Luigi Mangione
Who is Luigi Mangione accused of killing?
What was found on Luigi Mangione at the time of his arrest?
What is Luigi Mangione’s family background?
What charges is Luigi Mangione facing, and what is the potential penalty?
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Luigi Mangione (born May 6, 1998, Towson, Maryland, U.S.) is the confessed killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was gunned down in New York City on December 4, 2024. A note found on Mangione at the time of his arrest said, “It had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.” The juxtaposition of Mangione’s youth, good looks, and privileged upbringing with what is seen by some as an act of protest against corporate greed made him a cause célèbre. Rolling Stone described him as the “most debated and polarizing murder suspect in recent history.”
In August 2026, Mangione plead guilty to two federal charges of stalking leading to death. He will be sentenced in December and faces a maximum sentence of life without parole.
Early life
Mangione was born in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, to a wealthy and powerful family in the city’s Italian American community. He is the youngest of Louis and Kathleen Mangione’s three children. His grandfather Nicholas Mangione, the son of poor Italian immigrants, built a business empire that includes country clubs, an assisted living company, and a conservative radio station. The family became known for their philanthropy, including donations to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, which bears a plaque in their honor. After Nicholas Mangione’s death in 2008, Louis Mangione continued to run the family businesses.
Luigi Mangione attended the Gilman School, a prestigious prep school in Baltimore, where he wrestled and played other sports. Fellow students described him as smart and well-liked with an interest in computer science. He was “a pretty big math guy,” one told The New York Times. As an adult Mangione recalled an experience in which he and some friends drew sketches of their dream homes. He sketched a box with four identical rooms.“They thought I was weird,” he wrote on Reddit. “I thought their mansions were full of lots of b******t. I suppose I’ve always been hyper-obsessed with efficiency, and I’ve never been very materialistic.”
Mangione was the valedictorian of his 2016 graduation class and went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science at the University of Pennsylvania. As a freshman, he founded a video game development club, which grew to include more than 50 members. In 2017 he told the campus newspaper that the club was trying to move away from the Ivy League university’s competitive culture by letting anyone join the club. “Our goal is to have fun and learn,” he said. He also worked as a counselor at a Stanford University camp for gifted high-school students.
Life after college
After college Mangione moved to Hawaii, where he lived at a coliving space called Surfbreak and worked remotely for TrueCar, an online car-buying platform, as a data engineer. Rolling Stone reported that “he spent his free time hiking, stargazing, and reading.” He injured his lower back while surfing, and the injury grew more severe over time.
While in Hawaii, he started a book club with friends from Surfbreak. They read the 35,000-word manifesto of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, who conducted a 17-year bombing campaign that killed 3 and wounded 23 in an attempt to bring about what he called “a revolution against the industrial system.”
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In the review that Mangione later wrote on Goodreads, he said Kaczynski’s prison sentence was appropriate, given that he had “maimed innocent people,” but also pointed out that Kaczynski had been acting as a political revolutionary. “It’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.” He also quoted a description of Kaczynski he had seen online that noted Kaczynski “had the balls to recognize that peaceful protest has gotten us absolutely nowhere and at the end of the day, he’s probably right.”
In July 2023 Mangione returned to the East Coast and underwent back surgery, which, according to his social media posts, seemed to be successful. In early 2024 he went on a backpacking trip around Asia. In July of that year he stopped posting on social media, and throughout that summer and fall his family and friends did not know where he was. In November his mother filed a missing person report.
Manhunt
In the early hours of December 4, 2024, Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was killed outside of a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan while on his way to make a corporate presentation. The killer—wearing a black, hooded windbreaker and a mask—shot Thompson three times, in the back and leg, and then rode an e-bike to Central Park. Left at the scene were bullet casings with the words “deny,” “delay,” and “depose” on them, an apparent reference to an insurance industry tactic for not paying claims.
“Deny,” “delay,” and “depose” were found on the ammunition at the scene of Brian Thompson’s killing.
Five days later Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in central Pennsylvania and charged with the killing. Investigators said he was carrying a partially 3D-printed gun and bullets, along with a note to the FBI. “To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone,” it read. “This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD [computer-aided design], a lot of patience.” He was sent to Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center to await trial.
In the wake of the shooting and manhunt, Mangione developed a massive Internet following. To some, sympathetic to his protests against corporate greed, he is seen as a folk hero. In some corners of the Internet, he became known as “Saint Luigi, Patron Saint of Healthcare Access for All,” complete with religious merchandise. Mangione was not insured by UnitedHealthcare, the largest medical insurer in the United States, but his writings expressed disdain for the health care industry. At one of his court hearings in February, supporters held a “Free Luigi” rally, and roughly 100 women crammed into a hallway at the courthouse, cheering when his attorneys came in. A website soliciting donations for his legal defense had raised more than $900,000 by mid-April 2025.
However, a poll taken a week after the killing showed that perceptions of Mangione were largely split along generational lines. Altogether, 61 percent of the 455 respondents had a negative perception of him, and 18 percent had a positive perception. But 77 percent of respondents older than 45 had negative views, and 41 percent of those younger than 45 felt this way.
Mangione has been charged with murder in state and federal courts. On April 1, 2025, then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that prosecutors in his case would seek the death penalty. On April 25, Magione pleaded “not guilty” to the federal charges.
In January 2026, a federal judge ruled that Mangione would not face the death penalty, dismissing the federal murder charge against Mangione. The judge said that the prosecution had not met the threshold of proving that the death of Thompson occurred as part of a “series of violent crimes,” which is necessary to meet the federal definition of murder.
Mangione still faces federal stalking charges, which carry the possibility of a life sentence without parole, if he is convicted. Jury selection in the federal trial is set to start October 13, 2026.
In September 2025, a New York state judge dealt a blow to the prosecution’s case throwing out the charges of terrorism and first-degree murder in New York, saying the evidence to justify those charges was “legally insufficient.” Mangione is still charged with second-degree murder in New York, a number of federal charges, and state charges in Pennsylvania, where he was apprehended.
In June 2026, Mangione’s attorneys disclosed that they intended to argue that Mangione was experiencing “extreme emotional disturbance” at the time of the shooting. The disclosure is significant in that it reflects the first time Mangione has acknowledged shooting Thompson. But a day later, the defense withdrew their plans to use the emotional disturbance defense. Under New York State law if attorneys can prove that emotional distress led to a “profound loss of self-control,” the most serious crime a defendant can be convicted of is manslaughter.
New York district attorney Alvin Bragg has called for Mangione to stand trial on state charges before facing the federal court. His state trial is set to begin on September 8, 2026.
In Manhattan federal court on August 14, Mangione pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges, saying, “I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died. I knew what I was doing was illegal.” He is scheduled to be sentenced on December 18, 2026. His lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the New York State charges on double-jeopardy grounds.