The gun found on the suspect charged in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week matches shell casings located at the crime scene, New York City’s police commissioner said on Dec. 11.
“We were able to match that gun to the three shell casings that we found in midtown at the scene of the homicide,” New York City Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters at a news conference in Staten Island. The gun is now at the NYPD crime lab, she said.
Tisch said that NYPD investigators also matched the suspect’s fingerprints with prints found on a water bottle and an energy bar recovered at the scene.
Police officers arrested Luigi Mangione, 26, at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on the night of Dec. 9 on gun charges. He was later charged with murder in the Thompson shooting death, which occurred in Midtown Manhattan on the morning of Dec. 4 while Thompson was outside a Hilton hotel on his way to an investor conference.
He is currently being held without bail at a state prison in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with gun and forgery offenses, awaiting extradition to New York City. Mangione has contested his extradition, and his lawyer has told reporters that he hasn’t yet seen evidence in the case.
Thomas Dickey, Mangione’s attorney, said early on Dec. 11 that they were fighting extradition to New York because they had yet to see any of the actual evidence against his client. The evidence includes writings, fake identification cards, and a gun.
At the time, Dickey said that so far, there is no evidence that links that particular firearm to the murder. That statement came before Tisch’s comment to reporters hours later that the shell casings matched the gun that was found on Mangione during the Dec. 9 arrest.
“You can’t rush to judgment in this case or any case,” Dickey said on Dec. 10. “He’s presumed innocent. Let’s not forget that.”
Speaking to CNN on the evening of Dec. 10, Dickey said he also has not “seen any evidence that they have the right guy,” while adding that his office has received offers from individuals to pay for Mangione’s legal bills. The attorney said he would likely decline those offers, however.
In his first public words since his arrest, Mangione yelled about an “insult to the intelligence of the American people” on his way into court on Dec. 10.
Mangione, a grandson of a well-known Maryland real estate developer and philanthropist, has a graduate degree in computer science and worked for a time at a car-buying website. During the first half of 2022, he bunked at a “co-living” space in Hawaii, where those who knew him said he suffered from severe and sometimes debilitating back pain.
His relatives have said in a statement that they were “shocked and devastated” when he was arrested and offered prayers to the Thompson family.
Officials so far have not released a motive for the shooting. The New York Police Department’s top detective, Joseph Kenny, told CBS New York on Dec. 10 that the motive might have been related to an accident that sent Mangione to an emergency room on July 4, 2023.
“Some of the writings that he had, he was discussing the difficulty of sustaining that injury,” Kenny also told Fox News on Dec. 10. “So we’re looking into whether or not the insurance industry either denied a claim from him or didn’t help him out to the fullest extent.”
The banner of an account on social media platform X that is purported to be Mangione’s includes a photo of what appears to be an X-ray image of a spine with pins or screws.
UnitedHealthcare, a subsidiary of United Health Group, is the largest health insurance provider in the United States.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
