Markers indicate bullet casings found at the scene of Brian Thompson’s killing in Midtown Manhattan. Investigators found fingerprints on some ballistic evidence.
Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Police Have Luigi Mangione’s Notebook Describing Rationale for UHC CEO Killing

“It’s targeted, precise and doesn’t risk innocents,” said a sentence in a spiral notebook belonging to the man charged with murdering Brian Thompson.

by · NY Times

Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with killing the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare outside a company investors’ day in Manhattan, was arrested with a notebook that detailed plans for the shooting, according to two law enforcement officials.

The notebook described going to a conference and killing an executive, the officials said.

“What do you do? You wack the C.E.O. at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention. It’s targeted, precise, and doesn’t risk innocents,” was one passage written in the notebook, the officials said.

The shooting of the executive, Brian Thompson, occurred early Dec. 4 as Mr. Thompson arrived on West 54th Street outside a Hilton hotel to prepare for the UnitedHealthcare investors’ meeting. His assailant escaped on a bicycle and then disappeared.

Police officials in New York were able to match Mr. Mangione’s fingerprints to those on a water bottle and a Kind snack bar wrapper recovered near the crime scene, Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Commissioner Tisch said the New York police now have the unregistered gun that was found in Mr. Mangione’s possession when he was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on Monday. The police brought it to the department’s crime lab, where they matched it to the three shell casings that were found at the crime scene, she said. The crime lab confirmed they matched the suspect’s, police officials said in a briefing with reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

The police were also analyzing a bag of bullets found this week in Central Park to see if they were connected to the killing, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Mr. Mangione, 26, was captured Monday after a tip from an employee at a McDonald’s in Altoona, who was alerted by a customer who recognized him. He has been denied bail on a murder charge and is fighting extradition to New York, a process that could take weeks.

“He is contesting it,” his lawyer, Thomas Dickey, said on Tuesday.

Asked about the Police Department’s contention that bullets found at the crime scene match the gun found with the suspect, Mr. Dickey said a police statement to the news media is one thing, but getting evidence admitted at trial — where it can be dissected and challenged — is another.

“We have to see the evidence — they can say what it is and all this other kind of stuff, but we have to see it,” Mr. Dickey said. “When you’re talking about it getting admitted into a courtroom, the legal standard is different.”

He said the same applied to the police’s contention about fingerprint evidence. Mr. Dickey said it is not yet clear to him whether the police’s description of the fingerprint evidence is accurate, whether the prints are full or partial and how the evidence was handled.

When Mr. Mangione was arrested, he had the so-called ghost gun, a suppressor and false identification cards similar to those believed to have been used by the killer, officials said. He also had identification bearing his real name.

The police also found Mr. Mangione with a Faraday bag, which blocks electromagnetic signals and prevents a cellphone from being tracked, the police said at the briefing on Wednesday.

He also had a 262-word handwritten note, which begins by appearing to take responsibility for the murder. The note, which officials described as a manifesto, also mentioned the existence of a notebook. The recovery of the notebook was first reported by CNN.

The suspect saw the killing as a “symbolic takedown,” according to a New York Police Department internal report that detailed parts of the three-page document. He “likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices,” the report said.

On his way into court on Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Mangione shouted about “an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience.” It was not clear what he was referring to as deputies worked to push him into the courthouse. On Wednesday, the sheriff of Blair County, James E. Ott, said that Mr. Mangione had not otherwise given deputies any problems.

Mr. Mangione, part of a sprawling and prominent Baltimore family, went to an elite high school in the city and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He had worked at several tech companies and had a long interest in developing computer games.

In years of posts on a Reddit account, he described a series of life-altering health problems. He said that he had back pain that worsened until a surgery in 2023 and that he had struggled with “brain fog.” But his only reference to insurance coverage in the posts noted that Blue Cross Blue Shield had covered testing for irritable bowel syndrome.

Mr. Mangione stopped communicating with friends and family about six months ago. His mother filed a missing-person report last month.

Benjamin Brafman, a prominent defense lawyer in New York whose clients have included Sean Combs, Harvey Weinstein and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said Wednesday that the police had amassed an “overwhelming” amount of evidence that left little room for Mr. Mangione to mount a viable defense at trial.

“This was a rather brazen act of violence,” Mr. Brafman said. “Given that there doesn’t seem to be an inch of Manhattan that isn’t covered in video recording devices, it’s hard to explain away what happened.”

Still, he said, that did not mean that prosecutors’ jobs would be easy. They will have a hard time finding jurors who do not feel they have been treated unfairly by the health care industry.

“I think most people when questioned about that issue will say, ‘Yeah, I dealt with a health care industry that I was unhappy with,’” he said. “But they didn’t go out and execute the head of an insurance company.”

Mr. Dickey urged Americans to keep an open mind about whether Mr. Mangione had committed the crime. “I try to remind people of the presumption of innocence and how important it is and not to jump to conclusions,” Mr. Dickey said. “That’s my biggest concern, is his ability to get a fair trial.”

Police officials in New York City, already concerned that the shooting might inspire other violence, have noted that numerous mock “Wanted” posters with images of high-profile corporate executives had been posted along Manhattan sidewalks. A video on social media showed three fliers with images of top executives; one of the fliers featured Mr. Thompson’s face with an X over it.

The Police Department included some of the images in its internal report, which warned that people on social media were celebrating the shooting and encouraging more killings of executives. The report mentioned “an elevated threat facing executives in the near term” and said there was “a risk that a wide range of extremists may view Mangione as a martyr and an example to follow.”

Just hours after Mr. Mangione was arrested on Monday at the McDonald’s, a young woman was standing outside holding a sign that said “Corrupt insurance C.E.O.s have got to go.”

Chelsia Rose Marcius, Mark Bonamo, Jeffery C. Mays and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed reporting.

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