NEW YORK — A person of interest, identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, has been arrested in connection to the Midtown Manhattan murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the Hilton Hotel following a five-day manhunt, police said Monday.
Mangione was nabbed at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, carrying a gun that appears to match the murder weapon seen in security video of the shooting, police said. He was carrying writings critical of the health care industry when captured, police sources told The Associated Press.
Officials said a worker at the McDonald’s believed he recognized Mangione from surveillance images released by the NYPD and called in the tip. Altoona police arrested Mangione on gun charges.
Mangione was not on investigators’ radar before the tip, officials said.
The suspect was taken into custody carrying a fake New Jersey ID, police sources said. No charges were immediately filed. NYPD detectives are on their way to Pennsylvania to interview the suspect.
At a press conference at City Hall in Manhattan, Mayor Eric Adams credited “good old fashioned police work” for the arrest.
Based on his writings, Mangione has “ill will toward corporate America,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
“The gun appears to be a ghost gun, may have been made on a 3D printer,” Kenny added.
The Maryland native graduated at the top of his high school class and majored in computer science at the University of Pennsylvania.
An online list of books Mangione read this year includes Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski’s “Industrial Society and its Future,” which he rated four out of five stars.
According to the Baltimore school's website, Mangione graduated as valedictorian of the private, all-boys Gilman School in 2016.
In a recap of the graduation ceremony posted on the site, Mangione commends his classmates for their “inventive, pioneering mentality that accompanies a strong commitment to Gilman tradition.”
Police said the suspect’s last known address is Honolulu, Hawaii. He has connections to San Francisco and no arrest history in New York City.
Police were offering a $10,000 reward for any information leading to the gunman’s capture as the search for the masked shooter continued. The FBI also provided $50,000 for information, resulting in an arrest and conviction of the suspect.
Harrowing surveillance footage shows the suspect creeping up and shooting Thompson in the back on West 54th Street near Sixth Avenue at about 6:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Officials said the 50-year-old CEO of the Minnesota-based company was approaching the Hilton to help prepare for an investor day conference.
After shooting Thompson in the back, the gunman then coolly cleared a jam in his pistol before firing at least three more times, the video shows.
He fled the scene on a bicycle and disappeared in Central Park but cops picked up his trail late Wednesday night on the Upper West Side.
Cops found the words “Deny,” “Delay,” and “Depose” written on the bullets — a supposed insurance industry mantra for delaying claims and maximizing profits — leading police to believe that the killer has a beef with the insurance industry.
The gunman arrived in New York City on a Greyhound bus from Atlanta more than a week before unraveling his murder plot — and allowed images of his face to go public when he let his guard down flirting with a hostel worker.
NYPD detectives, with the help of Port Authority police, managed to track the gunman’s movements from when he first arrived in the city. Police sources said the suspect arrived in the city on a Greyhound bus from Atlanta on the evening of Nov. 24.
He found his way to the HI New York City Hostel on Amsterdam Avenue near West 104th Street, where cops recovered images of the suspect without a mask and smiling at someone behind the reception desk.
The hostel staffer reportedly made the suspect smile by flirting with him and asking him to pull down his mask to “see his handsome face.”
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