Gun found on Luigi Mangione, suspect in CEO killing, matches 3 shell casings at Manhattan crime scene, NYPD commissioner says

The so-called ghost gun that suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione had when he was arrested in Pennsylvania matches the shell casings found at the midtown Manhattan crime scene where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday.

"First, we got the gun in question back from Pennsylvania; it’s now at the NYPD crime lab," said Tisch, speaking at an unrelated event on Staten Island. "We were able to match that gun to the three shell casings that we found in midtown at the scene of the homicide. We were also able, at our crime lab, to match the person of interest’s fingerprints with fingerprints that we found on both the water bottle and the Kind bar near the scene of the homicide in midtown."

The fingerprint and ballistics matches represent the first pieces of forensic evidence that authorities say directly links Mangione to the crime.

Authorities also found a notebook that detailed apparent plans for the killing of Thompson, according to published reports Wednesday.

The spiral notebook described killing an executive at a conference and included the handwritten passage, according to The New York Times: "What do you do? You wack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention. It’s targeted, precise, and doesn’t risk innocents."

A police official told Newsday that Mangione’s apparent writings voiced disdain for corporate America and the health care system in particular.

"The United States is number one in the world but life expectancy of Americans is rated 42nd in the world," read a quote from writings found with Mangione, according to the official.

Investigators are also honing in on a potential motive, in light of Mangione’s apparent writings and an injury he recently sustained, the police official said. Mangione apparently suffered a back injury in an accident in July 2023. He posted an X-ray of numerous screws that were apparently inserted into his spine.

Mangione, 26, an Ivy League-educated computer scientist from Towson, Maryland, has been held without bail on weapons and forgery charges since his Monday arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Mangione has also been charged in New York with second-degree murder and weapons possession in the shooting of Thompson, a married father of two from Maple Grove, Minnesota. But Mangione is fighting extradition to New York and is expected to spend at least the next two weeks in a Pennsylvania prison while his extradition is litigated.

Mangione’s Pennsylvania-based defense attorney, Thomas Dickey, in a series of national television interviews, said his client intends to plead not guilty to the charges in both New York and Pennsylvania.

"We had a brief hearing yesterday, but there is one document — an arrest warrant from the state of New York — which merely referenced a statute. We’ve seen no evidence," Dickey said on "Good Morning America" Wednesday. "That’s one of the many reasons why we’re challenging the extradition at this point, so we can see some evidence and get a little more detailed information about the charges against Luigi."

On his way into court Tuesday for his extradition hearing, Mangione struggled with sheriff’s deputies leading him into a courthouse. A handcuffed Mangione, wearing an orange jumpsuit, shouted comments during his brief scuffle with the deputies that included Mangione saying "clearly out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people," according to a broadcast. His full comments were not audible.

Thompson died Dec. 4 as a result of a "gunshot wound to the torso," as determined at his autopsy, according to the felony arrest warrant for Mangione issued in New York.

Mangione, who grew up outside of Baltimore in an affluent family, was arrested at a McDonald's restaurant in Altoona following a six-day search for the shooter after a fellow patron thought he resembled the suspect in Thompson’s killing.

Authorities released a photo of Mangione, with a blue medical mask pulled down, eating a McDonald’s hash brown shortly before his arrest.

Mangione, who had several fake IDs, also had a Faraday bag with him at the time of his arrest, a police official said. The bag prevents the tracking of cell phone signals by cell towers, a technology that law enforcement typically uses to track cell phones in real-time and to determine the locations of cell phones on specific dates and times that are germane to a criminal prosecution.

Police also found "a black 3D printed pistol and a black silencer … the pistol had a metal slide and a plastic handle with a metal threaded barrel" inside Mangione’s backpack, according to a criminal complaint filed in Blair County, Pennsylvania. "The pistol had one loaded Glock magazine with six nine-millimeter full metal jacket rounds. There was also one loose nine-millimeter hollow point round."