United States | Message in a bullet

Luigi Mangione’s manifesto reveals his hatred of insurance companies

The man accused of killing Brian Thompson gets American health care wrong

Suspect Luigi Mangione is taken into the Blair County Courthouse on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, in Hollidaysburg, Pa. (Benja
Photograph: AP
|CHICAGO

Homicide investigations are like bankruptcies: they come along gradually and then all at once. On December 9th, Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old engineering graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school, was arrested and charged with murdering Brian Thompson, the ceo of UnitedHealthcare, America’s biggest health insurer, in a predawn assassination in Manhattan on December 4th. The arrest came after five days of frenetic investigation in which police seemed to have almost no leads at all. The fugitive was finally captured in a branch of McDonalds in Altoona, a town in central Pennsylvania, after a member of staff recognised his face from a security camera photo circulated by the police.

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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Message in a bullet”

From the December 14th 2024 edition

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