On December 4, 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson (50) was gunned down in the early morning hours while walking on the street in New York City.
As some quick background into Brian, he was born on July 10, 1974 in Ames, Iowa. Brian graduated in 1992 as the class valedictorian of South Hamilton High School in Jewell Junction in Iowa. He then went on to attend the University of Iowa where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in business administration, with a major in accounting. He was also valedictorian at university.
Brian was married to a woman named Paulette and they had two sons together. Reports say that the couple did not live together but were still married. They all lived in Maple Grove, Minnesota. He was known to friends and colleagues as B.T.
Brian first worked at PwC as a manager in the transaction advisory services group of the audit practice. He joined UnitedHealth Group in 2004 and was named the CEO of UnitedHealthcare government programs which included Medicare and retirement as well as community and state divisions in 2021. His total compensation was $9.6 million in 2021, $9.8 million in 2022, and $10.2 million in 2023.
While Brian was the CEO, UnitedHealthcare’s profits increased from $12 billion in 2021 to $16 billion in 2023.
In December 2024, the company was the largest health insurer in the United States.
UHC had recently been investigated by the US Senate. The investigation revealed that in 2019, UHC’s prior authorization denial rate was 8%. Brian became CEO in 2021, and by 2022 the rate of denial had increased to 22.7%. For both Medicare and non-Medicare claims, UHC declines claims at a rate which is double the industry average.
In May 2024, UHC employees were sued by the Florida Firefighters’ Pension Fund, alleging fraud and insider trading.
Brian traveled to New York in December 2024 for the annual UnitedHealth Group investors meeting. He arrived in the city on December 2.
On Wednesday December 4, at around 6.545am, Brian was walking along West 54th Street toward the New York Hilton Midtown hotel that was hosting the meeting.
An assailant was waiting for Brian. According to CCTV, the person had been waiting for Brian prior to his arrival near the Hilton.
The shooter was standing around 20 feet or 6 metres away from Brian when he shot at him, at least twice. Brian was hit in the back and the right calf.
Brian was taken to Mount Sinai West hospital in Manhattan, where, at 7:12 am, he was pronounced dead.
At the time, we knew that the killer stood over Brian as he lay injured, before fleeing the scene. It is believed he fled on a bike.
Police quickly released images of the man they thought was the attacker.
Their investigation revealed that the suspect arrived in New York City via a Greyhound bus on Sunday November 24, just after 10pm. The bus started the journey in Atlanta, Georgia, and made seven stops on the way to NYC.
That night, the suspect checked into the HI New York City Hostel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It is also thought that he went to the Hilton that night to check out the site.
He checked out of the hostel on November 29, but checked back in November 30.
The suspect left the hostel at 5.30am on December 4. It is thought he left via bike. Google maps says the hostel is around 2.9miles away from the Hilton.
At 6.15am, the suspect was seen leaving the 57th Street F Train subway stop.
At 6.17am, the suspect purchased coffee, water, and granola bars at a Starbucks café two blocks away from the New York Hilton Midtown hotel, discarding the coffee cup and water bottle.
He was seen walking in the area while talking on the phone at 6.30am.
The suspect arrived at the Hilton at around 6.39am.
Brian left the Marriott where he was staying at around 6.40am. The closest Marriott appears to be around 0.6 miles from the Hilton. He left on foot to walk to the meeting.
By 6.44am, Brian was shot by the assailant.
A 911 call reporting the shooting was made at 6.46am. Police arrived on the scene two minutes later.
The suspect was seen riding an e-bike north into Central Park.
The suspect was seen again riding a bike at 6.59am and he was seen getting into a taxi at 7.04am.
At 7.30am, the suspect arrived at the George Washington Bridge Bus Station.
When police examined the scene, three fired cartridge cases alongside three unfired cartridges were found. The words “delay”, “deny”, and “depose” were written on the cases. “Depose” was inscribed on a casing from a round fired into Brian, while “delay” was marked on an unfired cartridge ejected as the shooter racked the pistol, possibly to clear a jam or intentionally discard the live round.
It has been suggested that the words depict a well-known insurance industry phrase about not paying out claims. Delay, Deny, Defend is a 2010 book by Jay M. Feinman, a retired Rutgers Law School professor, in which he critiques the property and casualty insurance industry.
Police also found a water bottle, candy wrapper and a phone that was believed to belong to the shooter.
His backpack was found in Central Park on December 6. It contained a Tommy Hilfiger jacket and Monopoly money.
Over the next few days, the internet went wild over the suspect’s photos. He wore a mask in almost all the images, but there was one photo where he did not have it on. He had apparently been flirting with a woman at the hostel and she asked him to remove the mask, so he did.
