(CNN) — New York prosecutors charged Luigi Mangione with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, hours after his arrest Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from Maryland was also charged with two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of second-degree possession of a forged document and one count of third-degree criminal possession of a firearm, online court documents show.
Thompson’s fatal shooting outside an investor conference in Midtown Manhattan sparked an exhaustive search, with New York police scouring the city for evidence and reviewing thousands of hours of video footage.
The breakthrough came five days later, Monday morning, when an employee at a McDonald’s in Altoona, about 230 miles from the hotel where the shooting occurred, called police to say she had identified the suspect.
When two officers arrived, they found a man “wearing a medical mask and cap” sitting “in the back of the building at a table” looking at a laptop, according to a criminal complaint released Monday.
The officers asked him to pull down his mask to see his face and “immediately recognized him as the suspect,” according to the criminal complaint.
Officers asked the man for identification and he gave them a New Jersey ID with the name Mark Rosario on it. When they asked him if he had recently been to New York, he “became silent and began to shake,” the criminal complaint states.
Police found no records matching the identification provided and informed the man that he was the subject of a formal police investigation. He then told the police his real name: Luigi Mangione.
When a police officer asked him why he used a false name, he replied, “I clearly shouldn’t have,” according to the complaint.
After arresting Mangione, police found “a black 3D-printed pistol” with a loaded Glock magazine and a “black silencer” also 3D-printed in his backpack, the criminal complaint states. Jessica Tisch, New York Police Commissioner said earlier in the day that Mangione was found with a firearm and a silencer “both consistent with the weapon used in the murder,” referring to a device that muffles the sound of a firearm.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny previously described the gun found with Mangione as a “ghost gun,” an untraceable weapon capable of firing a 9mm bullet.
Authorities also recovered a “fraudulent New Jersey ID matching the one our suspect used to check into his New York hostel before the shooting,” Tisch said, as well as “a handwritten document that testifies both his motivation and his state of mind. Kenny said the document, which was also described as the suspect’s “manifesto”, did not contain specific threats but indicated “ill will towards American businesses”.
“These parasites planned it,” read one line of the document, according to a police official who saw it. Another read: “I apologize for any conflict and trauma, but it had to be done. » The document indicates that the suspect acted alone and was self-funded, according to Kenny.
The suspect also appears to reference UnitedHealthcare, describing “United” as one of the largest companies by market capitalization in the United States, according to a law enforcement source who read the document. There is no specific mention of Thompson.
In addition to the gun and fake ID found on the suspect, Tisch said, police recovered “clothing, including a mask, matching that worn by our wanted person.”
The NYPD and FBI arrived in Altoona Monday afternoon, according to Republican Rep. John Joyce of Pennsylvania.
Mangione was questioned by police from the Altoona Police Department, an officer told CNN, before being taken to the Blair County Courthouse.
He was temporarily assigned a public defender during his first court appearance. CNN has not yet identified his lawyer.
Pennsylvania State Police said they believed Mangione had been in the state for “several days.” Lt. Col. George Bivens said at a news conference Monday that as the investigation progresses, he is “confident that we will have a much better idea of his activities over the past, you know, how many of days spent in New York and Pennsylvania.
“We’ve already identified, for example, the businesses that he frequented in this area and the activities that he engaged in – that led us to more evidence, and so it all becomes sort of a mountain of evidence that must be analyzed and analyzed. look at. »
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said the suspect traveled between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, making stops in between.
The principal of the private school from which Mangione graduated sent an email to parents and members of the school community, calling the news “deeply distressing.”
“This is deeply distressing news that adds to an already horrific situation. Our hearts go out to everyone involved,” Gilman School Principal Henry PA Smyth said in the email.
UnitedHealth Group hopes that “today’s arrest will bring some relief to family, friends, colleagues and the many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
“We thank law enforcement and will continue to work with them on this investigation. We ask everyone to respect the privacy of families as they grieve,” the spokesperson said.
In a statement released by Mangione’s cousin, Nino Mangione, who is a Maryland state delegate, the suspect’s family said they were “shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest.”
“We offer our prayers to Brian Thompson’s family and ask people to pray for everyone involved,” said the statement, signed with “The Mangione Family.”
The note says the family only knows the facts of the case that have been published in the media and is “devastated by the news.”
Here are more what we know about the suspect:
- Mangione was born and raised in Maryland and his last known address was in Honolulu, according to Kenny. He had no arrest history in New York, the chief of detectives said.
- Mangione graduated from the Gilman School – a prestigious all-boys school in Baltimore, where he was valedictorian – and the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, with master’s and bachelor’s degrees in computer science and a minor in mathematics.
- A former classmate who said he studied alongside Mangione at the University of Pennsylvania described him as a “totally normal guy.”
- A Goodreads profile that appears to belong to the suspect shows that earlier this year he said he had read the 1995 anti-technology manifesto written by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, the infamous domestic terrorist and mathematician known for sending deadly bombs by mail between 1978 and 1995.
Arresting the suspect was “good old-fashioned police work,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said Monday, citing the McDonald’s employee who called to give him a tip.
“For just over five days, our NYPD investigators combed through thousands of hours of video, tracked hundreds of tips, and processed every piece of forensic evidence: DNA, fingerprints, IP addresses and more , to tighten the net,” said Police Commissioner Tisch.
Authorities knew what the suspect looked like, but did not know who or where he was. During the weekend, they released new photos of him: in the back seat of a taxi and wearing a jacket while walking down the street. In both cases, he wears a hood and a mask.
The public had also seen the suspect in surveillance photos and videos, including one showing him pointing the gun at Thompson’s back.
Some of the suspect’s actions – such as lowering his mask on camera and leaving behind inscribed shell casings that could indicate a mobile, cellphone and a partial fingerprint on a water bottle – only added to clues that authorities could use.
Police continue to investigate whether the words found on the boxes – “Deny,” “Defend” and “Drop” – could indicate a motive. A 2010 book criticizing the insurance industry is called “Delay Deny Defend,” a common description of the industry’s tactics.
Other key developments include:
- An electric bike that the suspect was riding toward Central Park after the shooting is still missing, according to surveillance footage released by authorities. Divers had already searched a Central Park lake for the weapon used in the shooting, a law enforcement official told CNN.
- A partial fingerprint and DNA recovered early in the search for the suspect have so far not yielded a match against law enforcement databases, a law enforcement official says . The fingerprint was recovered from a purported “burner phone” believed to belong to the suspect, as well as DNA from a water bottle and an energy bar wrapper the suspect allegedly purchased.
- A backpack that appears to belong to the suspect was found Friday in Central Park, a police source said. It contained money from the board game Monopoly, a law enforcement source told CNN, and a Tommy Hilfiger jacket, law enforcement officials briefed on the case said.
This story has been updated with additional information.