Months earlier than United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot to demise on a Manhattan sidewalk, suspect Luigi Mangione went darkish and family members desperately tried to search out him.
They reached out to former classmates and posted pleas on social media for any phrase on his whereabouts. Rumors about his disappearance started circulating amongst his former classmates.
After months of silence and rising fear from his household and buddies, Mangione lastly resurfaced Monday when he was captured by police in Pennsylvania because the suspect in Thompson’s killing. Authorities stated he was carrying a backpack containing a ghost gun, pretend IDs, and a pocket book and different writings detailing his grievances with the well being care system.
Until he disappeared, the high-achieving younger man from a distinguished Baltimore household had led what many would take into account a charmed life, ending as valedictorian at an elite Maryland highschool and touring the world after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania.Friends and household described Mangione, who’s being held with out bail in a Pennsylvania correctional facility, as a sort and clever laptop science graduate who loved touring and studying.
“He was the form of individual that you’d know was going to do nice issues,” stated his good friend R.J. Martin, proprietor of Surfbreak, a co-living area in Honolulu, the place Mangione lived for six months in 2022.
“It’s simply totally heartbreaking to assume that he may have been an murderer, and heartbreaking to know that his life is basically perpetually over or altered in unimaginable methods.”
After a dayslong manhunt, Mangione, 26, was charged in New York on Monday with one depend of homicide, three counts of felony possession of a weapon and one depend of possession of a solid instrument.
He was arrested earlier that day in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the place he was discovered consuming at a McDonald’s restaurant and carrying a backpack containing what authorities stated was proof connecting him to Thompson’s deadly taking pictures.
Mangione was additionally arraigned in Pennsylvania on two felony fees of forgery and carrying a firearm and not using a license, in addition to three misdemeanor fees of tampering with data or identification, possessing devices of crime and offering false identification to regulation enforcement.
Mangione is combating extradition to New York, and his lawyer, Thomas Dickey, stated he has but to see proof linking his consumer to Thompson’s killing. He additionally stated Mangione would plead not responsible to the costs in Pennsylvania and New York.
A voracious reader and gamer who left behind a strong on-line footprint, Mangione make clear his pursuits and maybe his psychological state in an archived model of his now-deleted Reddit account, the place he first appeared in 2016 beneath the username “Mister_Cactus.”
The account included posts on a subreddit about spondylolisthesis, a situation the place a bone within the backbone slips out of alignment, placing strain on decrease vertebrae and nerves across the backbone.
“Mister_Cactus” wrote on the subreddit in April that his situation “went unhealthy to the purpose the place I felt it each day.”
Reddit posts from final yr level to an damage flare-up after the account holder went browsing. The motion aggravated again ache, which “Mister_Cactus” stated he had handled since childhood, in response to a submit in July 2023.
Other posts recommend the account holder underwent spinal fusion surgical procedure someday round that date. “Mister_Cactus” instructed one other person two weeks earlier than the process, “I hold questioning why I used to be so afraid of it.”
The subsequent month, it appeared “Mister_Cactus” skilled optimistic outcomes from the operation. He wrote that after per week, he “was on actually zero ache meds” and was capable of sit, stroll and stand.
“When my spondy went unhealthy on me final yr (23M) it was utterly devastating as a younger athletic individual,” “Mister_Cactus” wrote in a separate submit in August 2023, referring to himself as a 23-year-old male with spondylolisthesis.
These descriptions are per info Mangione shared with Martin, his good friend in Hawaii. The two final texted about 9 months in the past, when Martin reached out to ask Mangione whether or not he had undergone spinal surgical procedure. Mangione replied with pictures displaying screws in his again, Martin stated.
“You wouldn’t know he’s in ache till afterwards he may say, ‘Oh, sorry. I couldn’t get away from bed for a pair days.’ And that’s form of the start and finish of it,” Martin stated.
In early April, “Mister_Cactus” posted a packing checklist and recommendations he stated labored effectively throughout two months he spent touring in Asia. The submit was made on a Reddit group dedicated to minimalist journey and packing just one bag.
“Mister_Cactus” additionally posted feedback in May, providing recommendation within the spondylolisthesis Reddit group about his spinal situation.
