Luigi Mangione’s mother made a shocking admission to police before the suspected assassin was arrested, police announced on Tuesday.
New York City police had been searching for the man who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, at point-blank range for several days – and released surveillance images of the suspected shooter.
One image of the suspect with his mask down caught the attention of a San Francisco police officer who had been searching for Mangione, 26, since his mother, Kathleen, reported him missing in mid-November.
She claimed she had not spoken to her son since July 1, and noted that he worked for San Francisco-based TrueCar, an online automotive marketplace – apparently not realizing he had been laid off in 2023.
Upon recognizing the suspect, the police officer called the FBI and provided the bureau with Mangione’s name – prompting New York officers embedded with the FBI’s task force to call Kathleen.
‘They had a conversation where she didn’t indicate that it was her son in the photograph, but she said it might be something that she could see him doing,’ NYPD Chief of Police Joseph Kenny said at a news conference on Tuesday.
He noted that the conversation happened ‘very late’ on December 7, and the information was passed on to New York City cops the next morning – but he wasn’t arrested until December 9, while he was eating at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Luigi Mangione, 26, was indicted Tuesday on a murder charge as an act of terrorism
His mother (pictured with Mangione’s sister, MariaSanta) had earlier told the FBI she ‘could see’ her son shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
Mangione has since been indicted on a murder charge as an act of terrorism for Thompson’s death.
Under New York law, such a charge can be brought when an alleged crime is ‘intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion and affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping.’
The doomed CEO was shot dead as he walked to a Manhattan hotel where Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare – the largest medical insurer in the United States – was holding an investor conference.
‘This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation,’ Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Tuesday.
‘It occurred in one of the most bustling parts of our city, threatened the safety of local residents and tourists alike, commuters and businesspeople just starting out on their day.’
Mangione has two court hearings scheduled for Thursday in Pennsylvania, including an extradition hearing, Bragg noted.
He is not expected to fight extradition to the Big Apple at the hearing on Thursday, which means he could be sent back to New York City that same day, sources told Fox News.
Some legal experts have previously suggested Mangione avoid arguing over his guilty and focus on getting himself a lesser sentence by claiming extreme emotional disturbance.
Thompson, 50, was shot dead as he walked to a Manhattan hotel where Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare was holding an investor conference
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg called the shooting (pictured) ‘frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation’
‘There is no likely path to him walking out a free man,’ said Manhattan defense lawyer Ronald Kuby told The Wall Street Journal. ‘The best he could hope for is mitigation of the crime and punishment.’
‘Usually the defendant’s entire history, their grievances, their pain, their sufferings, that all comes before the jury.’
Investigators´ working theory is that Mangione, an Ivy League computer science grad from a prominent Maryland family, was propelled by anger at the US health care system.
Police have said he was found with a manifesto outlining his grievances against UnitedHealthcare.
‘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, [and] a lot of patience,’ he allegedly wrote in the manifesto, according to the Daily Beast.
He went on to say he had ‘respect’ for federal investigators, and apologized for causing any ‘traumas,’ but seemed to defend his alleged actions.
‘Frankly these parasites had it coming,’ the manifesto wrote.
It claimed that the United States had the ‘most expensive healthcare system in the world,’ but blasted the system for making America only the 42nd in life expectancy.
Mangione was identified as the alleged shooter by a San Francisco police officer after the NYPD released this surveillance image of him
Officers also said they matched a gun found on Mangione with the shell casings recovered at the scene and his fingerprints with a water bottle and energy bar wrapper found nearby.
Following news of the arrest, Mangione’s family released a statement saying they were ‘shocked and devastated.’
‘We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved,’ it said.
‘We are devastated by this news.’
None of the alleged assassin’s family then appeared at his court hearing, and inside sources told Fox News that the 26-year-old has not had any meetings with relatives since his arrest.
His influential Italian-American family is known in their community for their real estate fortune and nursing home empire, but he may not see any of the money his philanthropist grandmother left behind.
Her fortune, estimated to be worth at least $30million, was put into a trust where the trustees – one of whom is Mangione’s father – have the power to make distributions.
One of the trust’s conditions is that anyone charged with a crime may not see any of the money, meaning Mangione may never get his share.