Authorities have identified a “strong person of interest” in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside his Manhattan hotel early last Wednesday.
As the manhunt for Thompson’s killer stretched into a sixth day, police had a major breakthrough in the case on Monday. A McDonald’s employee in Altoona, Pennsylvania, saw 26-year-old Luigi Mangione eating a meal inside the restaurant that morning and thought he matched images of the suspected gunman.
The NYPD released unmasked photos of the suspect on December 5, the day after the fatal shooting, and scoured a Manhattan hostel in the Upper West Side where the suspect was staying, in addition to Central Park where the suspect’s backpack was recovered.
Over the weekend police released additional surveillance images of the person of interest in the back of a cab.
The NYPD issued a $10,000 reward for information on the shooter, while the FBI also joined the hunt, offering an additional $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
Here’s everything we know about the person of interest:
Tip from the public led police to Pennsylvania
On Monday, police responded to a tip from a McDonald’s employee in Altoona, Pennsylvania, who said they saw a man who looked like the person of interest police have been searching for.
Mangione was eating in the McDonald’s when he was recognized by the employee, police said.
Officers arrived at the restaurant and began questioning Mangione.
Police “asked the male if he had been to New York recently and the male became quiet and started to shake,” according to a later criminal complaint filed against the 26-year-old.
The officers arrested Mangione after he provided a fake ID card, and further questioning and a police search revealed he was in possession of a ghost gun that matches the weapon believed to have been used in the assassination-style killing, officials said at a press conference on Monday.
The person of interest also had supresser for the gun and several fake identification cards, including a New Jersey ID that the NYPD believes was used by the gunman.
New York Mayor Eric Adams said that the man in custody matches the description of the person in the photos and that he possessed items connected to the killing.
New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed Mangione has been arrested on firearms charges.
He is believed to be “our person of interest,” she told the press conference, and said it was down to a “combination of old-school detective work and new age technology” as well as the public that helped lead to the arrest.
“We should never underestimate the power of the public to be our eyes and ears,” she said.
Charges in Pennsylvania a prelude to New York case
After his arrest, Mangione was charged and arraigned on five state offenses including forgery, falsely identifying himself, and carrying a gun without a license.
He made a brief appearance on Monday in a Blair County, Pennsylvania, court room, where he was informed of the charges against him and said he understood.
He has not made an official plea regarding the charges, officials said Monday.
“He was initially cooperative. He is not now,” Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police said during a press conference on Monday. “He has been arraigned and transported and will be securely housed pending the filing of additional charges in New York.”
Officials expect a homicide charge to be filed against Mangione in New York in a matter of hours or days.
Officials say UnitedHealthcare killer ‘no hero’
Officials said that if Mangione is in fact the gunman who shot Brian Thompson, his actions should not be praised in the slightest, despite countless social media users applauding the vigilante shooting.
“Brian Thompson was a father to two. He was a husband. And he was a friend to many. And yes he was the CEO of a health insurance company,” Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro told reporters on Monday.
“In America, we do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint.“
Person of interest was not on anyone’s radar
Joseph Kenny, NYPD’s chief of detectives, said that police did not have Mangione’s name prior to Monday.
He was born and raised in Maryland, and he lived in Honolulu, Hawaii until recently. He also has ties to San Francisco.
Kenny added that police believe Mangione was allegedly acting alone.
Three-page ‘manifesto’ discovered
Police said they found a three-page manifesto in Mangione’s possession when he was arrested which suggests he has “an ill will towards corporate America,” Kenny told the press conference.
The handwritten document “speaks to both his motivation and mindset,” Tisch said.
It reportedly said “these parasites had it coming” and “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done,” according to CNN, who cited a police official who has seen the document.
It is currently in the custody of the Altoona police.
Valedictorian at private all-boys school and Ivy League educated
Mangione attended the Gilman School in Baltimore, a private all-boys school, where he was valedictorian in 2016, The New York Times first reported.
Tuition at the school is $37,690 per year.
Mangione gave a speech where he described his class as “coming up with new ideas and challenging the world around it.”
The school’s head, Henry P.A. Smyth, said in a statement: “This is deeply distressing news on top of an already awful situation. Our hearts go out to everyone affected.”
According to his apparent LinkedIn profile, Mangione has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
A Facebook profile matching the name of the person of interest offers a glimpse into their life, with photos of friends on the beach in Mexico, exploring the California coast, and going to soccer matches.
Mangione hails from a prominent Baltimore-area family, the Baltimore Banner reports.
His late grandfather was Nicholas Mangione Sr., a real estate developer with interests in country clubs, nursing homes, and a radio station, while his late grandmother Mary was a patron of the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, Greater Baltimore Medical Center, the old Baltimore Opera Company and the Walters Art Museum.
Maryland state delegate Nino Mangione is a cousin of the arrested man, the Banner reports.
Person of interest gave Unabomber’s manifesto four stars on Goodreads
Mangione appears to have left a positive review for the Unabomber’s manifesto online earlier this year, and praised the killer as a “political revolutionary.”
An account under that name on book review website Goodreads, that also matches photos of the suspect on other social media platforms, gave Ted Kaczynski’s book a four-star review in January.
“Clearly written by a mathematics prodigy. Reads like a series of lemmas on the question of 21st century quality of life,” the review reads.
“It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out,” the review continues.
“He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary,” the review by an account under Mangione’s name continues.
Hundreds of hours of footage combed through
Investigators combed through hundreds of hours of video from multiple sources to find the crucial screenshot that linked them to the person of interest, Kenny told the press conference.
NYPD quickly issued surveillance images of the suspect unmasked and smiling the day after Thompson was fatally shot.
It emerged that the clear surveillence images of the person of interest where he is smiling came from a “flirtatious” moment with a female employee at the hostel where he was believed to be staying.
“They were having a flirtatious moment and he pulls it down and he gives a big smile and that one informal moment between two human beings remains at this moment the most significant clue to date in this whole case,” former NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller told CBS News last week.
Over the weekend police released a new image of the person of interest in the back of a taxi wearing a face mask.
Ghost gun found when person of interest was arrested
Police recovered a ghost gun when they arrested the person of interest and the weapon could have been made on a 3D printer.
The gun has the capability of firing a 9mm round, Kenny said.
Adams said the guns are “extremely dangerous” and more must be done “on a federal level to clamp down” on their availability.
Kenny said ballistics tests will determine whether the weapon was the one used in last week’s shooting.