Suspected UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin draws Unabomber comparisons

Luigi Mangione, the prep school valedictorian and University of Pennsylvania alumnus from a wealthy Maryland family who is now charged with the ambush murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is drawing comparisons to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.

"Both sent messages through their violent killings," said John Kelly, a criminal profiler and the president of System to Apprehend Lethal Killers. "The Unabomber sent a message to and about the technology industry and how it would destroy the country."

Kaczynski's case was the first that Kelly worked. The Unabomber, FBI shorthand for the university and airline bomber, sent 16 bombs over a span of nearly 20 years, including one that exploded on a plane after it reached a certain altitude. 

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The suspected gunman in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's murder, believed to be Luigi Mangione, is seen flirting with a hostel employee on surveillance footage before the Dec. 4 shooting. (NYPD)

"The UnitedHealthcare suspect sent his message to the insurance industry, and I don’t think it would be his last if he didn’t get caught," he added.

As Kaczynski made his own bombs, the suspected murder weapon in Thompson's slaying contained homemade, 3D-printed parts, Kelly said.

Police described it as a "ghost gun" with a plastic receiver and suppressor.

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Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, arrives for his arraignment in Helena, Mont., on April 4, 1996. (Michael Macor/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

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"Neither one had a meaningful relationship with a woman," Kelly said. "Both could have suffered from schizophrenia. For sure, the Unabomber did. Luigi is at the ripe age where it could begin."

Kaczynski killed himself in prison last year after opting out of cancer treatments. He was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole after his brother read his manifesto, anonymously submitted to the Washington Post in 1995 and turned him in.

Mangione reportedly had a handwritten manifesto of his own when police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, arrested him on Monday. In the manifesto, he allegedly mentioned UnitedHealthcare and the shareholder conference where Thompson was headed at the time of the assassination.

"Both were obsessed with and focused on industries they wanted to hurt and bring public awareness," Kelly said.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson (AP Photo/UnitedHealth Group)

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Mangione was a periodic poster on Goodreads, the literature-focused social media site where he wrote a review of Kaczynski's manifesto. 

"It's easy to quickly and thoughtless (sic) write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies," he wrote. "But it's simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out."

Writing about Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future," he quoted another online "take that [he] found interesting."

Suspect Luigi Mangione is taken to the Blair County Courthouse on Dec. 10, 2024, in Hollidaysburg, Pa. (Janet Klingbeil via AP)

"When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive," he wrote. "You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it's not terrorism, it's war and revolution."

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He praised the lone-wolf serial bomber as a "mathematics prodigy."

Luigi Mangione (Luigi Mangione/Facebook)

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"He was a violent individual – rightfully imprisoned – who maimed innocent people," he wrote. "While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy Luddite (sic), however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary."

Both men had become reclusive before their alleged crimes. Kaczynski moved into a remote cabin with no electricity or running water to get away from the increasingly technologized society he hated. Mangione's mother reported him missing to San Francisco police last month, telling them she hadn't been able to contact her son since July, according to law enforcement sources.

The business address where she thought he worked was permanently closed.

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This image shows the home of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. The entire structure was later taken to Washington by the FBI. (MICHAEL MACOR/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

"He goes into being a recluse," said Nicole Parker, a former FBI agent. "That's when he really starts defining what he's going to be like. That's probably what caused him to start going down this pathway to violence. But don't be fooled that this kid never before thought this way."

But she questioned whether the suspected killer really did act alone.

"I want to see the call history on that burner phone," she told Fox News Digital. "These feelings didn't just start yesterday or three months ago. Those inner thoughts that he had? No."

Like Mangione, Kaczynski was a former Ivy Leaguer – a Harvard graduate and mathematician. The Unabomber killed three people and injured 23 more between 1978 and 1995 with a series of bombs that he mailed to his victims.

Ted Kaczynski is shown on June 21, 1996. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

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Surveillance video taken outside a Midtown Manhattan Hilton hotel shows a masked assassin sneaking up behind Thompson on the sidewalk at around 6:45 a.m. on Dec. 4. Thompson was on his way to a shareholder conference at the venue set to begin later that morning when the gunman opened fire from behind.

As the CEO collapsed on the street, a woman who witnessed the attack fled in one direction and the masked figure casually walked off in the other. Police tracked his movements throughout New York City to a bus depot, where he left about an hour after the slaying. They shared surveillance images, which circulated widely online, and police arrested him at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday after witnesses recognized him and called 911.

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CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione shouts as officers restrain him as he arrives for his extradition hearing in Hollidaysburg, Pa., on Dec. 10, 2024. (David Dee Delgado for Fox News Digital)

Mangione is being held without bail in Pennsylvania on a slew of charges. His lawyer told a judge this week that he plans to fight extradition to New York, delaying a second-degree murder case there.

Police told Fox News they were looking into whether he had a health care claim denied as they investigate a potential motive.

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They have alleged that Mangione admitted to the crime in writing and left behind other clues, including bullet casings with the words "deny," "defend" and "depose" on them and a backpack full of Monopoly money.

UnitedHealthcare CEO slaying suspect Luigi Mangione is shown at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pa., on Dec. 9, 2024. (Pennsylvania State Police)

The notes left on the bullet casings have drawn comparisons to the book "Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It." The book did not appear on his Goodreads account. Police said Wednesday that the casings were a ballistic match to the handgun seized during Mangione's arrest.

"He had sympathy for an individual, and he had a cause and allegedly used violence for that cause," Parker said. "It takes a long time for these thoughts to develop. This shooter had the intelligence and sophistication to do it, [a] personality of traits of someone willing to go to extreme measures for something that he’s passionate about. He believed he was standing up for something for his cause and his self-identity: saving all of these people who had fallen victim to the health care insurance industry."

Fox News' Michael Lundin, Chris Pandolfo and Stephanie Nolasco contributed to this report.