NYPD probing alleged gunman Luigi Mangione’s back injury as a possible motive in shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
Investigators are probing whether Luigi Mangione’s back injury was the alleged motive in the cold-blooded killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, police said Wednesday.
Cops confirmed they are looking into an accident that left the 26-year-old hospitalized in July last year – and whether it possibly fueled his alleged vendetta against the medical industry, according to an NYPD official.
“A possible motive that we are also looking into is that he suffered an accident that caused him to visit an emergency room back on July 4 of 2023,” the official said.
Cops are also scrutinizing photos on Mangione’s social media that featured X-ray images of a person’s back, as well as a three-page manifesto-type document that included raging remarks about “parasitic” health insurance companies.
“He posted X-rays of numerous screws being inserted into his spine — and [in] some of the writings, he was discussing the difficulty of sustaining that injury,” the NYPD official said.
“As far as motive, it looks like he had animus toward the healthcare industry.”
Mangione is accused of gunning down the health care executive outside a Manhattan hotel last week – setting off a five day manhunt that ended with the accused killer’s capture at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania on Monday.
The details of the police probe emerged after Mangione’s former landlord revealed that the Ivy League university graduate’s back pain was so bad that he couldn’t have sex or date anyone.
What we know about the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
- Brian Thompson, the CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down Wednesday outside a luxury Midtown hotel in a “brazen, targeted attack,” police said.
- Thompson was named CEO of UnitedHealth in April 2021. He joined the company in 2004. He was one of several senior executives at the company under investigation by the Department of Justice.
- Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said her husband had been getting threats before he was killed.
- Thompson’s shooting led to sick support online, and even spurred a tasteless lookalike competition in NYC.
- A person of interest has been nabbed by police officers inside a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa.
- The suspect has been identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, originally from Towson, Md. He’s an Ivy League graduate who hated the medical community.
Follow along with The Post’s live updates on the news surrounding Brian Thompson’s murder.
RJ Martin, who owns the “co-living” space in Hawaii where Mangione lived for six months, told the New York Times that the murder suspect had revealed to him he was in constant pain over a pinched nerve and “misaligned spine.”
“He knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn’t possible,” Martin told the Times.
“I remember him telling me that, and my heart just breaks.”
A former high school classmate also told the newspaper that Mangione had lost touch with his family — part of a prominent Baltimore, Md., clan — after undergoing back surgery.
Mangione had five books involving chronic back pain on his reading list on his Goodreads account.
He remained jailed without bail Wednesday in Pennsylvania, where he was charged with gun and forgery offenses.
Manhattan prosecutors are working to bring him to New York to face a murder charge in Thompson’s death.