On Monday December 9, an employee of a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania called police after they appeared to recognize the suspect. Altoona is around 280 miles or 450km from NYC.
It has been reported that the man was wearing a blue medical mask and looking at a silver laptop computer and had a backpack on the floor of the restaurant.
When he pulled down his mask, Altoona police officers “immediately recognised him as the suspect.”
They discovered that the man had a gun and silencer that were similar to the one used in Brian’s murder, a hand-written manifesto, as well as a fake ID.
The suspect’s name was very quickly made public – Luigi Mangione (26).
“They also recovered clothing, including a mask consistent with those worn by our wanted individual,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. “Also recovered was a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching the ID our suspect used to check into his New York City hostel before the shooting incident.”
Police also said that the manifesto included no specific threats to others, but noted “it does seem he does have some ill will towards corporate America.”
Luigi was also carrying a passport and $10,000 in cash — $2,000 of it in foreign currency.
Police also released some information about the gun that Luigi was carrying. “As of right now, the information we’re getting from Altoona is that the gun appears to be a ghost gun that may have been made on a 3D printer, capable of firing a 9 mm round,” Chief Kenny said.
When an officer asked if he’d been to New York recently, he “became quiet and started to shake”, according to a criminal complaint based on police accounts of the arrest.
We have learned some more about his background. He was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco and a last known address in Honolulu, Hawaii. Luigi was valedictorian of his high school.
In his valedictory speech, he described his classmates’ “incredible courage to explore the unknown and try new things,” according to a post on the school website. He praised their collective inventiveness and pioneering mindset.
His social media posts also suggest that he belonged to the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi. They also show him taking part in a 2019 program at Stanford University, and in photos with family and friends at the Jersey Shore and in Hawaii, San Diego, Puerto Rico, and other destinations.
He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering in 2020.
Luigi’s grandfather, Nick Mangione Senior, was a millionaire real estate developer and philanthropist, according to a 1995 profile by the Baltimore Sun.
AP reported that one of his cousins was a Maryland state legislator and his family bought a country club north of Baltimore in the 1980s.
This info about the family is from the Associated Press:
Mangione comes from a prominent Maryland family. His grandfather Nick Mangione, who died in 2008, was a successful real estate developer. One of his best-known projects was Turf Valley Resort, a sprawling luxury retreat and conference center outside Baltimore that he purchased in 1978. The father of 10 children, Nick Mangione prepared his five sons — including Luigi Mangione’s father, Louis Mangione — to help manage the family business, according to a 2003 Washington Post report.
All of Luigi’s social media has now been removed.
According to his GoodReads account, he read many books about chronic pain.
Mangione’s Goodreads profile shows that six books related to chronic back pain are on his bookshelf. The titles are Back Mechanic; Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance; Back in Control: A Spine Surgeon’s Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain; Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection; Why We Get Sick: The Hidden Epidemic at the Root of Most Chronic Disease―and How to Fight It; and Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery.
The books were added to his list between May 2022 and February 2023.
Luigi’s former roommate, RJ Martin has spoken to the media about Luigi’s pain conditions. ‘I remember he said he had a back issue, and he was hoping to get stronger in Hawaii,” RJ said.
RJ said that Luigi’s injuries were so “traumatic and difficult” that one basic surfing lesson left him bedridden for a week.
He also spoke about Luigi’s back surgery. “It looked heinous, with just giant screws going into his spine,” he said.
He also left a review on the so-called Unabomber’s manifesto earlier this year, calling Ted Kaczynski an “extreme political revolutionary.”
“It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out,” Luigi wrote.
We have also learned that Luigi was reported missing by his family on November 18, 2024. It seems like he had been dropping off the radar for awhile.
Luigi was arraigned in Pennsylvania on December 9 and he is being held without bail in a Pennsylvania court.
Asked if he needed a public defender, he asked if he could “answer that at a future date”.
“At some point, we’ll work out through extradition to bring him back to New York to face charges here, working with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office,” Chief Kenny said.
“This just happened this morning. We’ll be working, backtracking his steps from New York to Altoona, Pennsylvania,” Chief Kenny said.
Luigi’s family issued a statement at 1.50am on December 10, after his arrest.
”We only know what we have read in the media,” the statement said.
“Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest. We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.
”We are devastated by this news.”
When Luigi was first taken into court on Tuesday December 10, he had an angry outburst.
He was heard saying the words “completely unjust” and “an insult to the intelligence of the American people” as he entered – but it’s not clear to what he was referring.
That day, his attorney contested a request from prosecutors in New York to have him extradited there to face charges including second-degree murder.
Luigi’s manifesto has also been released.
In total, Luigi is facing charges of one count of second-degree murder, 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 weapon.
SOURCE LIST
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Thompson_(businessman)