ALTOONA, Pennsylvania, USA (AP) — Authorities arrested a suspect on Monday and charged him with murder for the death of the UnitedHealthcare CEO in Manhattan, after a sharp-eyed customer at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania spotted a man whom officers found with a weapon, a mask, and writings linking him to the ambush.
PUBLICIDAD
The chance encounter at the fast food restaurant in Altoona marked a dramatic breakthrough in a challenging yet fast-paced investigation that captivated the public in the five days since the shooting that shook the business world.
PUBLICIDAD
Luigi Nicholas Mangione, a 26-year-old graduate from an Ivy League university and member of a prominent real estate family in Maryland, had a gun believed to have been used in last Wednesday's shooting against Brian Thompson, as well as writings suggesting his anger towards American corporatism, according to the police.
On Monday afternoon, the Manhattan District Attorney's office filed murder charges, among others, against Mangione, according to an online court document. The suspect was in jail in Pennsylvania, where he was charged with possession of a firearm without a license, forgery, and providing false identification to the police.
Mangione was sitting in the back of the McDonald's with a blue medical mask and looking at a computer, according to court documents. A customer saw him and an employee called 911, said Kaz Daughtry, deputy commissioner of the New York City Police Department.
Tyler Frye, a police officer from Altoona, recounted that he and his partner immediately recognized the suspect when he took off his mask. "We didn't think twice. We knew he was our guy," he said.
When one of the officers asked him if he had been in New York recently, "he remained silent and started trembling," according to the criminal complaint based on his detention reports.
In his backpack, the police found a black 3D printed gun and silencer, as indicated in the report. The gun had a metal guide and a plastic handle with a threaded metal barrel. He was arrested around 9:15 in the morning, the police said.
Mangione had clothing and a mask similar to those worn by the shooter and a fake New Jersey ID that matched one used by the suspect to check into a hostel in New York City before the murder, according to the city police commissioner, Jessica Tisch.
The chief of detectives of the New York Police Department, Joseph Kenny, said that Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco, and his last known address was in Honolulu.
"Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi's arrest," said the Mangione family in a statement posted on social media Monday night by their cousin, Maryland legislator Nino Mangione. "We offer our prayers to Brian Thompson's family and ask people to pray for all those involved."
Mangione was charged and ordered to be detained without bail during a brief court hearing. When asked if he needed a public defender, he asked if he could "answer that at a future date." Kenny said he will be extradited to New York to face charges related to Thompson's death.
The police found a three-page document with writings suggesting that Mangione had "ill will towards American corporatism," Kenny added.
The handwritten document "speaks both about his motivation and his mindset," Tisch said.
The deputy director of the Altoona police, Derek Swope, refused to describe the writings except to say that they were voluminous.
"They were very detailed, and everything we have will be handed over to the New York police," he told The Associated Press.
Mangione had a ghost gun, which can be assembled at home from parts without a serial number, making them difficult to trace, investigators said.
He also had a passport and $10,000 in cash — $2,000 of it in foreign currency —, pointed out the local prosecutor. Mangione, who said Hawaii was his most recent address, disputed the amount.
Thompson, 50, was killed last Wednesday while walking alone towards the hotel where UnitedHealthcare's parent company, UnitedHealth Group, was holding its annual investor conference, police said.
The shooting shook the American business world and the health insurance industry in particular, leading companies to reconsider their security plans and remove photos of their executives from their websites.
It seems like you haven't provided any text to be translated. Could you please provide the text you would like me to translate from Spanish to English?
Sisak and Attanasio reported from New York. The Associated Press journalists Michael Rubinkam and Maryclaire Dale in Pennsylvania; Lea Skene in Baltimore, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this dispatch.