Ivy League grad held in connection with shooting death of healthcare CEO

A Towson, Md., man with a master’s degree from an Ivy League school, and obvious issues with the healthcare industry, is in custody in connection with the shooting death of a health-insurance company CEO.

Luigi Mangione, 26, was arrested on Monday in Altoona, Pa., after an employee at a McDonald’s there called 911 and tipped off police to his location.

Mangione, a 2020 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, “a strong person of interest” in the Dec. 4 murder of UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson, is being held on gun charges.

He was reportedly carrying a 9mm handgun and suppressor “consistent with the weapon used in the murder,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

Thompson was gunned down in midtown Manhattan on his way to an investor conference.

Police had said it appeared that the shooter had left New York City on a bus after the shooting five days ago.

He had only gotten as far as Altoona, Pa., 279 miles away from the scene of the shooting, over the past five days.

According to police, he was on a bus that stopped at a McDonald’s on Monday morning for breakfast.

An employee recognized him from photos circulated in the news media and called police.

In addition to the gun and suppressor, Mangione also had with him a three-page handwritten document “that speaks to his motivation and mindset,” Tisch said.

“It does seem that he had some ill will toward corporate America,” Tisch said.

CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller reported additional details about the document, saying sources told him that it described Mangione as “railing against the healthcare industry, which of course fits into the scenario here.”

“He talks about how these parasites had it coming,” Miller said. “He starts off basically saying ‘I don’t want to cause any trauma, but it had to be done.’”

Mangione was the valedictorian of his 2016 graduating class at Gilman School, an all-boys high school in Baltimore, and during his freshman year at Penn, founded a video game development club that grew over time to include more than 50 members, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2018, Mangione was inducted into Penn’s Eta Kappa Nu honor society for excellence in electrical and computer engineering, according to the school paper.

A spokesperson for the University of Pennsylvania confirmed that Mangione graduated in 2020 with a bachelor’s and master’s in computer science.