‘Old fashioned police work’: How the suspect in the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was caught

PHILADELPHIA — High-tech drones were used, hundreds of hours of video were examined and state-of-the-art tools were used to scrutinize the “vast amount” of forensic evidence. But when the arrest and charges against the high-profile murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompsonit boiled down to “good old-fashioned police work,” authorities said.

Five days after Thompson was brazenly gunned down on a sidewalk in midtown Manhattan, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was charged with murder in the killing, which New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said “captured the attention of the nation.”

Mangione, a former high school graduate with no criminal record, was taken into custody Monday morning at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh, after an employee recognized him from surveillance photos. which the NYPD released showing the shooter and attacker. called 911.

An NYPD court report shows Mangione was charged with second-degree murder, possession of a loaded firearm, possession of a forged instrument and criminal possession of a weapon.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed the charges.

A criminal complaint filed Monday night by Pennsylvania prosecutors said Mangione was wearing a blue surgical mask and was sitting in the back of the McDonald’s looking at a laptop when two officers approached him at 9:14 a.m. and asked him to remove the mask. According to court documents, Mangione complied and allegedly gave officers an ID they confirmed was fake when they ran him through their dispatch center.

RELATED: Suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO’s slaying moved from Philly to Pittsburgh after slaying: officials

The officers, who identified the man in a photo of the homicide suspect in an NYPD report, asked Mangione if he had been to New York recently, according to the complaint.

“The man fell silent and began to shake,” the statement said.

When officers complained to Mangione about the fake ID, he gave his real name and date of birth, according to the documents. One of the officers, the complaint says, asked “why he lied,” to which Mangione replied, “I clearly shouldn’t have.”

Mangione was later charged with five felonies, including carrying a weapon without a license, forgery, making false representations to authorities and possession of “instruments of crime,” according to the criminal complaint.

During a search of Mangione’s backpack, police allegedly found a black 3-D printed handgun and a black silencer that was also 3-D printed, according to the criminal complaint.

“The gun had one loaded Glock magazine with six 9mm solid metal cartridges. There was also one unsecured nine-millimeter cartridge with a hollow tip,” the complaint states.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenney described the gun allegedly found on Mangione as a “ghost gun,” meaning it had no serial number and could not be traced.

Mangione, who grew up in Maryland and later lived in San Francisco, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii, also had a three-page handwritten document that Tish said “recounts both his motivations and his mindset.”

Kenney added that the document contained writings that expressed “some ill will toward corporate America.”

According to Tisch, several forged documents were found in Mangione’s possession, as well as a U.S. passport.

Tisch said police used drones, K-9 units and scuba divers during the investigation. She said investigators also drew heavily on the expertise and technology of the FBI, in addition to their own intelligence and counterterrorism bureaus, to help crack the case.

“Over the course of just over five days, our NYPD investigators reviewed thousands of hours of video, followed hundreds of tips and processed all the forensic evidence, DNA, fingerprints, IP addresses and more to crack the network,” Tisch said. . “Our detectives also went door to door interviewing potential witnesses and doing the good old fashioned police work our investigators are known for.”

The commissioner added: “It is this combination of old school detective work and the latest technology that has led to this result today.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams shared a video Monday night X thanking Altoona Police Officer Tyler Frye, who arrested Mangione. “He worked for six months and arrested the suspect in the murder of Brian Thompson,” Adams said of Frye. “We greatly value the partnership between local police, state partners and the NYPD. Together, we took him into custody and took a dangerous man off our streets,” Adams added.

Thompson was killed around 6:40 a.m. Wednesday outside the Hilton Hotel in New York, where the executive was scheduled to attend a shareholder meeting.

The gunman, who was wearing a mask and hooded jacket, was caught on surveillance video stalking Thompson from behind during what investigators called a “brazen, targeted shooting.”

Kenney said the big break in the investigation came hours after the investigation began, when police received a surveillance photo of the suspect at a Starbucks on West 56th Street and 6th Avenue near the New York Hilton.

“A lot of the key points in this case are the fact that we’ve recovered a huge amount of forensic evidence, a huge amount of video. So I really can’t put it down to one thing. But if I had to, it would be to post this photo,” Kenney said. “We took this photo and asked for help identifying this subject, and the public responded.”

SEE ALSO: The CEO of UnitedHealthcare shot the suspect before, during and after the shooting

Kenney said detectives spent hundreds of hours combing through “every video source we could gather.” Using video, detectives were able to track the killer from the scene of the shooting as he fled on foot and bicycle through midtown Manhattan, Central Park and uptown Manhattan. Detectives even obtained a video of him shortly after he arrived in the city by bus.

Police later released clearer images of the suspect, including one showing his face while checking into a youth hostel in upper Manhattan, and a photo of him wearing a mask while sitting in the back seat of a taxi.

“The images we shared with the public went viral, and the tips we received led to the recovery of important evidence,” Tisch said, acknowledging the “instrumental role of the media and the public in this case.”

Tisch added: “We should never underestimate the power of the public to be our eyes and our ears in these investigations.”

She said this is the third time in as many weeks that information from the public has led to an arrest in a high-profile case, including a triple stabbing in Manhattan and a series of armed robberies in Queens that led to the arrest of a police officer. shot.

Kenney said the investigation is far from over as detectives continue to determine whether the shooter had assistance.

RELATED: UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting sparks ‘volcanic’ anger at health insurance agencies

“We believe at this point our investigation is leaning toward him acting alone,” Kenney said.

Looking ahead, Tisch said, “We will look into extradition to bring him back to New York to face charges here, working with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.”