Alleged CEO killer Luigi Mangione did not appear to be UnitedHealthcare client, NYPD says

Suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione may have been motivated to act based on the belief UnitedHealthcare wields massive influence in the nation's health insurance industry, NYPD officials said Thursday, while noting Mangione does not appear to have been a client of the nation's largest health insurance company.

Mangione, a 26-year-old computer scientist from Maryland who has been arrested and charged with murder in the killing of CEO Brian Thompson, knew for months beforehand about the investor meeting that brought Thompson to New York City, police officials said.

Mangione is being held without bail in Pennsylvania on forgery and weapons possession charges. He is fighting extradition to New York, where Manhattan prosecutors have charged him with second-degree murder and other charges in the assassination of Thompson, a 50-year-old married father of two from Minnesota.

Mangione's attorney, Thomas Dickey, has not responded to messages seeking comment. But in television interviews he has said his client will plead not guilty to the charges in both states.

Mangione, who has two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, was carrying a three-page "manifesto" that "speaks to both his motivation and mindset," NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny has said.

The document, Kenny has said, indicates someone who has "some ill will toward corporate America."

Mangione, who was arrested Monday at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, also had several other pieces of evidence in his possession, according to police, including an illegal and untraceable ghost gun, which had the capability to fire a 9 mm round, and a gun silencer, police said.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has said that ballistics testing performed at its crime lab in Queens shows that shell casings found at the scene of the killing came from the gun that was allegedly in Magione's possession.

Police have also matched Mangione's fingerprints with prints found on a water bottle and a Kind bar wrapper found near the fatal shooting scene.

Investigators have also been looking into related potential motives, including that Mangione was unhappy with his interactions with the health insurance industry after he sustained a back injury, police have said.

Mangione also had several fake IDs, according to police, including the same New Jersey driver's license the alleged gunman used to rent a room at an Upper West Side hostel in the days before the killing.

The assassination of Thompson on Dec. 4 outside the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue was captured on surveillance video and showed a masked gunman approach Thompson from behind and open fire.

Thompson was shot in the back and calf, police have said. He died from a single gunshot to the torso, the medical examiner's office has ruled, according to court documents.

Three shell casings found at the scene were marked with the words "delay," "deny" and "depose," which police have said could have a nexus to the health insurance industry.

Police also shared photographs online and to the news media, which helped a customer in a McDonald's nearly 300 miles away from New York City recognize a fellow customer — identified as Mangione — munching on a hash brown Monday morning.

At his bail hearing in Pennsylvania Tuesday, Mangione shouted toward television cameras as he was being brought into a courthouse , saying that something, which was inaudible, was "clearly out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people."