Luigi Mangione, The 26-year-old suspect Accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a sidewalk in midtown Manhattan, he allegedly took several sophisticated steps to thwart detection. Thompson was killed in a heavily guarded urban setting, but his assailant wore a mask and hood and used a gun fitted with a silencer to drown out the noise of the gunshots. When Mangione was arrested a few days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, officers say he showed them a fake ID. And his backpack contained a functional gun made from 3D-printed parts – a so-called phantom gun.
Investigators also said Mangione was carrying a handwritten note explaining his motivation. In that document Mangion calls his plan “pretty trivial,” requiring “basic social engineering” plus “basic CAD” (computer-aided design) and “a lot of patience.” CAD can be used to print 3D gun parts, and it can also help make an incredible amount other objects. New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters Wednesday that the gun in Mangione’s possession came from a three-bullet casing recovered at the crime scene. Officials have not said publicly whether they believe Mangion built the gun.
The suspect faces forgery and weapons charges in Pennsylvania after being denied bail, and has been charged with second-degree murder in New York state. The latter hopes to be extradited, a move he is challenging. Thomas Dickey, an Altoona attorney representing Mangione, say Good morning America this week, “I have not seen any evidence that links the gun found on him to the crime. These are the things we want to see.” (Dickey didn’t answer right away American scientificrequest for comment.)
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As elaborate as Mangione’s alleged escape measures seem, if investigators are correct, they ultimately failed. Here’s a summary of the techniques researchers say Mangion used, and a summary of how he allegedly overcame them.
Between Escape Care
New York City is dense with cameras, more than that 25,500 public and private some guard traffic intersections, according to Amnesty International’s estimates. Mangione was reportedly filmed in multiple locations: the hostel he was staying at, a cafe, on the sidewalk at the time of the murder, fleeing the scene on an e-bike, and in a taxi.
Despite all of these images — some of which revealed most of his face — it’s likely that the algorithms quickly identified Mangione from the camera footage. Hollywood’s portrayal of Jason Bourne-style, real-time biometric surveillance and tracking is “a misguided view of what’s really possible,” says expert Anil Jain. Facial Recognition at Michigan State University. Without a criminal record, Mangione was unlikely to be in the forensic databases against which the images would be compared. Social media companies have cooperated with law enforcement to track people by linking surveillance footage to photos posted on their platforms, but legalizing those permissions takes time, Jain added.
Combined with a low-resolution image of the suspect’s face and a $50,000 reward offered by the FBI, it appears that what solved this case was “an old-fashioned phone tip,” says Jain, referring to a McDonald’s employee. Authorities in Altoona were notified of Mangione. “You cannot surrender to the human mind.”
It’s unclear if Mangione was following a plan after leaving New York City. “Being on the run is a bummer,” says journalist Evan Ratliff, disappear for a month—in 2009 with a $5,000 “reward” offered to the first person to discover it as an experiment. Wired. “Eventually they catch you, if you go from one place to another and you have no idea where you’re going to end up.”
Ratliff says that before he went on the run, private investigators told him that being a successful fugitive requires perfection. “The mistakes you can make are endless,” he says. After 25 days, Ratliff, who has celiac disease, was tracked down to a restaurant in New Orleans that sold gluten-free pizza. (Ratliff says what interests him is the tension between a committed searcher and a person who doesn’t want to be found. “I don’t condone someone planning and carrying out this type of crime,” he added, referring to the murder. UnitedHealthcare CEO.)
What is a Ghost Gun?
What was said to be an unserialized ghost gun may be the most important US murder to date. Such weapons, however, are not rare. In 2021, US law enforcement reported 20,000 ghost guns to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). That’s the climb A factor of 10 since 2016.
Ghost firearms are made from metal and plastic parts that can be machined or printed at home using legally available equipment. A criminal complaint filed in Pennsylvania describes the weapon in Mangione’s possession as a 3D-printed black handgun loaded with nine-millimeter rounds in a Glock magazine with a plastic grip and slide and a threaded metal barrel. The complaint states that Mangion was also wearing a 3D printed silencer.
“Ghost guns come with no serial numbers and often no other identifying marks, especially if they are truly homemade,” he says. We are Wintermutean emergency department physician who directs the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis. “They have no history and are elusive; that’s where the name comes from.”
It’s unusual to produce such guns from scratch through 3D printing, Wintemute said. For the most part, Glock-style pistols, he said, are assembled from kits that “provide a nearly finished frame,” as well as “the finish and the remaining parts to produce a functional firearm.” Completing a gun can take a few minutes.
Although Mangione has a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania, producing ghost guns doesn’t require technical sophistication. “That’s the concern,” says Wintemut: The instructions are available to anyone with an Internet connection.
In 2022 the Biden administration cracked down on ghost guns. ATF clarified that the kit, for regulatory purposes, counts as a firearm, so the agency required manufacturers to serialize their ghost gun kits. That rule has since entered legal limbo: it was struck down by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in November 2023. Now it’s with the Supreme Court, where it can be, given the justices’ reaction to oral arguments in October.
Cash, a Faraday bag and a fake ID
Mangion allegedly used a fake ID when he was in New York in late November and early December. Investigators also say he was carrying thousands of dollars in cash when he was arrested, possibly because cash transactions are more difficult than electronic payments. He you might even have a bag A term for an enclosure (or even a small room) that uses a mesh of conductive material with the properties of a Faraday cage to protect enclosed objects, such as a smartphone, from sending or receiving electromagnetic signals. Whether this was intended to be concealed is unclear. Mangion, for his part, told a judge it was just a bag waterproof.
According to court documents, his New Jersey driver’s license (under a fake name, “Mark Rosario”) was found to be a fake after officers approached Mangion at the fast-food restaurant. When an Altoona police officer asked Mangione why he lied about his name, according to the criminal complaint, Mangione replied, “I obviously shouldn’t have.”
Additional reporting by Lee Billings
