Today, authorities announced they’d arrested a “strong person of interest” after a nearly week-long manhunt in the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thomspon.
The New York Post confirmed the identity of Luigi Mangione, who was caught by police in Pennslyvania.
According to the New York Times, police found him with a fake ID that matched one he used for a hostel in New York City, as well as a gun that appeared similar to the murder weapon.
Luigi Mangione online presence
Online, the 26-year-old Mangione had a varied presence, where he shared books on GoodReads, posted podcasts he’d listened to, and revealed at least one firm tie to the healthcare insurance.
Clues also seem to point to an issue with chronic pain.
Mangione listed previous experience on LinkedIn working as a volunteer at Lorien Healthcare Services, an assisted living facility. Lorien Healthcare appears to have been founded by Nicholas and Mary Mangione, the grandparents of the alleged shooter.
On LinkedIn, Mangione’s current job is listed as a Data Engineer with TrueCar Inc.
When found at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Mangione was also carrying notes criticizing healthcare insurance systems.
On his X account, Mangione posted a range of topics, discussing artificial intelligence and human immortality.
The alleged shooter reposted several tweets on mental health.
One was from Ole Lehmann explaining why psychedelics are the most effective treatment for mental health, while another from popular podcaster Andrew Huberman discussed disruption of brain rhythms in psychiatric disorders.
On his Goodreads, Mangione has logged 65 books as read, with a few centering on chronic back pain.
The books included Back Mechanic by Dr. Stuart McGill and Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery by Cathryn Jackobson Ramin.
Other books in his to-be-read queue included: Lack in Control: A Spine Surgeon’s Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain and The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.
Mangione’s X profile also seemed to reference a potential back injury. His header image included an X-ray of a spine that showed a brace or screws inserted in it.
Mangione wrote 13 reviews on GoodReads, including one for What’s Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies by Tim Urban, which he believed “will go down in history as one of the most important philosophical texts of the early 21st century.”
Mangione also read and praised Industrial Society and Its Future, the manifesto from the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.
In his review, Mangione wrote, “Clearly written by a mathematics prodigy. Reads like a series of [dilemmas] on the question of 21st-century quality of life … When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective. Its not terrorism, its war and revolution.”
Mangione, before he was identified, became an internet folk hero for his alleged involvement in the assassination of Thompson, as users online vented about the issues of modern-day healthcare.
That response grew as, in the wake of the shooting, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield reversed a controversial decision to cap insurance payments for anesthesia.
His Instagram follower count jumped from 823 followers to over 10,000 in the hour after he was identified.
His most recent post, originally shared on Aug. 27, 2021, now has over 600 comments.
Additional reporting by Megha Gupta.
This post has been updated.
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
