ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) — The gun found on the man charged with killing United Healthcare’s CEO matched shell casings found at the site of the shooting, New York City’s police commissioner said Wednesday as authorities scrutinized evidence and the suspect’s experiences with the victim’s industry.
Luigi Mangione ’s fingerprints also matched a water bottle and a snack bar wrapper that police found near the scene in midtown Manhattan, Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at an unrelated news conference. Police had said earlier that they believed the gunman bought the items at a nearby coffee shop while awaiting his target.
Mangione, 26, remained jailed without bail Wednesday in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested and initially charged with gun and forgery offenses. Manhattan prosecutors were working to bring him to New York to face a murder charge in the death of Brian Thompson, the leader of the United States’ biggest health insurer.
Mangione’s lawyer has cautioned the public against prejudging the case.
While the case is in early stages, police believe the suspect may have been motivated by animus toward the health care industry.
Investigators are looking into an accident that injured Mangione’s back and sent him to an emergency room on July 4, 2023, police said Wednesday. They’re scrutinizing his Facebook page, where he posted X-rays of numerous screws that were inserted into his spine. And police are studying his writings about the injury and his disdain for corporate America and the U.S. health care system.
Authorities recovered a spiral notebook that Mangione kept, along with a three-page, handwritten letter found when he was arrested Monday in Pennsylvania, a law enforcement official said Wednesday. Police have not disclosed what was in the notebook.
The letter teased the possibility that clues to the attack — “some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it” — could be found in the notebook, the law enforcement official said. The official wasn’t authorized to disclose information about the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
A law enforcement bulletin obtained by the AP earlier this week said the letter disdained corporate greed and what Mangione called “parasitic” health insurance companies. The prep school and Ivy League graduate wrote that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world and that major corporations’ profits continue to rise while life expectancy doesn’t, according to the bulletin.
In his first public words since his arrest, Mangione shouted about an “insult to the intelligence of the American people” on his way into court Tuesday.