Family of suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione hired private investigator after he ‘cut everyone off’ and ‘went missing’

Alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO murderer Luigi Mangione was estranged from his family for over a year, causing them to hire a private investigator to locate him, sources told DailyMail.com.

A friend from Mangione’s all-boys private high, The Gilman School in Baltimore, said the 26-year-old ceased contact with his family last year 2023, leaving them increasingly worried for his safety.

‘I did know he was having some issues,’ said the schoolfriend, who asked to remain anonymous. ‘He wasn’t talking with his family, and nobody could find him.

‘They hired a private investigator, they were so worried.’

The friend said they had been told that Mangione had struggled with pain medication due to an injury.

‘There was some sort of accident. I knew he was hurt some time ago and that led to the painkiller thing, and then the whole family issue,’ he said.

‘I can’t confirm what the issue specifically was, but I know that he was estranged.’

Other friends have told media they believed Mangione injured himself in a surfing accident in Hawaii, where he lived off-and-on from around 2022 until this year. 

Suspected assassin Luigi Mangione sparked concerns from his family after he stopped talking to them for over a year, friends told DailyMail.com. He is pictured right in his booking photo on Monday

Suspected assassin Luigi Mangione (center) is from a prominent Baltimore family. Pictured: Mangione with (L-R) Brother-in-law Paul Giulio, sisters Lucia and MariaSanta, dad Louis and mom Kathleen

Though schoolmates would talk to each other about Mangione’s alleged estrangement, Luigi’s rich and influential Maryland family was discreet about their troubled son.

‘They’re a big Baltimore family. They like to keep things quiet,’ the schoolfriend said.

He painted a picture of a brilliant and caring classmate, who designed an app for his fellow students and helped others around him – but who changed later in life.

‘He was extremely smart, kind and helpful. He was just truly a good person. And he was an innocent kid, he was like my younger brother, almost. 

‘So this whole thing is just extremely shocking,’ the schoolfriend said.

‘About two years ago, I ran into him in Baltimore,’ he added. ‘Something was off.’

The friend said Mangione told him he had temporarily stepped away from his work projects and was ‘taking a break’. 

‘He said he was taking a break from some things. His voice was much deeper and a lot more serious and toned down,’ the friend said. 

Mangione is now being held in Pennsylvania on gun charges and will eventually be extradited to New York to face charges

Mangione was seen lashing out about cops being ‘completely out of touch’ and ‘insulting the intelligence of the American people’ as he was bundled into court by a horde of sheriff’s deputies for his extradition hearing on Tuesday

Mangione was described as having been a brilliant and caring classmate, who designed an app for his fellow students and helped others around him – but who changed later in life

‘I just attributed it to maturity and getting older. Something had changed, but I couldn’t put a finger on what exactly it was.

‘A few months later I heard he was estranged, had cut everybody off, and they had to hire a private investigator to try to hunt him down, but they couldn’t find him.

The friend said that when he heard of Mangione’s estrangement, he and his former classmates from the Gilman School swapped theories about what happened to their friend. 

‘In our class, we heard a bunch of reasons why. People said ‘I think it’s drugs,’ or ‘he’s probably depressed’ or whatever. But we never discussed it further than that.

‘You start to rethink every single conversation you had, just to try to piece things together.’

Another schoolmate told DailyMail.com they also heard Mangione had a spinal injury that led to chronic use of pain medication.

Mangione’s spinal injury stopped him surfing, or ‘being physically intimate’ with partners when he lived in Hawaii, his former landlord told the New York Times.

‘His spine was kind of misaligned,’ said R.J. Martin, owner of Honolulu co-living space Surfbreak. 

Surveillance camera footage showed the gunman, suspected to be Mangione, shooting UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson at point blank range outside of a Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan on December 4

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed outside Manhattan’s Hilton Hotel 

‘He said his lower vertebrae were almost like a half-inch off, and I think it pinched a nerve. Sometimes he’d be doing well and other times not.’

Martin told the Times that Mangione had to switch out his mattress due to pain, after he took a group surfing lesson. 

The landlord added that Mangione never shared his bed either.

‘He knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn’t possible,’ Martin said. ‘I remember him telling me that, and my heart just breaks.’

Mangione, who was valedictorian of his Maryland prep school, earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, a university spokesman told The Associated Press on Monday. 

He comes from a prominent Maryland family on his father Louis’s side. 

His grandfather Nick Mangione, who died in 2008, was a successful real estate developer. 

One of his best-known projects was Turf Valley Resort, a sprawling luxury retreat and conference center outside Baltimore that he purchased in 1978. 

Mangione is now being held in Pennsylvania on gun charges and will eventually be extradited to New York to face charges in connection with Thompson’s death, said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.

In addition to a three-page, handwritten document that suggests he harbored ‘ill will toward corporate America,’ Kenny said Mangione also had a ghost gun, a type of weapon that can be assembled at home and is difficult to trace.

Officers questioned Mangione, who was acting suspiciously and carrying multiple fraudulent IDs, as well as a US passport, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference. 

Officers also found a sound suppressor, or silencer, ‘consistent with the weapon used in the murder,’ the commissioner said.