Luigi Mangione Update: Gun Found On Suspect According To Crime Scene

The gun found on the suspect in the slaying of the CEO of United Healthcare matched shell casings found at the scene of the shooting, New York’s police commissioner said Wednesday.

Suspect Luigi Mangione’s fingerprints also matched a water bottle and snack bar wrapper that police found near the scene in Midtown Manhattan, Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at an unrelated news conference. Police earlier said they believed the gunman bought the items at a nearby cafe while waiting for his target.

Mangione, 26, was charged with murder in last week’s shooting of Brian Thompson, who ran the largest health insurance company in the United States.

Authorities said writings found in Mangione’s possession suggested a hatred of corporate greed.

They recovered a spiral notebook that Mangione kept, along with a three-page, handwritten letter found when he was arrested Monday in Pennsylvania, a police official said Wednesday. Police have not disclosed what was in the notebook.

The letter teased the possibility that clues to the attack — “some unbroken notes and to-do lists that illuminate the gist of it” — could be found in the notebook, the law enforcement official said. The official was not authorized to release information about the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

New York Police Department Senior Detective Joseph Kenny told “CBS New York” on Tuesday that the motive may have been related to an accident that sent Mangione to an emergency room on July 4, 2023.

A law enforcement bulletin obtained by the AP earlier this week said the letter disparaged corporate greed and what Mangione called “parasitic” health insurance companies. The prep school and Ivy League graduate wrote that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world and that corporate profits continue to rise while life expectancy does, according to the newsletter.

In his first public words since his arrest, Mangione shouted an “insult to the intelligence of the American people” on his way to court Tuesday. Mangione remained in jail Wednesday without bail in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with weapons offenses and forgery.

Manhattan prosecutors were working to bring him to New York. At a brief hearing Tuesday in Pennsylvania, defense attorney Thomas Dickey said Mangione would not waive extradition and instead wanted a hearing on the issue.

“You can’t rush to judgment in this case or any case,” Dickey said afterward. “He is presumed innocent. Let’s not forget that.”

Mangione was arrested in Altoona, about 230 miles west of New York City, after a McDonald’s customer recognized him and notified an employee, authorities said.

New York police officials said Mangione was carrying a gun like the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the alleged shooter used to enter a New York hostel, along with a passport and other fraudulent identity documents.

Thompson, 50, was killed Dec. 4 while walking alone to a Manhattan hotel for a conference with investors. From surveillance video, New York City investigators determined that the shooter quickly fled the city, possibly by bus.

His subsequent movements are unclear, but authorities believe he took steps to avoid radar detection. Prosecutors said at his hearing in Pennsylvania this week that when he was arrested, he had cellphone and laptop bags that prevent such devices from transmitting signals that authorities can use to track them.

Mangione, a grandson of a well-known Maryland real estate developer and philanthropist, had a bachelor’s degree in computer science and worked for a time at a car-buying website. In the first half of 2022, he checked into a co-living space in Hawaii, where those who knew him said he suffered from severe and sometimes debilitating back pain.

His relatives said in a statement that they were “shocked and devastated” at his arrest.