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Luigi Mangione, a 28-year-old Ivy League alumnus from Maryland, has been identified as the suspect in the Dec. 4, 2024, slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan.
Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was shot in the back while walking down a New York City sidewalk on the morning of a business conference. He lived in Minnesota.
Authorities have alleged that the slaying was “premeditated” in order to inspire public debate about the American health insurance industry. Bullet casings at the scene were found with words “deny”, “depose” and “defend” written on them — a possible reference to the book “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.”
Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days after the slaying on charges that included showing a fake ID and unlawful possession of a firearm. He was later charged with murder in New York and indicted on federal stalking charges.
UNITED HEALTHCARE CEO BRIAN THOMPSON MURDER: LIVE UPDATES
This 2017 file photo of Brian Thompson was released via Businesswire when he was named Chief Executive Officer of UnitedHealthcare Unit in 2017. (Businesswire)
Here’s a timeline of Thompson’s murder, the search for a suspect and Mangione’s legal landscape:
UNITED HEALTHCARE CEO MURDER: INVESTIGATORS START SMALL, FOCUS ON FAMILY IN SEARCH FOR MOTIVE
November 2024
In the days before the attack, police sources tell Fox News the gunman took a Greyhound bus from Atlanta, Georgia, to New York City.
He checked into a hostel near Central Park before the murder, using a fake ID and paying in cash.
A screenshot from surveillance footage released by the NYPD shows a person of interest wanted in connection of the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was killed in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, December 4, 2024. (NYPD Crime Stoppers )
Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024 — The day of the murder
Around 6:14 a.m.: Before the attack, the NYPD recovered a surveillance video from a Midtown coffee shop showing the masked suspect, and surveillance video from outside the Stage Star Deli near the corner of 55th Street and Sixth Avenue shows him passing by multiple times minutes later.
The NYPD released still images of the alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin in a Starbucks store near the scene of the crime shortly before it happened. (NYPD)
Around 6:40 a.m: Surveillance video outside the hotel recorded the ambush.
It shows a masked man who was waiting outside the venue stepping behind Thompson, who was approaching from another hotel across the street, and shooting him from behind – in the leg through the back and through his chest.
A map shows the known locations of the suspected killer of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare. (Fox News)
Police arrived in less than three minutes, but the suspect had already fled. Thompson, a Minnesota native who was in New York for a work-related conference, was unconscious and unresponsive, according to the NYPD. He was rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead.
A surveillance image released by the NYPD shows the suspect in the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson on Wednesday, December 4, 2024. (NYPD Crimestoppers)
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Cameras show the killer’s path heading away from the scene. He dropped a phone in an alley between 54th and 55th streets, which authorities were checking for fingerprints and other clues. He turned up the Avenue of Americas, got on a bike and headed north toward Central Park. When he emerged from the park, he wasn’t wearing a backpack spotted in prior surveillance video.
Around 7 a.m.: Video shows a man who appears to match the gunman’s description riding a bike on the Upper West Side, more than 30 blocks away from the crime scene and on the other side of Central Park. He is no longer wearing the backpack captured on earlier surveillance video, prompting the NYPD to spend most of Friday searching for evidence.
By 8 a.m., the gunman is believed to have entered an uptown bus terminal and hitched a ride out of the state.
Police traced his route from the crime scene near 54th Street and Sixth Avenue up to Central Park, which he exited at 77th Street and Central Park West, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told Fox News’ Alexis McAdams Friday.
The suspect in the UnitedHealthcare CEO assassination, later identified as Luigi Mangione, pictured by a taxi cab’s security camera looking into the front from the passenger seat in the rear. (FBI)
He walked with the bike to Columbus Avenue and then ditched it in favor of a taxi, which he took to the bus terminal. Investigators found video of him entering about an hour after the murder. He did not come out on foot, as far as investigators could tell.
Dec. 5
Police released images of a person of interest wanted for questioning in the case – giving the public the first glimpse of an unmasked man.
It appears to have been taken at the hostel on the Upper West Side where the suspect is believed to have been staying.
Police sources told ABC News that the man was flirting with the woman who checked him into the HI New York City Hostel at West 103rd St. in the leadup to the killing. When the woman asked to see his smile, the suspect pulled down his face mask long enough to allow a camera at the building to capture a clearer image of his face.
