A 26-year-old man identified as a “strong person of interest” in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York was being questioned Monday by police in Pennsylvania after being found carrying a gun, a silencer, a mask, and fake identification cards, authorities said.
The man, University of Pennsylvania graduate Luigi Mangione, was detained by police in Altoona after an employee of a local McDonald’s reported that he was acting suspiciously.
New York Police Department investigators showed up in Altoona hours later.
Luigi had in his possession a suspected “ghost gun,” possibly made with a 3-D printer, that is capable of firing 9mm rounds, authorities said.
The gun is “consistent” with the pistol armed with a silencer that was used by a masked gunman to fatally shoot Thompson, 50, on Wednesday morning outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan, where the 50-year-old father of two was due to attend an investor meeting by his company’s parent, UnitedHealth Group.
Police credited their decision to publicly release surveillance video of Thompson’s slaying, as well as images of the previously unidentified person of interest in the case with Wednesday’s tip about Mangione.
Mangione, a Maryland native whose last known address is in Honolulu, was arrested on a gun charge but has not been charged in connection with Thompson’s killing.
Mangione also was carrying several fake ID cards, including one from New Jersey in the name of “Mark Rosario.” That is the same name from a fake New Jersey ID used by a man who checked into a Manhattan hostel more than a week before Thompson’s killing.
Police previously said the then-unidentified man who had stayed at the hosel on the Upper West Side was their person of interest in the murder investigation.
Mangione also was carrying a handwritten document that suggests “he has some ill will toward corporate America” a top police official said.
“At this time, [Mangione] is believed to be our person of interest in the brazen targeted murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare,” New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters.
Mangione received a bachelor’s of science in engineering, computer and information science, as well as a master of science for that concentration from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.
Before his time at Penn, he graduated from the all-boys Gilman School in Baltimore, where he was a valedictorian, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Mangione is a cousin of Maryland statehouse delegate Nino Mangione, whose office was preparing a statement on his arrest.
A Stanford University spokesperson said that a person with Mangione’s name was employed in 2019 as a head counselor by that university’s Pre-Collegiate Studies program.
Mangione’s detention in Pennsylvania came on the same day that Thompson’s funeral was set to take place in Minnesota.
Thompson’s company, which is a division of UnitedHealth Group, is the largest private payer of health insurance benefits in the U.S.
In a statement Monday, UHG said, “Our hope is that today’s apprehension brings some relief to Brian’s family, friends, colleagues and the many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy.”
“We thank law enforcement, and we will continue to work with them on this investigation,” the company said. “We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn.”
Investigators are looking into how Mangione traveled to Altoona.
Police previously had said that the person who shot Thompson fled the area on a bike and pedaled into nearby Central Park.
The NYPD has said the suspect was spotted exiting the park on foot about 20 blocks north of the shooting scene, and that he then took a taxi north to the neighborhood of Washington Heights, where he was last seen entering the Port Authority Bus Terminal there.
Police have also said that the person of interest is believed to have arrived in New York City on Nov. 24 on a bus from Atlanta, and that he immediately went to the Hilton that same night and spent about a half hour walking around the streets nearby.
— Tom Winter of NBC News and Jonathan Dienst of WNBC contributed to this report.
