‘Extraordinarily ironic’: Suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO slaying performed online game killer, good friend remembers
Luigi Mangione, who was arrested and charged with homicide within the taking pictures demise of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, as soon as belonged to a bunch of Ivy League players who performed assassins, a member of the group informed NBC Information.
Within the recreation, known as “Amongst Us,” some gamers are secretly assigned to be killers in area who carry out different duties whereas making an attempt to keep away from suspicion from different gamers.
Alejandro Romero, who attended the College of Pennsylvania with Mangione and was a member of the identical Discord group, stated he was shocked when information broke on social media that Mangione had been taken into police custody.
“I simply discovered it extraordinarily ironic that, you understand, we had been on this recreation and there might really be a real killer amongst us,” he stated.
“As quickly as his photograph and title popped up on X, my good friend texted me asking if I knew him, after which both I used to be calling some 10 mates or they had been calling me,” Romero added. “I did not converse to anyone at present who wasn’t already conscious of what had occurred.”
Mangione, 26, was arrested Monday morning in a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after an worker noticed him.
Police discovered a firearm, believed to have been 3D-printed, and a handwritten doc on Mangione “that speaks to each his motivation and mindset,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch stated at a information convention. He was additionally carrying pretend identification and a passport, authorities stated.
In New York, Mangione was charged with homicide, possession of a loaded firearm, possession of a solid instrument and legal possession of a weapon, based on courtroom paperwork.
Authorities in Pennsylvania charged Mangione with carrying firearms with out a license, forgery, tampering with information or identification, possessing devices of crime and offering false identification to police.
In an announcement on X on Monday evening, a member of the Mangione household stated they’re “shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest.”
“We provide our prayers to the household of Brian Thompson and we ask individuals to wish for all concerned,” wrote Nino Mangione, a Republican member of the Maryland Home of Delegates.
Romero, who stated he has not spoken to or seen Mangione since 2020, described him as a typical school scholar who didn’t stand out to him.
“He simply match a mould,” Romero stated. “He simply appeared like some other regular frat dude that you can see at a frat occasion.”
His remaining yr in school was reduce brief when the pandemic hit. College students had been pressured off campus of their final semester and didn’t return for graduation.
The Discord group was one option to keep linked, Romero stated, however members started to go their separate methods as they obtained full-time jobs or launched into lengthy journeys.
Throughout a few of these years, Mangione left behind a digital footprint that included reviewing “Industrial Society and Its Future,” often known as the “Unabomber Manifesto” by Ted Kaczynski, on Goodreads, a platform for e book opinions and suggestions. It served because the ideological reasoning for Kaczynski’s yearslong mail bomb marketing campaign that killed three individuals and injured 23 others.
Mangione grew to become considerably extra lively on X in 2021 after 5 years not posting or reposting content material, based on a assessment of his account.
Requested concerning the change in Mangione’s on-line persona, Romero stated that query is circulating amongst his good friend group.
“I really feel like individuals are uncertain the right way to label him,” he stated. “I am personally struggling to grasp how this all matches.”
