According to what appears to be an archived version of his deleted Reddit account, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson spoke online in recent years about having spinal surgery and dealing with persistent back pain, numbness, and restless sleep.
On Monday, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was charged in New York with one crime of murder, three counts of unlawful weapon possession, and one count of possessing a counterfeit instrument. The murder of Thompson, which took place last week outside a New York City hotel, has drawn national attention and sparked discussions about corporate America, gun violence, and the healthcare sector.
According to Mangione’s lawyer, he plans to enter a not guilty plea to every charge.
Mangione’s interests and mental health over the past eight years may be revealed via the archived Reddit postings. Under the alias Mister_Cactus, he seems to have been active on the site since 2016. His most common posts are regarding gaming, travel, and spine health.
NBC News examined a history of the account’s removed comments and postings over a number of years, despite the fact that it has been suspended. The behavior seems to be consistent with events that are known to have occurred in Mangione’s life. Additionally, NBC News interviewed a number of his acquaintances, who stated that while they were unable to verify that the Reddit account belonged to Mangione, several of the posts were consistent with Mangione and his life experiences.
In order to prevent impersonation or involvement in high-profile criminal investigations, Reddit suspends accounts that may be connected to suspects. This is a standard practice across tech businesses, according to a Reddit representative.
Posts on a subreddit on spondylolisthesis, a disorder in which a bone in the spine falls out of place and exerts pressure on the lower vertebrae and the nerves around the spine, were among the activity on the Mister_Cactus account.
In an April remark with another user on the subreddit, Mister_Cactus stated that his health had gotten so poor that he felt it every day.
Constant discomfort indicates a problem, according to a post made in October 2023 offering guidance to other spondylolisthesis patients.
Back pain can trap people in a vicious loop that impacts their sleep, mental health, and other facets of their well-being, according to Yoni Ashar, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus and an expert in pain research.
According to Ashar, it can be the never-ending pain that lasts from the time you wake up until you finally manage to fall asleep, if you can. It just never stops, it’s always there, and it hurts.
In 2018, the Mister_Cactus account posted a need for advice about restless sleep on a different subreddit. The user described waking up multiple times during the night and feeling exhausted regardless of how much sleep they receive.
According to Reddit posts from the previous year, the user’s back issues worsened when they went surfing. In a July 2023 post, he said that the movement made his back discomfort worse, which he had had since he was a young boy. Following the surfing event, I slipped on a piece of paper, which caused my right leg to shut down for a week and my right glute to lock.
At the time, Mister Cactus wrote that he had been dealing with problems with his right hip for the previous 18 months. He claimed that he experienced pain when he sat, twitches in his leg muscles, and occasionally numbness and tingling in his groin.
According to the Reddit threads, the account holder struggled with the issue before having spinal fusion surgery in 2023.
In spinal fusion surgery, bone or a substance that resembles bone is inserted between two spinal bones. Metal plates, screws, or rods are then used to join the grafts to the bones. In order to reduce pressure on the vertebrae and strengthen the stability and contour of the spine, the bones are fused together.
Although recovery from that kind of back surgery might take up to a year as bone grafts integrate with the vertebrae, it can greatly relieve discomfort. According to a 2022 study, between 85% and 90% of the 100 patients who had the procedure expressed pleasure.
I’m still unsure of why I was so terrified when Mister_Cactus informed another Reddit member in the July 2023 post that his surgery was planned for two weeks later.
He stated in the same conversation on the procedure that it is not worth living your life in fear of future pain or fusions.
He said that after a week, he was on absolutely no pain medication and could sit, walk, and stand, which suggests that he had good outcomes from the surgery, according to the posts he made the following month.
In August 2023, Mister_Cactus commented in a different article on spondylolisthesis that “it was absolutely devastating as a young athletic person when my spondy went bad on me last year (23M).” A list of athletes who had positive outcomes after spinal fusion surgery was provided by him.
He said that this is not intended to promote surgery in and of itself, but rather to reassure people that, should the need for surgery arise, athletic life is completely normal following fusion.
The activity of accounts that appear to be connected to Mangione on other social media sites is consistent with the posts on Reddit. On the book review website Goodreads, an account that looks to be Mangione’s contains books about diets and chronic back pain on its read list, along with Ted Kaczynski’s so-called Unabomber Manifesto and Industrial Society and Its Future. It received four stars out of five from the account. The profile, which was made private on Wednesday, features activity from at least 2017 and a picture of Mangione that matches other pictures of him that are accessible.
In contrast, header images on an account under Mangione’s name on X display an X-ray of a spine with what look to be four rods or screws stuck into it. (Posts on the X account go back to 2016, and they seem to relate to Mangione’s life events. For example, he mentions a speech he gave as a senior in high school.)
According to two people who spoke with Mangione in recent years, he discussed his back discomfort or his worries about the American healthcare system with them, NBC News reported.
British freelance writer Gurwinder Bhogal, who writes for The Prism, a Substack periodical, claimed to have corresponded with Mangione between April and June.
The distinctions between the health care systems in the United States and the United Kingdom were briefly discussed, according to Bhogal. Luigi bemoaned the high cost of healthcare in the United States and voiced admiration for the socialized health system in the United Kingdom.
On Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News, R.J. Martin, the creator of Surfbreak, a co-living facility in Hawaii where Mangione spent six months in 2022, stated that the two had discussed Mangione’s spinal issue at the time.
Martin remarked, “I knew it was something that weighed on him constantly.” He was unable to accomplish a lot of things because of it.
Mangione had stayed in Hawaii to take care of himself, but he had his ups and downs. Martin called Mangione’s tenure at Surfbreak a bit of a roller coaster.
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