What we know about New York City shooting of UnitedHealthcare boss Brian Thompson
UnitedHealthcare chief executive Mr Thompson was walking towards the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan, where the company was hosting a conference on 4 December, when he was shot from behind.
Tuesday 10 December 2024 09:47, UK
Nearly a week after the chief executive of America's biggest health insurance provider was killed, a man has been charged with his murder.
Brian Thompson, 50, was the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare - the fourth-largest public company in the United States.
He was targeted by what experts claim is a "seasoned, professional killer", who shot him on 4 December as he was walking into a Manhattan hotel where his company was holding a conference.
Luigi Nicholas Mangione, 26, was arrested on Monday after a McDonald's employee in Pennsylvania alerted the authorities to a customer, who was found with a gun, mask and writings linking him to the ambush.
He was initially arrested on a firearms charge by police in the town of Altoona, but has now been charged with murder.
What happened?
The shooting happened at 6.45am on Wednesday 4 December - just before sunrise.
Brian Thompson was in New York City for UnitedHealthcare's annual investors conference, which was due to start at 8am.
As he walked towards the entrance of the Hilton hotel on Sixth Avenue, in Manhattan's midtown, CCTV footage shows a gunman emerging from two parked cars behind him.
The suspect draws his weapon and fires at least three times at close range - around 15ft (4.6m) away from him on the pavement.
Mr Thompson is shot in the back and the calf and falls to the ground.
The weapon, believed to have been fitted with a 9mm silencer, appears to jam, at which point the shooter fixes the problem and fires again.
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There was at least one bystander present, but the gunman does not approach them, instead crossing the street and disappearing down an alleyway on the other side of the road.
Wanted posters show CCTV pictures of him on an electric bike, which police say he fled the scene on before getting a taxi to a bus station.
Emergency services arrived at the scene, which is near to the Rockefeller Center, where the famous annual Christmas lights switch-on took place hours after the shooting.
The UnitedHealthcare conference started on time as planned - but an hour later the chief executive of the firm's wider group Andrew Whitty appeared on stage to say it was being cancelled.
Who was Brian Thompson?
Brian Thompson joined UnitedHealthcare from an accountancy firm in 2004 and was named chief executive officer in April 2021. He previously served as chief executive of the firm's government programmes business.
UnitedHealthcare is the largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans in the US and manages insurance for employers and state and federally-funded programmes.
It is the fourth largest public company in the country - behind Walmart, Amazon and Apple.
He lived in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is about a 20-minute drive from the company headquarters.
He studied at the University of Iowa - and was married with two children.
His wife Paulette Thompson told NBC News that he had said "there were some people that had been threatening him" but gave no further details.
The police chief of the suburb where Mr Thompson lived, Eric Werner, said his department had received no reports of threats towards him.
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His sister-in-law, Elena Reveiz, told the New York Times: "He was a good person and I am so sad."
UnitedHealthcare described him in its statement as a "highly respected colleague" and a "friend to all who worked with him".
What do we know about Luigi Mangione?
Mangione was arrested around 230 miles west of New York, in the state of Pennsylvania.
Police said he had a silencer and a gun "both consistent with the weapon used in the murder".
They said the gun appeared to be a "ghost gun" - a weapon that can be assembled at home from parts and without a serial number - and that it was possibly made using a 3D printer.
Mangione also had a fake New Jersey ID - with the name Mark Rosario - matching a document used by the suspect to check into a hostel in the city before the attack, said New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
He was found carrying a "handwritten document" which Ms Tisch said spoke "to both his motivation and mindset".
NYPD chief of detectives Joseph Kenny said that from the document, it appeared he had "some ill-will towards corporate America".
Mr Kenny said Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco and has a last known address in Honolulu.
He is the grandson of a wealthy property developer and philanthropist, and the cousin of a current Maryland state legislator.
He appears to have an active social media presence.
One account, appearing under his name and picture on the X platform, regularly shares and reposts think pieces, with frequent topics such as artificial intelligence (AI), philosophy, and the future of humanity.
Officials described last week's shooting as a "premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack" and "not a random act of violence".
New York police commissioner Jessica Tisch said the killer appeared to have been "lying in wait for several minutes" for Mr Thompson to approach the hotel.
Timeline of the suspect's movements
24 November
Investigators believe that the suspect travelled to New York in late November on a Greyhound Bus from Atlanta.
After arriving in the city, he took a taxi to the vicinity of the Hilton hotel, where the UnitedHealthcare conference was held 10 days later, NBC New York, an affiliate of Sky News' US partner NBC News, reported.
He was there for about half an hour.
At around 11pm local time, he checked into the HI New York City Hostel, which is near Columbia University, using a fake ID and paying in cash, chief of detectives Joseph Kenny said.
Photos of the suspect smiling in the lobby of the hostel on Manhattan's Upper West Side appear to be one of the few times he removed his face mask, Mr Kenny added.
People who shared a room with the suspect at the hostel said he didn't speak to them, and nothing of investigative value was found in a search of the hotel room.
4 December
At around 6.15am on the morning of the shooting, the suspect is seen on CCTV exiting a subway station.
Further footage shows he went to Starbucks and bought a bottle of water and two protein bars - the wrappers of which were found with a mobile phone in the alleyway he fled through.
At 6.44am local time, Mr Thompson is shot from behind as he arrives at the Hilton hotel.
Outside the hotel, crime scene investigators found several shell casings, with the words "defend", "deny", and "depose" written on them, city law enforcement officials said.
Minutes later, at 6.48am, the suspect is seen entering Central Park on an electric bike, according to NBC New York.
Just under 10 minutes later, at 6.56am, he is seen again on the bike, now out of the park.
The suspect was spotted again at 7am at 86th Street, no longer with the bicycle.
At 7.04am, the suspect is seen getting into another taxi.
At around 7.30am the suspect arrives at the Port Authority bus station that offers services to New Jersey and Greyhound routes to Philadelphia, Boston and Washington DC, according to Mr Kenny.
9 December
A McDonald's employee called police about a suspicious person in the Altoona restaurant, and police later said they discovered he had with him a gun similar to the one used in the fatal shooting.
Mangione appeared in court for a preliminary arraignment and was charged with two felonies - forgery and carrying a firearm without a licence - and three misdemeanours: tampering with records or identification, possessing instruments of crime and providing false identification to law enforcement, according to NBC News.