Luigi Mangione, who was arrested and charged with murder within the taking pictures demise of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, as soon as belonged to a gaggle of Ivy League players who performed assassins, a member of the group advised NBC News.
In the sport, known as “Among Us,” some gamers are secretly assigned to be killers in house who carry out different duties whereas making an attempt to keep away from suspicion from different gamers.
Alejandro Romero, who attended the University of Pennsylvania with Mangione and was a member of the identical Discord group, stated he was shocked when information broke on social media that Mangione had been taken into police custody.
“I simply discovered it extraordinarily ironic that, you recognize, we had been on this sport and there may truly be a real killer amongst us,” he stated.
“As quickly as his photograph and title popped up on X, my buddy texted me asking if I knew him, after which both I used to be calling some 10 mates or they had been calling me,” Romero added. “I did not communicate to anyone at present who wasn’t already conscious of what had occurred.”
Mangione, 26, was arrested Monday morning in a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after an worker noticed him.
Police discovered a firearm, believed to have been 3D-printed, and a handwritten doc on Mangione “that speaks to each his motivation and mindset,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch stated at a information convention. He was additionally carrying pretend identification and a passport, authorities stated.
In New York, Mangione was charged with homicide, possession of a loaded firearm, possession of a cast instrument and prison possession of a weapon, based on courtroom paperwork.
Authorities in Pennsylvania charged Mangione with carrying firearms with out a license, forgery, tampering with data or identification, possessing devices of crime and offering false identification to police.
In a statement on X on Monday night time, a member of the Mangione household stated they’re “shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest.”
“We supply our prayers to the household of Brian Thompson and we ask individuals to hope for all concerned,” wrote Nino Mangione, a Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates.
Romero, who stated he has not spoken to or seen Mangione since 2020, described him as a typical school scholar who didn’t stand out to him.
“He simply match a mould,” Romero stated. “He simply appeared like every other regular frat dude that you would see at a frat celebration.”
His last yr in school was reduce brief when the pandemic hit. Students had been compelled off campus of their final semester and didn’t return for graduation.
The Discord group was one technique to keep linked, Romero stated, however members started to go their separate methods as they bought full-time jobs or launched into lengthy journeys.
During a few of these years, Mangione left behind a digital footprint that included reviewing “Industrial Society and Its Future,” also called the “Unabomber Manifesto” by Ted Kaczynski, on Goodreads, a platform for e-book evaluations and suggestions. It served because the ideological reasoning for Kaczynski’s yearslong mail bomb marketing campaign that killed three individuals and injured 23 others.
Mangione turned considerably extra lively on X in 2021 after 5 years not posting or reposting content material, based on a evaluation of his account.
Asked concerning the change in Mangione’s on-line persona, Romero stated that query is circulating amongst his buddy group.
“I really feel like individuals are not sure learn how to label him,” he stated. “I’m personally struggling to grasp how this all matches.”
