Luigi Mangione was last night arrested and charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson – and a copy of his manifesto has been leaked online.
The 26-year-old was arrested in a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania after being identified by a member of staff, and was found with a gun, mask, and fake IDs on him, according to legal documents.
He has since been charged with murder by New York prosecutors, as well as five additional counts including possession of a firearm by the state of Pennsylvania.
His manifesto touched on topics ranging from the price of the United State’s healthcare system, life expectancy and ‘complex’ problems.
Where is Luigi Mangione from?
An Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Baltimore family, Mangione was born in Maryland, had ties to San Francisco, and his last known address was in Honolulu.
Mangione was born in Maryland, had ties to San Francisco, and his last known address was in Honolulu, where he stayed for around six months in 2022.
He attended the private all-boys Gilman School in Baltimore and was high school valedictorian in 2016. He later earned a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated in May 2020, and previously earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering and computer science from the same college.
Mangione was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, and previously talked about how he had started a video game development club.
‘In high school, I started playing a lot of independent games and stuff like that, but I wanted to make my own game, and so I learned how to code,’ he said in a blog post. ‘In my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I learned (on my own) how to program, and that’s why I’m a computer science major now; that’s how I got into it… I just really wanted to make games.’
A former colleague who worked with Mangione as a counselor at a Stanford University summer program during his college years described him as outgoing and socially charming.
‘I am flabbergasted,’ said the anonymous colleague told CNN. ‘I never got the impression he would self-destruct.’
What did Luigi’s ‘manifesto’ say?
A spiral notebook was found with a ‘to-do’ list in it, and a passage from his alleged ‘manifesto’ has been circulating online.
A law enforcement office said a three page document was found with Mangione when he was arrested.
It read: ‘“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience.
‘The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done.
‘Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy?
‘No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument.
‘But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play.
‘Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.’
What have Luigi Mangione’s family said?
Mangione said during his arraignment on Monday evening in Blair County Courthouse that he had spoken to his family ‘until recently’.
A wealthy family that made it big in business, Mangione’s grandfather Nicholas, a former masonry contractor, built a real estate empire that included two country clubs and a number of nursing homes in the Baltimore suburbs.
The Mangione family also run a family foundation which has nearly $4.5 million in assets and have donated to Maryland’s Loyola University, which has named its aquatic centre after them.
Private security guards were seen blocking access to the family’s house on Monday afternoon.
In a statement released by his cousin Nino Mangione, the family said they are ‘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,’ the statement said.
His family stated through Maryland state delegate Nino Mangione, who is Luigi’s cousin, that they are ‘shocked and devasted’ by his arrest.
‘We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved,’ stated the family.
They said they ‘only know what we have read in the media’.
Does Luigi Mangione have social media accounts?
Social media accounts with Mangione’s name and pictures quickly resurfaced following his arrest.
An X account, @pepmangione, seemed to belong to Mangione. It had 100,000 followers after his name was released to the public.
The account was suspended by X for violating its rules but appeared to be back online shortly after with over 196,000 followers.
Mangione followed roughly75 accounts including prominent academics and public figures such as Joe Rogan, Edward Snowden, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
However, he mostly appeared to use X in a private capacity, and friends appeared concerned after his online footprint suddenly dried up over summer.
In July, a friend tweeted ‘I haven’t heard from you in months’ at Mangione, and urged the suspcect to let him know if he planned to honour the ‘commiments’ he made about attending his wedding.
Another concerned user posted ‘thinking of you and prayers everyday in your name. Know you are missed and loved’ at him in November.
A since-deleted Reddit account also appearing to belong to Mangione also made numerous posts about suffered from back problems since childhood, which had been aggravated by a surfing accident.
‘My back and hips locked up after the accident,’ the user wrote in July 2023, adding that they suffered from chronic pain and were ‘terrified of the implications’.
What did he say about the Unabomber?
The 26-year-old also maintained an actove prescence on book review website Goodreads, in which he maintained a list of over 300 books he had read and planned to read.
Included in this list was a detailed four-star review to Unabomber Ted Kaxzynski’s book in January, which sheds some light on his thought process and political views.
The book was ‘clearly written by a mathematics prodigy,’ stated the review.
‘Reads like a series of lemmas on the question of 21st century quality of life.’
The review continued by saying that ‘it’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies’.
‘But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out,’ it reads.
Mangione acknowledged that Kaxzynsk, the late American mathematician and domestic terrorist, ‘was a violent individual’ who was ‘rightfully imprisoned’ because he ‘maimed innocent people’.
‘While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary.’
Mangione concluded his review by saying Kaxzynsk ‘had the balls to recognize that peaceful protest has gotten us absolutely nowhere’ and that ‘”Violence never solved anything” is a statement uttered by cowards and predators.’
How was he arrested?
Mangione was arrested while reading a book in a McDonald’s in Altoon, Pennsylvania, after an employee recognised him and tipped off police.
According to court documents, he ‘became quiet and started to shake’ when asked if he had been to New York in recent days.
‘We didn’t even think twice about it, we knew that was our guy,’ arresting officer Tyler Frye later told the media.
‘It feels good to get a guy like that off the street, especially starting my career this way, it feels great.’
Mangione was found with a backpack containing a ghost gun, a silencer, a blue face mask and a brief document described as a ‘manifesto’ in court documents.
The manifesto included the phrases, ‘I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done’, and, ‘These parasites had it coming’.
Mangione also had a fake New Jersey ID that matched the one that the suspected gunman used to check in at an Upper West Side 10 days before the killing,
The suspect appeared calm during his arraignment and told the court he did not have a history of mental health issues or drugs, The New York Times reported.
He disputed the judge’s claims that he used a case that hid his electronic signals and that he was carrying $8,000 and more in foreign currency. Magione said he was speaking with his family ‘until recently’.
He was not represented by a lawyer and asked the judge if he could reply later if he wanted to retain a private attorney or a public defender.
What is a ghost gun?
At the time he was detained, Mangione possessed a ghost gun and a silencer.
The gun was able to fire a 9-millimeter bullet and was possibly made using a 3-D printer, said New York Police Department chief of detectives Joseph Kenny.
A ghost gun is a homemade firearm that is usually built from a kit and does not contain serial numbers or require background checks.
Unfinished receivers could be bought online legally without a gun license or serial numbers because the US government previously did not categorize them as firearms.
Are 3D printed guns easily accessible and what danger do they pose?
One expert on 3D printed guns expressed concern that technological developments has made it easier for dangerous weapons to be produced illegally.
Professor Angela Daly told Metro: ‘There is a huge increase in the capabilities of 3D printed guns. We are actually seeing them being used as serious weapons.’
Blueprints for the gun templates, which are printed in separate parts and then combined together, are most likely found on the dark web and U.S. based sites, according to the expert.
There is currently a Private Members Bill going through the House of Commons which will ‘create an offence of possessing a blueprint for the production of a firearm by 3D printing.’
While she thinks this is necessary reform, Professor Daly worries that these blueprints will be easily accessible from the U.S., due to the political importance placed on the first and second amendment, which protects the right to keep and bear arms.
‘If blueprints are emanating from the US it is difficult to stop them,’ Daly added.
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‘Not everyone is going to be able to find the blueprints or be able to get a 3D printer to print them.
‘This is not a simple issue. The answer is not lots of law that may or not may not be enforceable.’
While plastic 3D printers can cost only hundreds of pounds, the professor stresses that ‘an average person would not be able to easily print a 3D gun.’
As recently as May 2024, a man was jailed in Staffordshire was jailed for more than 10 years for using a 3D printer to manufacture guns at his home.
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