Luigi Nicolas Mangione, the suspect in the fatal shooting of a health care executive in New York City, apparently lived a charmed life: the grandson of a wealthy real estate developer, valedictorian of his elite Baltimore prep school and with a degree from the nation. Top Private Universities.
Friends at an exclusive co-op near tourist Waikiki in Hawaii where 26-year-old Mangione once lived widely considered him a “great guy,” and pictures on his social media accounts show a fit, smiling, handsome young man. People at the beach and parties.
Now, investigators in New York and Pennsylvania are working together to determine why Mangione might have deviated from this path to make the violent and radical decision to shoot and kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street.
The murder sparked widespread debate about corporate greed, injustice in the medical insurance industry, and even a sense of a folk-hero toward his killer.
But Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro sharply refuted that notion after Mangioni’s arrest on Monday when a customer at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania saw Mangione eating and what appeared to be the shooting suspect in security camera photos released by New York police.
This undated photo provided by UnitedHealth Group shows UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. (AP)
“In some dark corners, this killer has been hailed as a hero. Hear me out on this, he’s not a hero,” Shapiro said. “The real hero of this story is the person who called 911 at McDonald’s this morning.”
Mangione’s family and upbringing
Mangione comes from a prominent Maryland family. His grandfather, Nick Mangione, who died in 2008, was a successful real estate developer. One of his most famous projects was the Turf Valley Resort, a huge luxury retreat and convention 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 sealed off the entrance to the property, which public records have linked to Luigi Mangione’s parents. Journalists and photographers gathered outside the entrance.
A father of 10, Nick Mangione groomed 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, commemorating the death of Nick Mangione’s wife in 2023, according to a Loyola University release. They donated to a variety of causes, including Catholic institutions, colleges and the arts.
One of Luigi Mangioni’s brothers is Republican Maryland state legislator Nino Mangione, a spokesman for the lawmaker’s office confirmed.
“Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” Mangioni’s family said in a statement posted on social media by Nino Mangioni. “We send our prayers to Brian Thompson’s family and we ask people to pray for everyone involved.”
Mangione’s education and work history
Mangione, who was valedictorian of his elite Maryland prep school, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science in 2020, a university spokeswoman told The Associated Press.
He learned to code in high school and helped start a club at Penn for people interested in gaming and game design, according to a 2018 story in the campus publication Penn Today.
His social media posts suggest he belonged to the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. They also show her attending a 2019 event at Stanford University and taking photos with family and friends at the Jersey Shore and in Hawaii, San Diego, Puerto Rico and other destinations.
The Gilman School, from which Mangione graduated in 2016, is one of the best prep schools in Baltimore. Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. Children of some of the rich and prominent residents of the city have gone to school. Its alumni include sportswriter Frank Deford and former Arizona governor Phife Symington.
In his closing speech, Luigi Mangione described his classmates’ “incredible courage to explore the unknown and try new things.”
Mangione took a software programming internship after high school at the Maryland-based video game studio Firaxis, where he fixed bugs in the hit strategy game Civilization 6, according to his LinkedIn profile. Firaxis’ parent company, Take-Two Interactive, said it does not comment on former employees.
He most recently worked at car-buying website TrueCar, but has not worked there since 2023, the head of the Santa Monica, California-based company confirmed to the AP.
Time in Hawaii and reports of back pain
From January to June 2022, Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a “co-living” space in Honolulu near touristy Waikiki.
Catering to remote workers, like other residents of the shared penthouse, Mangione underwent a background check, said Josiah Ryan, a spokesman for owner and founder RJ Martin.
“Luigi was widely considered a great guy. There were no complaints,” Ryan said. “There was no indication that could point to these alleged crimes that they are saying they committed.”
At Surfbreak, Martin learned Mangione had severe back pain since childhood that interfered with many aspects of his life, including surfing, Ryan said.
“He went surfing with RJ once but it didn’t work out because of his back,” Ryan said, but noted that Mangione and Martin often went to a rock climbing gym together.
Mangione left Surfbreak to have surgery on the mainland, Ryan said, then later returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment. An image posted on a social media account linked to Mangione showed an X-ray of a metal rod and several screws inserted into someone’s lower spine.
Martin stopped hearing from Mangione six months to a year ago.
The X account linked to Mangione includes recent posts about the negative effects of smartphones on children; healthy eating and exercise habits; Psychological principles; and a quote from the Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti about the dangers of becoming “well-adjusted to a deeply diseased society.”
Police reports turn black
According to a law enforcement bulletin obtained by the AP, Mangione was likely motivated by his anger at what he despised as “parasitic” health insurance companies and corporate greed.
He wrote that the U.S. has the world’s most expensive health care system and that corporate profits are rising while “our life expectancy” is not, according to the bulletin, based on a review of the suspect’s handwritten notes and social media. posts.
He saw the targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO as a symbolic takedown, insisting in his note that he was “the first person to deal with it with such brutal honesty,” the bulletin said.
Mangione called “unabomber” Ted Kaczynski a “political revolutionary” and may have been inspired by the bomber against modern society and technology, the document said.