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One year after the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan, his alleged shooter, Luigi Mangione, faces charges of first and second degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon, stalking, forgery, and others.
Mangione has become a folk hero to many online, amid debates over wealth inequality, healthcare affordability, and even content moderation. His hearings have drawn hundreds of supporters to camp outside courthouses, including some who have sent Mangione letters and gifts. Videos of him coming and going from court appearances regularly garner millions of views, and he has even become the inspiration for fan fictions and Etsy listings.
The Department of Justice is now seeking the death penalty against Mangione, which his lawyers are attempting to get dismissed.
Read on below for all of the latest news and updates about Luigi Mangione.
Witness says Luigi Mangione discussed the public perception of the shooting.
A Department of Corrections officer at the Pennsylvania prison where Mangione was held after his arrest told the court that he and Mangione discussed how traditional media and social media was reacting to the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The corrections officer told Mangione that from his perspective, mainstream media focused on the crime, whereas social media users discussed the wrongdoings of the healthcare industry.
Luigi Mangione has entered the courtroom.
We’re more than an hour and a half behind the scheduled start time for the hearing in New York. Mangione was allowed to wear street clothes today, which elicited wall-to-wall news coverage last month. He’s wearing a gray suit and light dress shirt.
I’m here in person for the Luigi Mangione hearings.
Hearings this week will focus on whether key evidence is admissible in the New York State case against Mangione, who’s accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. At each hearing, trucks have circled the courthouse with information about the case and stories of patients who have struggled to get healthcare claims approved.
Can Luigi Mangione get too big to jail?
Photo: Timothy A. Clary / AFP via Getty Images
The first people in line on Tuesday, I was told, started camping out on the sidewalk two days ago. Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024, was due in court at 9AM ET for a hearing in one of three concurrent criminal cases against him. And this time everyone was prepared for the mayhem: the signs, the fans, the livestreamers, the protests, the media circus. That’s why the line started even earlier than last time — the people who really wanted to get in to see him knew that no time was too early.
Mangione is both ubiquitous and fleeting. The last time the public saw him (aside from a bizarre, unauthorized appearance in a men’s shirt listing on Shein) was in February at this same courthouse in Manhattan, when hundreds of members of the general public and media convened for a routine pretrial hearing. He exists in memes, in passing references, and in content moderation decisions, and he lives rent-free in the mind of Donald Trump — yet most people are likely not thinking or talking about Mangione day to day. They are reminded of him when new photos drop or when there are incremental updates in the cases against him. But the wall-to-wall coverage of the case has waned, and it’s the people who are the most tapped in that are working to keep interest in the case alive. Mangione and the larger discussions around healthcare reform are one item in a list of approximately 8,000 pressing topics swirling in the US. How do you keep attention and energy alive in an information ecosystem defined by its fragmentation?
Judge dismisses terrorism charges in Luigi Mangione case.
Mangione was facing with two terrorism-related charges in the New York State case. It will likely be seen as a big win for Mangione. In his ruling Judge Carro wrote:
While the defendant was clearly expressing an animus toward UHC, and the health care industry generally, it does not follow that his goal was to “intimidate and coerce a civilian population,” and indeed, there was no evidence presented of such a goal.
I’m here in court at the Luigi Mangione hearing.
This is the first time Mangione is appearing in court since February’s chaotic hearing that became a public spectacle. We’re expecting more news to come of this hearing — the judge may even set a trial date.
DOJ to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione.
Luigi Mangione’s X account has been taken offline.
It’s not immediately clear whether the platform or someone with control (like his defense team) removed the account. Mangione, who is accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December, has amassed something of a following since his arrest. At a routine court hearing in February, hundreds of people tried to get a seat in the courtroom.
The long wait for a glimpse of Luigi
Illustration: Molly Crabapple for The Verge
There are so many people here that nobody can tell where the end of the line is. New people arrive, ask if there’s a line, shuffle into a blob of bodies idling and waiting for someone to give them instructions. The hallway is horribly warm — unclear if it’s from the bodies or the heat — and it’s a little smelly, which could just be me but I don’t think it is. I estimate between 100 and 150 people are hanging around, waiting for 2:15PM to roll around, their anticipation building. This is not a club with a strict bouncer, though it feels like it. This is the Luigi Mangione hearing.
The hearing is a relatively minor pre-trial status update, but for the people most tapped in, there is a lot riding on it — the Luigi info-drip has been a bit dry lately. Court dates for the 26 year old accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December keep getting pushed back. Mangione, who is currently being held in federal custody in a Brooklyn jail, has not made a public appearance since before Christmas. (Mangione is accused of gunning down Thompson in December outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel, and has pleaded not guilty.) On TikTok, commenters regularly complain that they haven’t seen Luigi on their For You page in months. When Mangione’s legal team launched a new website with updates on the case, a flood of donations came pouring into his legal fund — more than half a million dollars as of this writing.
A mod gave me Reddit’s notice regarding posts with Luigi Mangione’s manifesto.
Peak Design denies snitching on Luigi Mangione
When the first grainy images of the UnitedHealthcare shooting suspect emerged, some viewers noticed a seemingly small detail: he looked like he was wearing a Peak Design Everyday V1 backpack. Now, on platforms like Threads and TikTok, a recurring accusation has circulated: Peak Design “traced” the bag owner using the backpack’s serial number.
However, the company says that’s just not true, in a statement shared with The Verge Friday afternoon. “Peak Design has not provided customer information to the police and would only do so under the order of a subpoena,” the statement signed by CEO Peter Dering reads.
Apple’s AI summary mangled a BBC headline about Luigi Mangione
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The UnitedHealthcare shooter got exactly what he wanted
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Luigi Mangione has been inescapable, hasn’t he? His face is all over my social media feeds. Outlet after outlet — some mainstream, some otherwise — have published stories about the video games he liked, his Reddit comments, his Goodreads page, his political ideology, his back pain. Mangione is not merely an accused murderer; he is a celebrity.
There was a time, fairly recently, when it was felt that the best practice in a high-profile shooting was to avoid publicizing the accused killer’s identity and detailing the method by which it was accomplished. The idea, as articulated by Zeynep Tufekci in 2012, was that highly publicized killings functioned as a kind of social contagion; murder as a kind of advertisement for the shooter’s manifesto. Social media platforms generally scrubbed the profiles of people accused of high-profile killings; as recently as 2020, Facebook suppressed searches for “Kyle Rittenhouse,” after he was charged with murder.
Reddit bans posting UnitedHealthcare shooter’s manifesto
Image: The Verge
Moderators of multiple Reddit communities say the company has banned posts that include the alleged manifesto of Luigi Mangione, who has been charged for murder in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
In a post on Wednesday, a moderator of r/popculturechat wrote (emphasis theirs):
Software developer arrested in connection with UnitedHealthcare CEO killing
Police have arrested Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old software developer, in connection with the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione, of Maryland, was detained at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania on Monday morning.
Mangione was taken into custody on local firearm charges, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters. He has not been charged in connection with the shooting but is “believed to be our person of interest,” Tisch said.
Suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting reportedly didn’t use a Citi Bike to escape
CNN is reporting that according to an unnamed source in law enforcement, the person who shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan fled on an e-bike, but not a Citi Bike, as NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenney previously said during a press conference.
Thompson had been scheduled to appear at the company’s investor meeting, which was canceled a few hours later. Kenney said it looked like the killer “specifically targeted” Thompson and that “at this point, we do not know why.” The CEO’s wife, Paulette Thompson, told NBC News that “there had been some threats.”
