Penn graduate charged with murder in killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
Luigi Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, was charged with murder on Monday in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last week, according to court documents. A spokesperson at the Ivy League school in Philadelphia confirmed Mangione graduated from the school in 2020.
Mangione was arrested earlier in the day at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on an illegal gun charge after he was recognized as the person of interest in the fatal shooting. He was then arraigned on several unrelated charges after his arrest. Mangione was charged with forgery, firearms not to be carried without a license, tampering with records or identification, possessing instruments of crime and false identification to law enforcement authorities, according to court documents.
Mangione was taken into custody after a tipster contacted police after seeing a man at the McDonald's who looked like the person of interest in photos released in the case. Police say Mangione was wearing a blue medical mask and sitting at a table with a laptop when they responded to the McDonald's. Mangione was visibly nervous when an officer asked if he'd been in New York recently, according to police.
"My partner and I recognized him immediately," Altoona Police Department officer Tyler Frye said.
"We didn't think twice about it, we knew he was our guy," said Frye, who has been on the job for six months.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro called the person who spotted Mangione at the McDonalds a "hero."
"In some dark corners, this killer is being hailed as a hero," Shapiro said. "Hear me on this, he is no hero. The real hero is the person who called 911 at McDonald's this morning."
Mangione had a gun with a silencer matching a description of the weapon used to kill Thompson and a fake New Jersey driver's license in his possession, police said. It was apparently the same fake ID Mangione allegedly used to check into a New York City hostel before last Wednesday's shooting.
Investigators say they also found several other fake IDs and a handwritten note detailing anger toward corporate America and the healthcare industry.
Investigators said there doesn't appear to be anything linking Mangione to Altoona as they now retrace his steps through Pennsylvania in the days since the shooting.
The CBS News Confirmed Team has also uncovered an online book review from Mangione that gave Ted Kaczyinksi's writings, the man known as the Unabomber, four stars.
Luigi Mangione's ties to Philadelphia
Mangione is from Towson, Maryland, and graduated from Gilman School, an all-boys private high school in Baltimore, in 2016 as the valedictorian speaker.
Mangione graduated from Penn with a bachelor's and master's in 2020, a university spokesperson said. He majored in computer science with a minor in math.
According to a digitalized commencement program, Penn held its graduation for the Class of 2020 on May 22, 2022.
Mangione was a teaching assistant at Penn and founded the University of Pennsylvania Game Research and Development Environment, a video game development club. In 2018, Penn Today, the university's official news website, featured Mangione in an article on UPGRADE. The article has since been removed.
An address for Mangione at the time he was attending Penn comes back to Lauder College House, a dorm on campus.
Mangione was also a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity member.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mangione worked as a data engineer at TrueCar, a website for car buyers, since graduation. A video he posted on Instagram showed he lived in Oahu, Hawaii, at Surfbreak Coliving in 2023.
