The Manhunt, the Manifesto and the Murder Charge

from New York Times I'm Michael aaro. this is the. [Music]. daily. today the 5-day Manhunt for the killer. of a healthc care CEO what we know about. the suspect now in custody and what the. case has revealed about many Americans. contempt for insurance companies.

it's Tuesday December. [Music]. 10th on Wednesday morning of last week. the chief executive of United Healthcare. Brian Thompson left his hotel in Midtown. Manhattan for his company's investor. conference a few blocks. away it was 6:45 in the morning still. mostly dark out and as Thompson neared. his destination a hooded and masked.

gunman emerged from behind a parked car. took out a gun with a silencer and began. to fire at him over and over in what's. clearly a targeted attack chilling new. details tonight following what police. say was the premeditated murder of the. CEO of United healthc Care on the busy. streets of Midtown Manhattan early today. surveillance videos of all of this which. emerged a few hours later shocked the.

city it was so surreal it's something. that you would watch on a TV show in a. movie this like in Cold Blood. assassination two blocks away from my. house what I heard was that he ran up. 6th Avenue and into the park and so you. know that would be like right here and. just as shocking was how effortlessly. Thompson's killer Got Away according to. the NYPD the shooter took off through an. alley grabbing an ebike and riding it. into Central Park which at that time was.

filled with morning Runners and Walkers. by the end of the day a massive Citywide. Manhunt was. underway cops literally fan out across. Central Park hotel rooms are being. searched drones are put in the air new. this morning NYPD releasing surveillance. photos of the suspected gunman at a New. York hostel without a mask eventually. small pieces of evidence emerg a major. Discovery police sources they found a.

backpack believed to be the shooters no. gun was found inside what was found a. jacket and Monopoly money and as. speculation begins about why exactly. this CEO was targeted the question. naturally arises was this about. Healthcare and the police reveal a. single piece of evidence that suggests. perhaps it was law enforcement found. shell casings at the crime scene with. the words deny defend and depose written.

on them those words are strikingly. similar to a title of a book that. condemns the insurance business suddenly. it looks like this murder and this. missing suspect have tapped into. something much. bigger I mean every person in America.

has had a brush with the health care. system that has not been you know. excellent right I spoke with my. colleague Dion cersi who writes about. wealth and power in New York I got. brought into this story last week the. day after the shooting when I had. noticed a lot of posts on social media. strangely in support of the shooter you. know some of the posts were very pointed. and direct and just full of malice for.

the victim which is something that we. don't usually see so I just started. going through tweets and going through. all the networks and collecting just. this kind of outrage over the Health. Care. System let me just start off this video. by saying I do not condone Violence by. any means but let's talk about what. happened today with the United. Healthcare CEO 6 months before my my mom.

died her health insurance let her know. that all of the things that she had been. prescribed and insured for for the last. 10 15 years of her life were no longer. going to be covered there was some real. anger that this Unleashed sitting in the. emergency room with my 1-year-old baby. she needed to be transferred to New York. City so she could have emergency brain. surgery and instead we sat in the. hospital for 3 days because United. Healthcare refused to approve the.

transfer via ambulance you know moms who. couldn't get an ambulance ride covered. so my United healthc Care story is that. when my son needed a special type of bed. because of his disability they denied us. that today is a beautifully ironic day. for United Healthcare to deny my. injections for my cancer treatments. there's no shortage of really painful. experiences and I think why emotions are.

so heightened is because you interact. with health insurance companies at. obviously some of the worst moments of. your life when your kid is hurting or. dying when you are hurting or dying I. mean you're heed up for some pretty. charged emotions you know maybe violence. is not the way but have you read any of. the comments on those videos reporting. this story people are calloused people. do not care because the health insurance. companies do not care about their. lives the plenty of people are not.

celebrating what happened here they're. just seeing it as a chance to event yeah. to fume about it yeah for sure you know. medical debt is insane right now in. America and here's a guy who found a. path you know to do something about it. in in the worst possible. [Music]. way and then on Monday morning 5 days.

into this Manhunt and this growing. expression of Fury at the US Healthcare. System there's a major development in. the story so I I came this morning to. the shack just to get a sense of the. buzz I wasn't expecting that there would. be a break in the case so I called my. colleague police reporter Maria Kramer. who works out of a small press room. inside the NYPD called the shack I went. upstairs confirmed some tantalizing. details like they'd found Monopoly money. and the backpack that the K9 units that.

are good at detecting guns had been. deployed at close to where the Greyhound. Depot was so you know we were just going. to do sort of a a small update and then. just as we were doing all that. boom it just very quickly developed that. uh a man was uh taken into custody in. [Music]. Pennsylvania after the break everything.

we now know about the. [Music]. suspect we'll be right. back Maria this is a fast moving story. so I just want to acknowledge when we're. talking to you it's. 5:45 or so on Monday night and I want. you to tell us based on what you know.

now how this suspect was caught and how. this man Hut came to what looks like its. end and then we'll get to what we're. learning about who the suspect is and. what truly motivated him but let's just. start with how he gets caught so what we. learn from our police sources and from a. news conference where the police. addressed the media good afternoon. everyone earlier this morning in Altuna. Pennsylvania M that on Monday morning at.

