Suspect Luigi Mangione vanished months before United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead on a Manhattan sidewalk, and family members searched frantically for him.
They made appeals on social media and contacted old classmates for any information regarding his whereabouts. His previous classmates started spreading rumors about his disappearance.
Following months of silence and mounting concern from his loved ones, Mangione made a comeback on Monday when he was apprehended by Pennsylvania police as a suspect in Thompson’s murder. According to authorities, he had a rucksack with a ghost gun, forged identification, and a notebook and other documents outlining his complaints about the healthcare system.
The accomplished young man from a well-known Baltimore family had spent what many would consider a privileged life before he vanished. He had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, traveled the world, and finished as valedictorian at a prestigious Maryland high school.
Mangione, who is being held without bail in a Pennsylvania correctional prison, was characterized by friends and family as a smart, caring computer science graduate who loved to read and travel.
According to his buddy R.J. Martin, who owns Surfbreak, a co-living facility in Honolulu where Mangione spent six months in 2022, he was the type of person you would know was destined to accomplish big things.
The idea that he might have been an assassin and the knowledge that his life is essentially finished or changed in unthinkable ways are both extremely tragic.
Mangione, 26, was charged on Monday in New York with one crime of murder, three counts of criminal possession of a weapon, and one count of possession of a forged instrument following a days-long manhunt.
Earlier that day, he was taken into custody in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after being discovered eating at a McDonald’s restaurant and carrying a rucksack that police claimed contained evidence linking him to Thompson’s shooting death.
Along with three misdemeanor accusations of tampering with records or identification, possessing instruments of crime, and giving false identification to law enforcement, Mangione was also charged with two felonies in Pennsylvania: forgery and carrying a handgun without a license.
Thomas Dickey, Mangione’s attorney, stated that he has not yet seen any proof connecting his client to Thompson’s murder and that Mangione is contesting extradition to New York. Additionally, he stated that Mangione would enter a not guilty plea to the charges in both New York and Pennsylvania.
An archived version of Mangione’s now-deleted Reddit account, where he initially appeared in 2016 under the moniker Mister_Cactus, provided insight into his interests and maybe his mental health. Mangione was an avid reader and gamer who left behind a strong online legacy.
Posts on a subreddit concerning spondylolisthesis, a disorder in which a bone in the spine misaligns and puts pressure on the lower vertebrae and surrounding nerves, were included in the account.
In April, Mister_Cactus posted on the subreddit that he was experiencing daily symptoms of his deteriorating health.
Last year’s Reddit posts suggest that the account holder’s injury flared up after they went surfing. In a July 2023 post, Mister_Cactus said that he had been dealing with back discomfort since boyhood, which the movement made worse.
According to other posts, the account holder had spinal fusion surgery on or around that date. Two weeks prior to the treatment, Mister_Cactus informed another user, “I keep wondering why I was so afraid of it.”
It seemed that Mister Cactus had good outcomes from the procedure the following month. After a week, he reported, he was able to sit, walk, and stand with absolutely no pain medication.
In August 2023, Mister_Cactus, who identified himself as a 23-year-old man with spondylolisthesis, stated in a separate post that “when my spondy went bad on me last year (23M), it was completely devastating as a young athletic person.”
The details Mangione provided to his friend Martin in Hawaii align with these descriptions. About nine months have passed since the two last texted, during which Martin inquired as to whether Mangione had had spinal surgery. Martin alleged that Mangione responded with pictures of screws in his back.
You wouldn’t realize he was in pain until he said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” For a number of days, I was unable to leave my bed. Martin responded, “And that’s kind of the beginning and end of it.”
Mister_Cactus shared a packing list and tips in early April that he claimed were effective during his two months of travel throughout Asia. The message appeared on a Reddit group dedicated to single-bag packing and minimalist travel.
In May, Mister_Cactus also shared remarks about his spinal issue in the spondylolisthesis Reddit group, giving guidance.
