Luigi Nicholas Mangione, the suspect in the fatal shooting of a health care executive in New York City, apparently lived a charmed life: He was the grandson of a wealthy real estate developer, valedictorian of his elite preparatory school in Baltimore and with degrees from one of the best schools in the country Top private universities.
Friends in an exclusive apartment community on the edge of touristy Waikiki, Hawaii, where the 26-year-venerable Mangione once lived, were widely considered to be a “great guy,” and pictures on his social media accounts show a fit, smiling, handsome youthful man on the beach and at parties.
Now investigators in New York and Pennsylvania are working to determine why Mangione may have deviated from that path and made the violent and radical decision to shoot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a brazen attack on a Manhattan street.
The murder sparked widespread discussion about corporate greed and injustice in the health insurance industry, and even evoked folk hero sentiment toward his murderer.
But Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro sharply refuted that assumption after Mangione was arrested Monday when a customer at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania saw Mangione eating and noticed in surveillance camera photos released by the New York Police Department that he was following Resembled suspects.
“In some dark corners this murderer is being hailed as a hero. Listen to me, he’s not a hero,” Shapiro said. “The real hero in this story is the person who called 911 at McDonald’s this morning.”
Mangione’s family and upbringing
Mangione comes from a prominent Maryland family. His grandfather, Nick Mangione, who died in 2008, was a successful real estate developer. One of his most notable projects was the Turf Valley Resort, a sprawling luxury retreat and conference center outside Baltimore that he purchased in 1978.
The Mangione family also purchased Hayfields Country Club north of Baltimore in 1986. On Monday, Baltimore County police officers sealed off the entrance to the property that public records show is associated with Luigi Mangione’s parents. Reporters and photographers gathered outside the entrance.
According to a 2003 Washington Post report, Nick Mangione, a father of 10, groomed his five sons – including Luigi Mangione’s father, Louis Mangione – to facilitate run the family business. According to his grandfather’s obituary, Nick Mangione had 37 grandchildren, including Luigi.
According to a statement from Loyola University commemorating the death of Nick Mangione’s wife in 2023, Luigi Mangione’s grandparents donated to charity through the Mangione Family Foundation. They donated to various causes, including Catholic organizations, colleges and the arts.
One of Luigi Mangione’s cousins is Maryland Republican state Rep. Nino Mangione, a House spokesman confirmed.
“Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” Mangione’s family said in a statement posted on social media by Nino Mangione. “We are praying for Brian Thompson’s family and asking people to pray for everyone involved.”
Mangione’s education and professional career
Mangione, who was valedictorian of his elite Maryland prep school, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020, a university spokesman told The Associated Press.
He learned to code in high school and helped found a club at Penn for people interested in games and game design, according to a 2018 article in Penn Today, a campus publication.
His social media posts indicate that he belonged to the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. They also show him attending a Stanford University program in 2019 and in photos with family and friends at the Jersey Shore as well as in Hawaii, San Diego, Puerto Rico and other destinations.
The Gilman School, from which Mangione graduated in 2016, is one of Baltimore’s elite prep schools. The children of some of the city’s wealthiest and most prominent residents, including Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr., have attended the school. Its alumni include sportswriter Frank Deford and former Arizona Governor Fife Symington.
In his farewell speech, Luigi Mangione described the “incredible courage of his classmates to explore the unknown and try new things.”
According to a LinkedIn profile, after high school, Mangione completed a software programming internship at Maryland-based video game studio Firaxis, where he fixed bugs in the hit strategy game Civilization 6. Firaxis’ parent company, Take-Two Interactive, said it would not comment on former employees.
He most recently worked at car-buying website TrueCar but hasn’t worked there since 2023, the head of the Santa Monica, California-based company confirmed to the AP.
Time in Hawaii and reports of back pain
From January to June 2022, Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a “co-living” area on the edge of touristy Waikiki in Honolulu.
Like other residents of the shared penthouse that houses remote workers, Mangione underwent a background check, said Josiah Ryan, a spokesman for owner and founder RJ Martin.
“Luigi was generally considered a great guy. There were no complaints,” Ryan said. “There were no signs pointing to the alleged crimes he was alleged to have committed.”
At Surfbreak, Martin learned that Mangione had had severe back pain since childhood, affecting many aspects of his life, including surfing, Ryan said.
“He went surfing with RJ once, but it didn’t work out because of his back,” Ryan said, but noted that Mangione and Martin often went to a climbing gym together.
Mangione left Surfbreak to have surgery on the mainland, Ryan said, then later returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment. An image posted on a social media account linked to Mangione showed what appeared to be an X-ray of a metal rod and several screws inserted into a person’s lower spine.
Martin didn’t hear from Mangione for six months to a year.
An X account linked to Mangione includes recent posts about the negative effects of smartphones on children; vigorous eating and exercise habits; psychological theories; and a quote from Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti about the dangers of “adapting well to a deeply sick society.”
The police report a darker turn of events
According to a law enforcement bulletin obtained by AP, Mangione was likely motivated by his anger at what he called “parasitic” health insurance companies and a disdain for corporate greed.
He wrote that the U.S. has the most pricey health care system in the world and that huge corporations’ profits continue to rise while “our life expectancy” does not raise, the bulletin said, based on a review of the suspect’s handwritten notes and social media posts.
He appeared to view the targeted assassination of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO as a symbolic defeat, claiming in his note that he was “the first to approach the matter with such brutal honesty,” the bulletin said.
Mangione called “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski a “political revolutionary” and may have taken inspiration from the man who carried out a series of bombings while railing against newfangled society and technology, the document said.
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Associated Press reporter Lea Skene in Baltimore; Jen Kelleher in Honolulu; Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; and Michael Kunzelman in Washington, DC, contributed to this report.