9:14 at a McDonald's in Altuna. Pennsylvania the suspect was in a. McDonald's and was recognized by an. employee you have an employee who. notices a man eating in the restaurant. and that employee. recognizes this man as the man that was. photographed on various surveillance. shots released by the New York Police. Department as the person of interest in. the shooting of Brian. Thompson he he calls 911 he calls the.

Aluna Police Department responding. officers question the suspect who was. acting. suspiciously they find a man sitting at. a table looking at a laptop and wearing. a blue medical mask and when an officer. asks him to pull down his mask and asks. if he's been to New York recently the. man becomes quiet and starts to. shake upon further investigation. officers recovered a firearm AR on his.

person as well as a suppressor both. consistent with the weapon used in the. murder eventually they search him and. they find a gun they find a silencer and. they find fake identification cards also. recovered was a fraudulent New Jersey ID. matching the ID our suspect used to. check into his New York City hostile. before the shooting incident pretty. distinct pieces of evidence especially. the gun and the silencer suggest this is.

most likely their guy exactly and the. gun was a source of much debate online. people were trying to figure out what. this gun was and what it turns out to be. is what we call a ghost gun you know. these are guns that are assembled from. parts that have been printed out from a. 3D printer and this gun is capable of. firing 9mm rounds which are the rounds. that were found at the crime scene in. New. York what Mar do we begin to learn about.

this suspect about who he is about his. biography so what we learn about this. man is that his name is Luigi Mion he's. 26 years old and he seems to have come. from a life of a lot of privilege he was. born and raised in Maryland he went to a. private school in uh Baltimore the. Gilman School he was a wrestler there he. graduated as valid Victorian he goes on. to have an Ivy League background getting.

his undergrad degree and his graduate. degree at the University of. Pennsylvania and from there he starts. working in Tech he travels a little bit. around the country living in San. Francisco and in. Honolulu and he has a pretty interesting. online presence it suggests he's really. well read he's posting about books that. he's read on Goodreads and by all. accounts if you look at his background. he seems accomplished normal and. according to the police from what they. have learned so far about him he doesn't.

have a criminal record uh there was one. Citation for him trespassing in Honolulu. at a state park but other than that his. record is clean at least according to. what we know so far so what are we. learning about. how he goes from having no criminal. record and having this fairly normal. existence to allegedly committing murder. what are the police uncovering about any. motivations so there's very little that.

we know about him personally to suggest. that he was going to go from valad. Victorian of his high school class and. upeng grad to the alleged killer of of. an executive in New York but there are. some clues that the police are looking. at and one of the big ones is this. three-page handwritten Manifesto that. the police find on luiga Manion when. he's arrested H and what is in that. Manifesto as best we know so in this.

260w handwritten Manifesto Luigi Manion. is appearing to take responsibility for. the murder according to a senior law. enforcement official who saw the. document and he notes United healthc. Care's market capitalization growing and. condemns companies like United healthc. Care that quote continue to abuse our. country for immense profit. and he um also in a pretty haunting part.

of the document he says quote these. parasites had it coming and quote I do. apologize for any strife and trauma but. it had to be done wow do we know if he. himself personally had a bad experience. with United. Healthcare we don't know if he had a. personal experience with the insurance. company but we do know that he had been.

in regular contact with his friends and. his family until about 6 months ago um. that's when he he suddenly stopped. communicating with them and his friends. have told us that he had been suffering. from a painful back injury at the time. and that's when communication went dark. and his relatives and Friends began to. become very anxious about him why hadn't. anyone heard from him mhm the other. thing we know is that in the last year. he had been writing many reviews on good.

reads um specifically one about a book. that was written by Ted kazinski the UN. bomber who mailed bombs to people that. he felt were destroying the world with. technology Ted kazinski killed three. people and he was seen he was a. terrorist but in his review Mr mangion. describes him as a mathematics Prodigy. and he tells readers not to dismiss the. book as the manifesto of a lunatic he. Praises him by saying that many of his.

