*(CNN) –– The suspect in the fatal shooting last week of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City was ordered held without bail after he was arrested on five charges in Pennsylvania, according to court documents and New York officials.
Luigi Mangione is charged with one felony count of forgery, one felony count of carrying a firearm without a license, one misdemeanor count of tampering with records or identification, one misdemeanor count of possessing instruments of a crime, and one misdemeanor count of false identification to law enforcement authorities, according to a criminal complaint released Monday.
He did not enter a plea at his first court appearance.
A man arrested Monday on a gun charge in Pennsylvania has been identified as the suspect in the “brazen, targeted” fatal shooting last week of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan, according to New York police officials.
Luigi Mangione, 26, was found at a McDonald’s in Altoona with a gun and a suppressor “both consistent with the weapon used in the murder,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference Monday, referring to a device that muffles the sound of a firearm.
Authorities also recovered a “fraudulent New Jersey ID matching the ID our suspect used to check into his New York City hostel before the shooting,” Tisch said, and “a handwritten document that speaks to both his motivation and mindset.” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the document did not include specific threats but indicated “ill will towards corporate America.”
“These parasites had it coming,” one line from the document reads, according to a police official who has seen it. Another reads, “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done.” The document indicates the suspect acted alone, and that he was self-funded, according to Kenny.
The NYPD and FBI arrived in Altoona on Monday afternoon, according to Republican Rep. John Joyce of Pennsylvania.
Mangione was interviewed by police at the Altoona Police Department, an officer told CNN, before he was taken to the Blair County courthouse. The suspect was scheduled for a preliminary arraignment around 6 p.m.
The arrest seemingly brings to an end a sprawling manhunt that expanded beyond the nation’s largest city and across state lines. Scrutiny intensified as investigators recovered and analyzed various pieces of evidence, including shell casings from the scene of the shooting that police said had the words “delay,” “deny” and “defend” written on them.
The suspect was believed to have left New York City on an interstate bus, police officials previously said, after video cameras captured him entering the George Washington Bridge Bus Station on 178th Street but not leaving.
Mangione was arrested by the Altoona Police Department on firearms charges, the commissioner said. The weapon is a ghost gun – an untraceable, possibly 3D-printed weapon – capable of firing a 9 mm round, Kenny said.
The suspect was arrested in Altoona – about 230 miles from the hotel where the shooting occurred on December 4 – after a McDonald’s employee thought he resembled the man in New York Police Department photos and called police, officials said. Mangione was “sitting there eating” at the time, Kenny said, and officials praised the tipster for speaking up.
In addition to the weapon and fake ID found on the suspect, Tisch said, police recovered “clothing, including a mask, consistent with those worn by our wanted individual.”
The head of the private school from which Mangione graduated from sent an email to parents and members of the school community, calling the news “deeply distressing.”
“This is deeply distressing news on top of an already awful situation. Our hearts go out to everyone affected,” Gilman School Headmaster Henry P.A. Smyth said in the email.
UnitedHealth Group hopes “today’s apprehension brings some relief to Brian’s family, friends, colleagues, and the many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
“We thank law enforcement and will continue to work with them on this investigation. We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn,” the spokesperson said.
Here’s more of what we know about the suspect:
- Mangione was born and raised in Maryland and his last known address was in Honolulu, according to Kenny. He had no history of arrests in New York, said the chief of detectives.
- Mangione graduated from Gilman School – a prestigious all-boys school in Baltimore, where he served as valedictorian – and the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, with a master’s and bachelor’s degree in computer science and a minor in mathematics.
- One former classmate who said they studied alongside Mangione at the University of Pennsylvania described him as a “totally normal guy.”
- A Goodreads profile that appears to belong the suspect shows that earlier this year, he reported having read the 1995 antitechnology manifesto written by the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, the infamous domestic terrorist and mathematician known for sending deadly bombs through the mail between 1978 and 1995.
How the investigation unfolded
Catching the suspect came down to “good old-fashioned police work,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said Monday, citing the McDonald’s employee who called in a tip.
But before the tip came in, police had spent hours scouring New York City for clues, as well as combing through thousands of hours of video footage as they sought to catch a glimpse of the suspect’s face and determine his movements in and out of the city.
“For just over five days, our NYPD investigators combed through thousands of hours of video, followed up on hundreds of tips, and processed every bit of forensic evidence: DNA, fingerprints, IP addresses, and so much more, to tighten the net,” said police commissioner Tisch.
Authorities knew what the suspect looked like but not who or where he was. Over the weekend, they released new photos of him: in the backseat of a taxi and wearing a jacket while walking on the street. In both, he wears a hood and a face mask.
The public, too, had seen the suspect in surveillance photos and videos, including one with him pointing the weapon at Thompson’s back.
A former FBI profiler previously told CNN she expected authorities would soon determine the suspect’s identity.
“I’m thinking we’re going to know who this is within a matter of a few more days if that,” Mary Ellen O’Toole told CNN. “He’s completely outnumbered. With that kind of manpower behind their efforts, they’re going to come up with the information that identifies him.”
“The ability to stand up against that kind of an investigation, one person can’t do it, no matter how arrogant you are,” O’Toole said. “You’re bound to make mistakes.”
Some of the suspect’s actions – such as pulling his mask down on camera, and leaving behind inscribed shell casings that may point to a motive, a burner phone and a partial fingerprint on a water bottle – only added to the clues authorities could use.
Police continue to look into whether words found on the casings – “Deny,” “Defend,” and “Depose” – may point to a motive. A 2010 book critiquing the insurance industry is titled, “Delay Deny Defend,” a common description of the industry’s tactics.
Here are other key developments:
- Still missing is an electric bike the suspect rode toward Central Park after the shooting, according to surveillance images released by authorities. Divers previously searched a lake in Central Park for the weapon used in the shooting, a law enforcement official told CNN.
- A partial fingerprint and DNA recovered early in the search for the suspect have so far not yielded matches when compared against law enforcement databases, according to a law enforcement official. The fingerprint was recovered from a purported “burner phone” thought to belong to the suspect, and the DNA from a water bottle and energy bar wrapper the suspect is said to have bought.
- A backpack believed to be the suspect’s was recovered Friday in Central Park, a law enforcement source said. It contained money from the Monopoly board game, a law enforcement source told CNN, and a Tommy Hilfiger jacket, law enforcement officials briefed on the matter said.
Under pressure and running out of options
After several days of evading capture by the FBI, New York Police Department, and other agencies, the psychological pressure of being on the run and the focus of a widespread search could have led to errors, O’Toole said.
“It would be absolutely overwhelming and there’s nothing that he can do about it, and this is where he will make mistakes,” she said.
“In the shoes of the shooter right now, he is dealing with emotions and consequences that I don’t think he anticipated at all,” O’Toole added.
It’s possible the suspect could lose the critical thinking skills needed to strategically evade capture under the mounting pressure, the expert said.
“His options are getting fewer and fewer and fewer, and then on top of that, his ability to make good decisions is deteriorating,” O’Toole said.
“(With) the reality that he can never go back to a normal life the way it was before last week, all of those can result in very poor decision-making,” she added.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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