Luigi Mangione, CEO shooting suspect

A profile is emerging of the 26-year-old man charged with murder over last week’s fatal shooting of United Healthcare’s chief executive, Brian Thompson, in New York City.

Police announced on Monday they had arrested Luigi Mangione on firearms charges after he was recognised at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

The Baltimore, Maryland, native was found in possession of a so-called ghost gun, a largely untraceable firearm, and a three-page handwritten document that indicated “motivation and mindset”, officials said.

Just hours after his arrest, Mr Mangione was charged by New York investigators with murder and four other counts.

Mr Mangione was born and raised in Maryland and has ties to San Francisco, California, according to New York Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.

He has no prior arrests in New York and his last previous address was in Honolulu, Hawaii, police said.

He attended a private, all-boys high school in Baltimore, called the Gilman School, according to school officials. Mr Mangione was named as the valedictorian, which is usually the student with the highest academic achievements in a class.

In a statement, the school called the situation “deeply distressing”.

A former classmate, Freddie Leatherbury, told the Associated Press news agency that Mr Mangione came from a wealthy family, even by that private school’s standards.

“Quite honestly, he had everything going for him,” Mr Leatherbury said.

Mr Mangione comes from a prominent family in the Baltimore area whose businesses include a country club and nursing homes, according to local media.

Shortly after the suspect was charged, Republican state lawmaker Nino Mangione – believed to be his cousin – released a statement saying the family is “shocked and devastated”.

“We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved”, the statement read, signing off as “The Mangione Family”.

Mr Mangione is also a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science, according to the school, and founded a video game development club.

A friend who attended the Ivy League college at the same time as Mr Mangione described him as a “super normal” and “smart person”.

Mr Mangione was employed as a data engineer for TrueCar, a digital retailing website for new and used cars, according to his social media profiles. A company spokesman told the BBC he had not worked there since 2023.

According to the LinkedIn profile, Mr Mangione previously worked as a programming intern for Firaxis, a video game developer.

Mr Mangione was taken into custody at a McDonald’s after a customer informed an employee, who tipped off authorities.

At the time, he was in possession of a black ghost gun – the kind that could be assembled at home using a 3D printer – a silencer and a loaded magazine with six rounds of 9mm ammunition.

Police said he was carrying several IDs, including one with his real identity and another that was fake.

These IDs included a US passport and a fraudulent New Jersey ID that was used to check into the New York City hostel, where the suspect was seen before the shooting.

When he was told he would be arrested if he had lied about his name, he admitted he was Luigi Mangione.

Asked why he lied, he told officers “I clearly shouldn’t have”, according to court papers.

He “became quiet and started to shake” when asked if he had recently been to New York, according to the criminal complaint filed in Pennsylvania.

Police say he was also found with three pages of handwritten documents in which he seemed to express “ill will towards corporate America”.

The document also said “these parasites had it coming” and “I do apologise for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done”, a senior law enforcement official told the New York Times.

Police said although his arrest was “peaceful”, he has since stopped being cooperative.

Social media profiles provide some possible clues about Mr Mangione’s thinking.

A person matching his name and photo had an account on Goodreads, a user-generated book review site, where he gave four stars to a text called Industrial Society and Its Future by Theodore Kaczynski – also known as the Unabomber manifesto.

Starting in 1978, Kaczynski carried out a bombing campaign that killed three people and injured dozens of others, until he was arrested in 1996.

In his review, Mr Mangione wrote: “It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless[ly] write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic.

“He was a violent individual – rightfully imprisoned – who maimed innocent people.

“While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary.”

His social media profiles also suggest that he had fallen out of touch with family and friends in recent months.

In a post on X from October, someone tagged an account believed to be Mr Mangione’s and wrote:

“Hey, are you ok? Nobody has heard from you in months, and apparently your family is looking for you.”