predictions about modern society turned. out to be true so he was precient and he. specifically says that while he was a. violent individual rightfully imprisoned. for killing and Ming people these. actions and this is a direct quote while. these actions tend to be characterized. as those of a crazy Lite however they. are more accurately seen as those of an. extreme political revolutionary so. there's admiration in that view of a man. who did terribly violent things to some. degree in the name of. stopping corporations from hurting the.

world exactly so the working Theory here. would seem to be that mangioni over some. period of time since he left College. became somebody who identified with. these efforts to take on Corporate. America perhaps specifically the. healthcare industry out of some belief. allegedly that like the unibomber. he could single-handedly hold them to. account.

at this point that is a theory that many. people hold but we really don't know. what happened to Luigi mangion what. awaits mangion now in the legal system. assuming that police in New York line. all this evidence up and decide that he. is their suspect in the murder of Brian. Thompson so just a few minutes ago Luigi. Manion arrived at the Blair County. Courthouse in holidaysburg Pennsylvania. he was LED out of the car by two.

officers who walked him in his hands. bound behind his back and there was a. huge media presence there um here is. being brought into a courthouse not to. face murder charges but to face gun. charges he's there for a preliminary. arraignment and then what's going to. happen is prosecutors there will decide. whether they want to carry out these. charges against him in Pennsylvania or. if he can be extradited to New York for. presumably potentially murder charges. for the killing of Brian Thompson. so Maria stepping back just a little bit.

I'm curious at this point how you're. thinking about this overall case and the. meanings that it's taken on we we spoke. earlier today with our colleague Deion. CI about just how much this case before. there was a named Person of Interest. before there was an arrest has become. about America's Health Care system and. people's frustration with it and of. course it's a coldblooded murder right.

and yet it's also become this referendum. it would seem on a broken Health Care. system and populist rage over that so. how are you kind of making sense of all. of that as this case now moves into this. next phase of the actual Criminal. Justice System you know and I think. that's a really interesting question. that I've been thinking about myself. because to the police to prosecutors to. the detectives who've been looking into. this and talking to Brian Thompson's.

Family and colleagues and friends this. is a homicide this is a murder they have. to investigate this is a murder they. have to solve to many in the public and. and even some officers that I've spoken. with it's something that underscores the. anger and the frustration at a system. that they feel they have no control over. and yet it's it's such a huge part of. their lives their Healthcare and how. they pay for it so I wonder as this case. unfolds will the Public's perception of.

him change as we learn more about what. motivated him when he did what he. allegedly did which is kill a man who. was heading to a meeting a father of Two. and a person who is missed by colleagues. is missed by friends um is a human. being to many he represents this. avaricious industry but he's also a. person who was murdered in Cold Blood. and his killer in the minds of the.

police in the minds of investigators and. the minds of of prosecutors and his. family and friends he needs to be. brought to. justice so does this investigation. reveal more about him that makes the. public think twice about this folk hero. status that some have attached to. [Music]. him om Maria thank you very much we. appreciate it thank you so much.

[Music]. after we spoke with Maria mangion was. charged with five crimes in Pennsylvania. including carrying a gun without a. license forgery and falsely identifying. himself to the. authorities a few hours later. prosecutors in Manhattan charged him. with. murder on social media an ex account. belonging to mangion gained more than.

200,000 followers after his arrest and. the hashtag free Luigi was trending. across the. [Music]. platform we'll be right. back here's what else you need to know. today the times reports that in major. legal defeat rert Murdoch has lost his.

effort to change his family's trust in a. way that would lock in the right-wing. editorial slant of his media Empire. which includes Fox News and the Wall. Street Journal Murdoch whose Family. Trust originally gave all four of his. children equal control of the Empire had. sought to rewrite it to give almost all. that power to his eldest son Lachlan who. is far more conservative than his.

siblings but a Nevada Court resoundingly. rejected that effort saying that it had. been undertaken in bad. faith and in a closely watched trial. Daniel penny a former Marine who choked. a fellow New York City subway Rider last. year was acquitted on a charge of. criminally negligent. homicide the case came to exemplify New. York City post pandemic.

struggles prosecutors alleged that. Penny's actions killed Jordan Neely who. was homeless and had a history of mental. illness their encounter began after neie. who is Black began yelling at and. frightening fellow Subway passengers. prompting Penny who is white to put him. in a. Chokehold today's episode was produced. by Stella tan Alex Stern Lindsay.

Garrison and Nina Feldman with help from. Luke Vander pluk it was edited by paig. cowt and Maria burn contains original. music by Diane Wong Alicia baitu Pat. mccusker and Sophia lman and was. engineered by Chris Wood our theme music. is by Jim brunberg and Ben Lanser of. wonderly special thanks to Nick Pitman. [Music].

that's it for the daily I'm Michael. babo see you tomorrow. [Music].