Murder Charge Filed In CEO's Shooting Death: Latest Updates

ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) — A suspect believed by authorities to be behind the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare's CEO last week in New York City has been charged with his murder after being found at a Pennsylvania McDonald's Monday.

Luigi Nicholas Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family, was arrested Monday in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who headed one of the United States' largest medical insurance companies.

He remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. By late evening, prosecutors in Manhattan had added a charge of murder, according to an online court docket. He is expected to be extradited to New York eventually.

It's unclear whether Mangione has an attorney who can comment on the allegations. Asked at Monday's arraignment whether he needed a public defender, Mangione asked whether he could "answer that at a future date."

Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after the McDonald's customer recognized him and notified an employee, authorities said. Police in Altoona, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of New York City, were soon summoned.

They arrived to find Mangione sitting at a table in the back of the restaurant, wearing a blue medical mask and looking at a laptop, according to a Pennsylvania police criminal complaint.
He initially gave them a fake ID, but when an officer asked Mangione whether he'd been to New York recently, he "became quiet and started to shake," the complaint says.

When he pulled his mask down at officers' request, "we knew that was our guy," rookie Officer Tyler Frye said at a news conference in Hollidaysburg.

New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a Manhattan news conference that Mangione was carrying a gun like the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the shooter had used to check into a New York hostel, along with a passport and other fraudulent IDs.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione also had a three-page, handwritten document that shows "some ill will toward corporate America."

A law enforcement official who wasn't authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said the document included a line in which Mangione claimed to have acted alone.

"To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone," the document said, according to the official.

It also had a line that said, "I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming."

Pennsylvania prosecutor Peter Weeks said in court that Mangione was found with a passport and $10,000 in cash, $2,000 of it in foreign currency. Mangione disputed the amount.

Thompson, 50, was killed Wednesday as he walked alone to a midtown Manhattan hotel for an investor conference. Police quickly came to see the shooting as a targeted attack by a gunman who appeared to wait for Thompson, came up behind him and fired a 9 mm pistol.

Investigators have said "delay," "deny" and "depose" were written on ammunition found near the body of Thompson, the leader of the largest subsidiary of the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group. The words mimic "delay, deny, defend," a phrase used to criticize the insurance industry.