Police say gun, fingerprints link accused shooter Luigi Mangione with CEO killing
The investigation into the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson gained steam Wednesday as law enforcement officials said a gun found in the possession of shooting suspect Luigi Mangione and fingerprints from near the scene of the crime closely link him to the attack.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said investigators matched the gun Mangione had in his backpack when arrested Monday in Pennsylvania to three shell casings discovered where Thompson was shot in midtown Manhattan.
At a public safety news conference Wednesday, Tisch also said fingerprints matching those of Mangione were found on a water bottle and an energy bar wrapper close to last Wednesday morning’s assault. Police have said the gunman stopped at a Starbucks before the attack and used cash to buy a bottle of water and protein bars.
Those items were recovered and analyzed for forensic evidence, officials said.
The breaks in the case come after Mangione’s lawyer, Thomas Dickey, said his client intends to oppose extradition to New York and plead not guilty to all the charges, including a count of second-degree murder filed by prosecutors in Manhattan.
“We’re going to fight this along the rules and with the constitutional protections that my client has,” Thomas told reporters, later adding: “I haven’t seen any evidence that says that he’s the shooter.”
In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg expressed confidence Mangione would be extradited and left the door open for more charges.
“We will get the defendant here and bring him to justice through our court proceeding,” Bragg told the network, adding: “As we learn more about motives and other things like that … there may be additional charges.”
Notebook describes plans for the killing and rationale, reports say
Police discovered a spiral notebook they say belongs to Mangione with detailed plans for the killing of Thompson as well as the rationale for the attack, multiple outlets reported, citing police sources.
The notebook, which was first reported by CNN and confirmed to the New York Times and New York Post, includes a passage in which the author concluded that a bomb “could kill innocents” and instead decided on launching an attack “at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention.”