The account’s last submit appeared to have been made on May 25, when he shared within the “tedkaczysnki” subreddit a video known as “Streaming overdose 2024 , China” displaying a sequence of video clips of quite a few individuals in numerous areas streaming on their cellphones.
On an account that seems to be Mangione’s on the e-book evaluation website Goodreads, he reviewed Kaczynski’s “Industrial Society and Its Future,” also called “The Unabomber Manifesto,” in January.
“It’s simple to shortly and inconsiderate write this off because the manifesto of a lunatic, as a way to keep away from dealing with among the uncomfortable issues it identifies. But it’s merely not possible to disregard how prescient a lot of his predictions about fashionable society turned out,” the poster wrote.
Mangione had talked about Kaczynski to Gurwinder Bhogal, a British freelance author and Substack writer who exchanged some 20 messages with Mangione from April by June, Bhogal stated.
Mangione was a “founding member” of his publication and expressed a mixture of left-wing and right-wing political opinions. He additionally vented concerning the excessive price of well being care within the U.S., Bhogal stated.
“Overall, the impression I received of him, moreover his curiosity and kindness, was a deep concern for the way forward for humanity, and a dedication to enhance himself and the world,” Bhogal wrote in an electronic mail to NBC News.
Bhogal stated he and Mangione had “briefly touched on the variations between the UK and US healthcare programs. Luigi complained about how costly healthcare within the US was, and expressed envy on the UK’s nationalized well being system.”
During their exchanges, Bhogal stated Mangione mentioned spending time in Japan and frightened individuals there “don’t actually dwell their lives — many of the younger males are hooked on video video games, pornography, and different shallow entertainments.”
“One factor he stated was the individuals round him had been on a special wavelength, and he was desirous to be part of a neighborhood of like-minded individuals,” Bhogal added. “He recommended I schedule group video calls as he actually needed to satisfy my different founding members and begin a neighborhood primarily based on concepts like rationalism, Stoicism, and efficient altruism.”
In September, Mangione’s telephone quantity disappeared from a WhatsApp group for Penn alumni in Hawaii, in response to Raj George, president of the Penn Club of Hawaii. He briefly met Mangione in 2023 throughout a tour of the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design in Honolulu.
Like others, George described Mangione as vivid and pleasant.
“He was actually excited concerning the membership, desirous to see how else he may get entangled to attach with different Penn alums,” George stated. “Everything was actually nice — there have been no indicators to make us assume in any other case.”
Freddie Leatherbury, certainly one of Mangione’s former classmates on the Gilman School in Maryland, stated he acquired messages from buddies on Oct. 1, asking if he had spoken to Mangione. They had been by no means shut and it had been years for the reason that two crossed paths. Leatherbury stated he was dismayed to study Mangione was lacking.
“He was a powerful however unassuming child,” Leatherbury remembered. “I didn’t even understand how sensible he was till he was named valedictorian. It form of simply speaks to how humble and passive he was. He simply went about his factor, did it quietly and did it very effectively.”
A cousin of Mangione’s reached out to different Gilman alums asking whether or not they’d had any latest contact with him, in response to a former classmate who requested that his identify be withheld out of privateness considerations.
The cousin stated Mangione had been lacking for months, had undergone again surgical procedure and the household was determined to search out him. Members of that good friend group tried texting and direct-messaging Mangione, however nobody heard again, the previous classmate stated.
In mid-November, Mangione’s mom filed a lacking individual report in San Francisco, in response to two senior regulation enforcement officers.
Thompson was shot and killed on Dec. 4 outdoors a midtown Manhattan lodge, the place he was scheduled to talk at a convention. His demise prompted a multistate manhunt.
Police in Pennsylvania discovered a fraudulent New Jersey driver’s license for a 26-year-old Maplewood resident named “Mark Rosario” in Mangione’s backpack, in response to a picture of the phony ID obtained by NBC New York.
The similar identify was utilized by Thompson’s alleged killer to check in to a New York hostel days earlier than the assault, a number of regulation enforcement sources instructed NBC News.
Mangione’s arrest has turned him into a logo of resistance for these annoyed by the U.S. well being care system and has sparked a renewed fascination with a Pokemon character related to him.
But others warning in opposition to lionizing Mangione.
“I feel the entire thing is an absolute tragedy,” stated New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “You have a father, a good friend, a household man, who was killed.”
