottle has been matched to Mangione.
What we know so far is that Luigi Mangione has a motive. Everything else at this point is alleged, and we can only go off the information provided by the authorities to the media. Luigi Mangione is angry with the system, angry with healthcare in the United States, and furious with UnitedHealthcare. He and his mother have supposedly suffered at the hands of UnitedHealthcare from repeatedly denied claims and constantly changing procedures. Detectives are looking into this matter further to determine if this was the driving force of the CEO’s murder.
The Manifesto
Independent Journalist Ken Klippenstein is the first to publish Luigi Mangione’s manifesto. While news outlets have quoted it here and there, they have not posted it in full. The manifesto is as follows:
“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done.”
“Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No, the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.”
“Obviously, the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly, I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g., Rosenthal, Moore) decades ago, and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly, power games at play. Evidently, I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”
Final Thoughts
Luigi Mangione is a relatively smart man. He was valedictorian at a prestigious private school, and he graduated with a master’s degree in computer science. He was able to pull off the murder of CEO Brian Thompson and flee the state before being arrested days later. Mangione allegedly created a ghost gun using a 3D printer, carried a silencer to suppress the gunshot sound, and ditched his backpack full of Monopoly money in Central Park but did not think to get rid of his untraceable gun.
There are a few possibilities with this case, such as Luigi Mangione being the scapegoat to the true assassin, the police having it wrong and being under pressure to solve the case, or he was trying to get caught. At this time, Mangione has pleaded not guilty to the charges in Pennsylvania and is expected to plead the same against the murder charges in New York. However, with the evidence stacked against him, it seems he will likely be found guilty of the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