On May 25, he posted a movie in the tedkaczysnki subreddit titled “Streaming overdose 2024, China,” which seems to be the account’s last post. It featured a number of video clips of individuals streaming on their cellphones in different locations.
In January, he evaluated Kaczynski’s Industrial Society and Its Future, popularly known as The Unabomber Manifesto, on a Goodreads account that seemed to be Mangione’s.
In order to avoid dealing with some of the painful issues it raises, it is simple to dismiss this as the manifesto of a madman in a hurry and without much consideration. However, it’s hard to overlook how accurate many of his forecasts about contemporary society ended up becoming, the sign stated.
Gurwinder Bhogal, a British freelance writer and Substack author who spoke with Mangione for about 20 messages between April and June, said that Mangione had brought up Kaczynski to him.
Mangione expressed a combination of right-wing and left-wing political opinions and was one of the first members of his newsletter. According to Bhogal, he also complained about how expensive health care is in the United States.
In an email to NBC News, Bhogal stated, “Aside from his curiosity and kindness, I got the impression of him being deeply concerned for the future of humanity and determined to improve himself and the world.”
Bhogal claimed that he and Mangione had discussed the distinctions between the healthcare systems in the US and the UK in passing. Luigi voiced jealousy of the UK’s nationalized healthcare system and lamented the high cost of healthcare in the US.
“Mangione talked about spending time in Japan and worried people there don’t really live their lives because most of the young men are addicted to video games, pornography, and other shallow entertainments,” Bhogal said of their conversations.
He mentioned that he was keen to join a group of people who shared his beliefs and that those around him were on a different wavelength, Bhogal continued. He recommended that I set up group video chats since he was eager to get to know my fellow founding members and establish a community founded on principles such as effective altruism, stoicism, and rationality.
Raj George, president of the Penn Club of Hawaii, claims that Mangione’s phone number vanished from a WhatsApp group for Penn alumni in Hawaii in September. In 2023, while on a visit to Honolulu’s Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design, he had a brief encounter with Mangione.
Like everyone there, George said Mangione was polite and intelligent.
According to George, he was really enthusiastic about the group and wanted to find out how else he could get engaged in order to meet other Penn alumni. There were no indications to the contrary, and everything was rather lovely.
One of Mangione’s old classmates from the Gilman School in Maryland, Freddie Leatherbury, claimed that on October 1, he got messages from pals inquiring as to whether he had had any conversations with Mangione. It had been years since the two had met, and they had never been close. When Leatherbury found out that Mangione was absent, he expressed his disappointment.
He was a modest but remarkable young man, Leatherbury said. It wasn’t until he was named valedictorian that I realized how intelligent he was. It only illustrates how submissive and modest he was. He simply went about his business, doing it well and in silence.
According to a former classmate who requested that his identity be concealed due to privacy concerns, Mangione’s cousin contacted other Gilman alumni to inquire if they had had any recent touch with him.
According to the cousin, Mangione had undergone back surgery, had been absent for months, and his family was in a desperate search for him. According to the former classmate, members of that friend group attempted to text and direct message Mangione, but nobody responded.
According to two senior law enforcement officials, Mangione’s mother reported her missing in San Francisco in mid-November.
On December 4, Thompson was shot and killed outside a hotel in midtown Manhattan, where he was supposed to give a speech at a conference. A multi-state manhunt was launched after his death.
According to a picture of the fake ID that NBC New York was able to obtain, Pennsylvania police discovered a fake New Jersey driver’s license belonging to 26-year-old Mark Rosario of Maplewood in Mangione’s rucksack.
Multiple law enforcement sources informed NBC News that Thompson’s alleged killer used the same name to check in to a hostel in New York days prior to the attack.
A revived interest in a Pokémon character linked to Mangione has resulted from his arrest, which has made him a symbol of resistance for people dissatisfied with the American healthcare system.
Others, however, warn against exalting Mangione.
According to Commissioner Jessica Tisch of the New York Police Department, the entire situation is a complete tragedy. You lost a family man, a friend, and your father to murder.
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