The person of interest in the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killing was carrying a note that said “these parasites had it coming” when he was nabbed, a bombshell report said Monday.
Ivy League graduate Luigi Mangione, 26, was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a McDonald’s worker spotted him eating. When cops searched him they found a ghost gun made on a 3-D printer and a manifesto railing against “corporate America.”
CNN reported that he was carrying a note that said, “I do apologize for any strife or trauma but it had to be done. These parasites had it coming. I acted alone. I’m self-funded.”
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The letter said that protest was ineffective and only violence would work, CNN’s chief law enforcement analyst John Miller reported on air.
Law enforcement sources described the note to The New York Times as a “manifesto.”
Mangione’s dramatic arrest ended a manhunt that began when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down Wednesday outside a Hilton in Midtown Manhattan, where he was set to address investors.
Just days ago, the suspect’s backpack was recovered from Central Park, with Monopoly money inside. Experts claimed that the board game’s fake bills may have been “meant to send a message.”
“The Monopoly money conveys messages, both that UnitedHealthcare is a ripoff that steals money from patients in order to pay its executives millions, and that it is itself a monopoly,” Carole Lieberman, a psychiatrist and trail expert, told the Daily Beast. “He may have planned to scatter the Monopoly money around the CEO’s body after he shot him, but he forgot to take the bills out of his backpack.”
The killer had meant to send a message to investigators, and the world. Etched in the bullet casings found at the scene of CEO Brian Thompson’s slaying read “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” according to reports.
News articles were quick to point out that the three words are almost identical to the phrase “Delay, deny, defend,” a saying used to describe insurance company maneuvers to steer clear of paying for filed claims; and a 2010 book title that was critical of insurance companies.
On social media, many users rallied behind the killer, praising him for the murder of one of the CEOs behind the industry.
Memes, merchandise and more painted the murderer as the internet’s new Robin Hood.
“Do you expect people to feel bad that a guy who denied people healthcare was murdered,” wrote one commenter on an Daily Beast Instagram post.
“Nobody is condoning murder but if that’s what it takes to bring attention to corrupt mega monopolies literally letting people die,” wrote another. “So be it.”
Now, other executives are being threatened.
“I have heard of two incidents just over the weekend where CEOs have received—one anthrax, one a package threatened to be a bomb that had some of the same language about ‘defy’ and ‘depose,’” Kathryn Wylde—the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City nonprofit told CNBC.
