By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-11 14:00:56 | Updated at 2024-12-22 07:06:27
1 week ago
Alleged CEO killer Luigi Mangione appeared to be looking for a familiar face during his court arraignment, but he found none.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate repeatedly turned around during his court appearance on Monday in Pennsylvania, to look into the public gallery, but none of his relatives had shown up.
Mangione also had no one in court to support him in his second court appearance on Tuesday.
The suspected killer of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thomson comes from a powerful Maryland family, but the tight clan, which includes state delegate Nino Mangione, has stayed mostly silent about his arrest.
The family sole, short public statement read: '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.'
Mangione had withdrawn from his family and friends sometime last year, when he appears to have gone into an isolated mental health spiral due to severe back pain.
Mangione graduated from U Penn during the pandemic, and had a virtual graduation ceremony, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Alleged killer Brian Thompson, 26, yelled at cameras as he entered court on Tuesday
Mangione is seen with his sister and parents in an undated photo. His mother said she had no contact with him since July 1 as she reported him missing
Following his graduation with honors, he got a remote job as a data engineer with a automotive digital-marketplace company called TrueCar, based in Santa Barbara, California.
In January, 2022, Mangione moved to an upscale surfers' collective in Honolulu, Hawaii. He told the people there he was looking to repair his health.
Mangione suffered from a back condition, from birth, called pondylolisthesis, which causes vertebra to slip out of place. The condition appears to have worsened after a surfing injury in 2023.
During his stay at the collective, Mangione co-founded a book club. One of the materials they read was the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's manifesto.
A Reddit account believed to belong to Mangione wrote: 'My back and hips locked up after the accident,'
The user added that 'intermittent numbness has become constant' and I’m terrified of the implications.'
Mangione seems to have drop contact with his loved ones sometime within the last year.
His mother Kathleen reported him missing in San Francisco last month, saying she hadn't heard from him since July 1.
Mangione's mother Kathleen reported him missing in San Francisco last month, saying she hadn't heard from him since July 1
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed outside Manhattan's Hilton Hotel
Mangione's social media went black in June, the same month that he completely stopped replying to his friends.
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 Mangione family also purchased Hayfields Country Club north of Baltimore in 1986. On Monday, Baltimore County police officers blocked off an entrance to the property, which public records link to Luigi Mangione’s parents. Reporters and photographers gathered outside the entrance.
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. Nick Mangione had 37 grandchildren, including Luigi, according to the grandfather’s obituary.
Luigi Mangione’s grandparents donated to charities through the Mangione Family Foundation, according to a statement from Loyola University commemorating Nick Mangione’s wife’s death in 2023. They donated to various causes, including Catholic organizations, colleges and the arts.
Investigators in New York and Pennsylvania are working to piece together why Mangione may have diverged from this path to make the violent and radical decision to gun down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a brazen attack on a Manhattan street.
The killing sparked widespread discussions about corporate greed, unfairness in the medical insurance industry and even inspired folk-hero sentiment toward his killer.
Mangione likely was motivated by his anger at what he called 'parasitic' health insurance companies and a disdain for corporate greed, according to a law enforcement bulletin obtained by AP.
Mangione was apparently influenced by 'Unabomber' Ted Kaczynski - whose manifesto he praised on Goodreads as an 'extreme political revolutionary'
He wrote that the U.S. has the most expensive healthcare system in the world and that the profits of major corporations continue to rise while 'our life expectancy' does not, according to the bulletin, based on a review of the suspect’s handwritten notes and social media posts.
He appeared to view the targeted killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO as a symbolic takedown, asserting in his note that he is the 'first to face it with such brutal honesty,' the bulletin said.
Mangione called the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski a 'political revolutionary' and may have found inspiration from the man who carried out a series of bombings while railing against modern society and technology, the document said.