WATCH: UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect seen on bike in surveillance video
Dec. 6
Police were searching Central Park for evidence Friday morning. Additional surveillance video taking between Midtown and the Upper West Side continued to emerge.
Police on Friday afternoon revealed that the suspect had likely left New York and asked for the public’s help bringing the interstate manhunt to a close.
Dec. 9
Authorities announce the arrest of 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, a Maryland native who obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
United Healthcare CEO slaying suspect Luigi Mangione pictured at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (Pennsylvania State Police)
He was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Monday morning after a McDonald’s customer spotted him and thought he matched the suspect on a wanted poster. The customer flagged an employee who agreed and called police. He was wearing a medical mask and a beanie and working on his laptop, according to court documents.
Police responded to the location for reports of a person matching the description of the man wanted for questioning in Thompson’s murder, but Altoona police said they initially took him into custody on unrelated charges.
Luigi Mangione pictured in a police holding cell in Altoona, Pennsylvania. (Obtained by Fox News Digital)
WHO IS LUIGI MANGIONE, SUSPECT IN UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO MURDER?
When officers approached, they immediately recognized him, according to court documents. However, he allegedly handed over a fake ID and gave a phony name. When police asked if he’d recently been to New York, Mangione allegedly “became quiet and started to shake.”
Mangione surrendered peacefully but once he got the police station he did not speak with investigators, a law enforcement source told Fox News Digital.
A still image from video shows Mangione being taken into a Pennsylvania courthouse Monday evening. (Fox News)
“Suspect didn’t say a word,” the source said. “Refused to talk.”
NYPD detectives arrived in Altoona Monday afternoon, followed by some of the department’s top brass and representatives of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Read the Pennsylvania arrest warrant:
He was initially arrested on charges related to forgery, the fake ID and unlawful possession of a firearm.
He was arraigned on those charges Monday evening and soon charged with murder and other charges in New York.
Read the New York arrest warrant:
The New York arrest warrant alleges that when Pennsylvania police captured Mangione, he was carrying a so-called ghost gun with a 3D-printed receiver and suppressor as well as “written admissions about the crime.”
Also Monday, Thompson’s family laid him to rest in a Minnesota funeral overlooked by state and local police. It was an intimate, private affair with no outsiders allowed in.
Dec. 10
Mangione’s defense attorney tells a Pennsylvania judge his client would fight extradition, delaying his expected return to New York by more than a week.
Luigi Mangione pictured in a Pennsylvania mugshot after his arrest in connection with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. (Fox News Digital)
Dec. 11
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch says police have matched a 3D-printed gun allegedly recovered from suspected killer Luigi Mangione to shell casings found outside a New York City Hilton where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down from behind last week.
“First, we got the gun in question back from Pennsylvania,” she told reporters at a news briefing Wednesday. “It’s now at the NYPD crime lab. We were able to match that gun to the three shell casings that we found in Midtown at the scene of the homicide.”
They also have his fingerprints on a snack bar wrapper and a water bottle, she said.
“We were also able at our crime lab to match the person of interest’s fingerprints with fingerprints that we found on both the water bottle and the KIND bar near the scene of the homicide in midtown,” she added.
Evidence collected after the arrest of Luigi Mangione and presented by the Manhattan DA during a suppression hearing is shown here. Pictured: Mangione’s gun. (Manhattan District Attorney’s Office)
Dec. 17
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announces an indictment against Mangione on more serious charges than previously expected, revealing the new first-degree murder charge includes the allegation that Thompson’s assassination was an act of terror.
“This was a killing to invoke terror,” Bragg said. “This was not an ordinary killing, not to suggest that any killing is ordinary, but this was extraordinary.”
Judge Gregory Carro later agreed to a defense request to dismiss this top charge in September 2025.
Mangione still faces a top state-level charge of second-degree murder.
UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO MURDER SUSPECT LUIGI MANGIONE INDICTED IN NEW YORK
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch also condemned public shows of support for the suspect.
“Luigi Mangione is now formally charged and indicted for murder, and let me be perfectly clear, in the nearly two weeks since Mr. Thompson’s killing, we have seen a shocking and appalling celebration of cold-blooded murder,” she told reporters. “Social media has erupted with praise for this cowardly attack.”
