CEO’s alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, appeared to be looking for a familiar face during his court appearance, but found none.
The Ivy League graduate, 26, turned repeatedly during his court appearance Monday in Pennsylvania to face the public gallery, but none of his relatives had appeared.
Mangione also had no one in court to support him at his second court appearance Tuesday.
The alleged killer of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thomson comes from a powerful Maryland family, but the close-knit clan, which includes state Delegate Nino Mangione, has remained silent about his arrest.
The family’s only brief public statement read: ‘Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest.
“We offer our prayers to Brian Thompson’s family and ask people to pray for everyone involved.”
Mangione had become estranged from his family and friends sometime last year, when he appears to have entered an isolated mental health spiral due to severe back pain.
Mangione graduated from U Penn during the pandemic and had a virtual graduation ceremony, the Wall Street Journal.
Suspected killer Brian Thompson, 26, shouted at cameras as he entered court 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 when she reported him missing.
After graduating with honors, he landed a remote job as a data engineer at an automotive digital marketplace company called TrueCar, based in Santa Barbara, California.
In January 2022, Mangione moved to an exclusive surfer collective in Honolulu, Hawaii. He told people he was looking to repair his health.
Mangione suffered from a back condition since birth, called pondylolisthesis, which causes the vertebrae to move out of place. The condition appears to have worsened after a surfing injury in 2023.
During his time in the collective, Mangione co-founded a reading club. One of the materials they read was 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 “the intermittent numbness has become constant” and I’m terrified of the implications.
Mangione appears to have lost contact with loved ones at some point in the last year.
His mother Kathleen reported him missing in San Francisco last month and said she had not heard from him since July 1.
Mangione’s mother, Kathleen, reported him missing in San Francisco last month and said she had not heard from him since July 1.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed outside the Manhattan Hilton hotel.
Mangione’s social media went black in June, the same month he completely stopped responding to 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 an entrance to the property, which public records link to Luigi Mangione’s parents. Reporters and photographers gathered in front of the entrance.
Nick Mangione, father of 10, groomed his five children, including Luigi Mangione’s father, Louis Mangione, to help run 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 the death of Nick Mangione’s wife in 2023. They donated to various causes, including Catholic organizations, universities and the arts.
Investigators in New York and Pennsylvania are working to understand why Mangione may have deviated from this path to make the violent and radical decision to shoot and kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a brazen attack on a Manhattan street.
The murder sparked widespread debates about corporate greed, injustice in the health insurance industry, and even inspired folk hero sentiment toward his killer.
Mangione was likely motivated by his anger toward what he called “parasitic” health insurance companies and his disdain for corporate greed, according to a police bulletin obtained by the AP.
Mangione was apparently influenced by ‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski, whose manifesto he praised on Goodreads as an ‘extreme political revolutionary’.
He wrote that the United States has the most expensive healthcare system in the world and that the profits of large corporations continue to increase while “our life expectancy” does not, according to the bulletin, based on a review of the suspect’s handwritten notes. and social networks. publications.
He appeared to view the targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO as a symbolic takedown, stating in his note that he is the “first to confront it with such brutal honesty,” the bulletin said.
Mangione called Unabomber Ted Kaczynski a “political revolutionary” and may have found inspiration in the man who carried out a series of attacks while criticizing modern society and technology, according to the document.