Luigi Mangione’s twisted path from a well-respected Ivy League student to the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was being pieced together by friends and family.
The 26-year-old suspect – who was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania Monday – went ‘absolutely crazy’ after painful back surgery and explored psychedelic treatment for his chronic pain, it was revealed.
Friends said Mangione dropped off the radar when ‘everything changed’ after a surfing accident – and it has now been reported he singled out UnitedHealthcare in a ‘manifesto’ he was carrying.
In the 262-word handwritten document, Mangione said as UnitedHealthcare’s market capitalization has grown, American life expectancy has not.
He condemned companies that ‘continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.
Mangione reportedly wrote that he acted alone and was self-funded, adding: ‘To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone.
‘These parasites had it coming. I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done.’
A former roommate of Mangione’s has told CNN: ‘I remember he said he had a back issue, and he was hoping to get stronger in Hawaii.
The experience was ‘really traumatic and difficult’ for him, the roommate said while adding that Mangione sent him X-ray images of his spine. ‘It looked heinous, with just giant screws going into his spine,’ Martin said.
Mangione suddenly went ‘radio silent’ while recovering. He sought alternative forms of pain management, including psychedelics and magic mushrooms.
His family was so concerned about him that he was reported missing on Nov 18, according to The New York Post.
The Mangione family said they were ‘shocked and devastated’ in a statement released Monday night, saying: ‘We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.’
Mangione was charged with murder by NYC officials late Monday after his capture in Pennsylvania where he remains jailed on firearms charges.
The alleged killer provided cops with a fake ID when he was approached in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s. When police asked him if he had been to New York recently, he ‘became quiet and started to shake.’
In his backpack, police found a 3D-printed pistol and a 3D-printed silencer. Mangione was also carrying a passport and $10,000 in cash — $2,000 of it in foreign currency.
On X, Mangione had created a titled ‘psych’ full of tweets about psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms and ln January 25 this year he added to his Goodreads a book called ‘Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World: An Identification Guide’, and ‘Mushrooms of Hawai’i: An Identification Guide’.
The reported claims from school friends of a back injury tally with the trail Mangione left on social media.
One friend, Carolina Leon, tagged Mangione in an Instagram post about her birthday trip to Hawaii in December 2022. Another, Stephen Rasinar, tagged Mangione in a post about a two-week trip to the Pacific archipelago – suggesting he was there with friends in recent years.
His profile picture on X includes an apparent x-ray of metal pins in a spine. Emergency physician Dr. Kashif Pirzada wrote on X that the picture ‘Looks like a lumbar spinal fusion surgery’.
Mangione had an account on book review site Goodreads.com, and listed books on back pain management.
One is titled ‘Back in Control: A Spinal Surgeon’s Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain’. Another is ‘Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery’.
But the most intriguing is a review he wrote of the manifesto drawn up by ‘Unabomber’ Theodore Kaczynski, who planted bombs which killed three Americans before finally being caught in 1996.
‘He was a violent individual – rightfully imprisoned – who maimed innocent people,’ Mangione wrote. ‘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.’
‘When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it’s not terrorism, it’s war and revolution.’
Mangione also added a book called ‘How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics’.
Jack Mac, a staffer at Barstool Sports, said high school friends of the alleged shooter claim he was ‘crazy’ after being injured.
‘Spoke with a source that had a lot of friends that went to high school with Luigi Mangione,’ he wrote. ‘What keeps coming up is a back surgery that “changed everything” for him and he went “absolutely crazy”.’
‘Back injury happened when he was surfing in Hawaii. Surgery didn’t go great. Moved to Japan. His contact with family stopped about a year ago. Recently the family reached out to his friends from high school asking if they had info on him.’
The suspected gunman reportedly referenced UnitedHealthcare in the handwritten document found on him.
Mangione mentioned the $515.93 billion company in his manifesto noting the size of the company and how much money it makes, a senior law enforcement official who saw the document told The New York Times.
Luke Goldstein, a writer at independent political magazine The Prospect, said that a mutual friend went to high school with Mangione and was on the wrestling team with him.
‘Says he was the class valedictorian. He had back surgery a few months ago and went missing. No one had heard from him,’ Goldstein wrote on X.
Mangione was valedictorian of his 2016 class at the Gilman School in Baltimore, where tuition is $40,000 a year. He then graduated cum laude from Ivy League school the University of Pennsylvania.
His LinkedIn page revealed he had two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2020 with a bachelor’s of science in engineering and a master’s of science majoring in computer science.
The profile also showed he had been working as a data engineer at TrueCar, a pricing and digital retailing website, for the past four years.
One colleague told CNN they were ‘flabbergasted’ by news of his arrest. ‘I never got the impression he would self-destruct,’ the person told the network.
Those close with Mangione had reportedly been sharing messages on X saying they were worried about him in the weeks leading up to Mr Thompson’s killing.
Boston-based designer Daniel Collins took to X on September 7, telling Mangione: ‘Hey man I need you to call me. I don’t know if you are okay or just in a super isolated place and have no service. But I haven’t heard from you in months.
‘Your made commitments to me for my wedding and if you can’t honor them I need to know so I can plan accordingly.’
On October 30, another friend with the X username TheRealMandusa wrote: ‘Hey, are you ok? Nobody has heard from you in months, and apparently your family is looking for you.’
On November 26, a third X user with the name P. wrote: ‘Thinking of you and prayers everyday in your name. Know you are missed and loved.’