Dec. 19
Mangione reverses course in his fight against extradition and agrees to be returned to New York to face justice there. He showed no visible emotions as police escorted him out of the courthouse in handcuffs.
Luigi Mangioni is escorted from an NYPD helicopter in New York City, NY, Thursday, December, 19, 2024. Mangione is the prime suspect in the murder of United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
Several people outside the courthouse held signs that read “Deny, Defend, Depose,” the same message that Mangione allegedly left on shell casings at the scene of Thompson’s murder and words that are commonly used among insurance providers when they reject claims.
Federal prosecutors also filed their own case against Mangione — accusing him of charges including stalking and murder with a firearm.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York alleged that Mangione spent months planning the assassination “in an effort to initiate a public discussion about the healthcare industry.”
The top charge was later dismissed by Judge Margaret Garnett on Jan. 30, 2026, when she agreed with the defense argument that stalking is not an underlying “crime of violence” to justify the capital murder charge and potential death penalty.
April 1, 2025
Federal prosecutors first announced plans to seek the death penalty if Mangione were convicted.
Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi called Thompson’s murder “a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” noting that he was a father of two.
“I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again,” Bondi said at the time.
Attorney General Pam Bondi conducts a news conference at the Department of Justice on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
PROSECUTORS WARN LUIGI MANGIONE SUPPORTERS MAY INTIMIDATE WITNESSES AND JURORS AT MURDER TRIAL
April 25
Mangione is indicted on the federal charges and enters not guilty pleas at his arraignment.
Sept. 16
Carro, the judge overseeing Mangione’s New York state case, agrees to a defense motion seeking to dismiss the terrorism-related charges.
“There was no evidence presented of a desire to terrorize the public, inspire widespread fear, engage in a broader campaign of violence, or to conspire with organized terrorist groups,” Carro wrote in a 12-page decision. “Here, the crime — the heinous, but targeted and discrete killing of one person — is very different from the examples of terrorism set forth in the statute.”
The dismissal meant that Mangione no longer faced a maximum possible sentence of life without parole in the state case.
Luigi Mangione attends a pre-trial appearance at Manhattan Criminal Court, in New York City, U.S., August 11, 2026. (David Dee Delgado/Reuters via Pool)
Jan. 30, 2026
In another legal victory for the defense, Garnett dismissed the top charge in the federal case, which also removed the potential death penalty.
Garnett wrote that she was bound by Supreme Court precedent.
LUIGI MANGIONE PLEA BUZZ RAISES POTENTIAL PAUL MANAFORT PROBLEM FOR PROSECUTORS
“Over the course of the last two decades or so, the Supreme Court has embarked upon a legal journey, explained herein, that now requires lower courts to engage in an analysis totally divorced from the conduct at issue and centered on the hypothetically least serious conduct that the charged crime could possibly cover,” she wrote.
Luigi Mangione attends a pre-trial appearance at Manhattan Criminal Court, in New York City, U.S., August 11, 2026. (David Dee Delgado/Reuters via Pool)
Prosecutors needed to establish an underlying crime of violence to bring the federal murder charge. They alleged that to be the stalking charge. But Garnett said that didn’t qualify, because stalking doesn’t always have to be violent.
May 18
Carro agreed to keep some evidence taken from Mangione’s backpack out of his New York trial. The suspected murder weapon and a red notebook recovered during a subsequent search at the police station remain admissible.
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Aug. 11
Mangione attended what was expected to be the final pretrial conference ahead of his state trial, slated to begin on Sept. 8. Judge Carro ruled that jurors would remain anonymous due to safety and privacy concerns and announced that the court would provide an overflow room to make room for more journalists and members of the public at trial.
Prosecutors with the Southern District of New York and Mangione’s defense attorneys also asked Judge Garnett to set a conference for the morning of Friday, Aug. 14 — prompting speculation that the 28-year-old could agree to a plea deal in his federal case days before he’s set to go to trial on state murder charges.
The timing could have major implications for the state trial. Due to a difference between New York and federal laws, Mangione could raise a double-jeopardy claim if he is convicted at the federal level before his state trial, according to legal experts.
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New York’s double-jeopardy protections previously led Big Apple courts to toss charges against former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort after his federal convictions.
Fox News’ Alexis McAdams, Julia Bonavita, Louis Caisano, Greg Norman and Christina Coulter contributed to this report.
