Penn graduate identified as person of interest in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's murder
A person of interest being questioned in connection with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last week graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school, in Philadelphia, a Penn spokesperson confirmed to CBS News Philadelphia.
Authorities in New York City identified the person of interest Monday as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione.
Mangione was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on an illegal gun charge, the New York Police Department said during a press conference. He was arraigned on several unrelated charges after his arrest. Mangione was charged with forgery, firearms not to be carried without a license, tampering with records or identification, possessing instruments of crime and false identification to law enforcement authorities, according to court documents.
"This is a strong person of interest," New York City Mayor Eric Adams said. "He matches the description of the identification we've been looking for. He's also in possession of several items that we believe will connect him to this incident."
According to the NYPD, a tipster contacted police after seeing a man at the McDonald's who looked like the person of interest in photos released in the case.
Mangione had in possession a gun with a silencer, matching a description of the weapon used to kill Thompson, and a fake New Jersey driver's license, police said.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the gun found on Mangione may have been a 3D-printed ghost gun.
Thompson was fatally shot outside the Hilton Midtown hotel on Dec. 4. NYPD said the person of interest had used a fake New Jersey ID to check into a hostel in Manattan's Upper West Site.
Luigi Mangione's ties to Philadelphia
Mangione is from Towson, Maryland, and graduated from Gilman School, an all-boys private high school in Baltimore, in 2016 as the valedictorian speaker.
Mangione graduated from Penn with a bachelor's and master's in 2020, a university spokesperson said. He majored in computer science with a minor in math.
According to a digitalized commencement program, Penn held its graduation for the Class of 2020 on May 22, 2022.
Mangione was a teaching assistant at Penn and founded the University of Pennsylvania Game Research and Development Environment, a video game development club. In 2018, Penn Today, the university's official news website, featured Mangione in an article on UPGRADE. The article has since been removed.
An address for Mangione at the time he was attending Penn comes back to Lauder College House, a dorm on campus.
Mangione was also a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity member.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mangione worked as a data engineer at TrueCar, a website for car buyers, since graduation. A video he posted on Instagram showed he lived in Oahu, Hawaii, at Surfbreak Coliving in 2023.
