A interested party is questioned in connection with the murder from the CEO of UnitedHealthcare Brian Thompson in New York City graduated last week from the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school, in Philadelphia, a Penn spokesperson confirmed to CBS News Philadelphia.
Authorities in New York City have the person of interest Monday as a 26-year-old Luigi Mangione.
Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on illegal weapons charges, New York police said at a news conference.
“This is a strong person who has a lot of interest,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said. “It matches the description of the identification we were looking for. He is also in possession of several items that we believe link him to this incident.”
According to the NYPD, a tipster contacted police after seeing a man at the McDonald’s who resembled the person of interest in the photos released in the case.
Mangione had in his possession a silenced pistol matching the description of the weapon used to kill Thompson and a fake New Jersey driver’s license, police said.
NYPD Detective Chief Joseph Kenny said the gun found on Mangione may have been a 3D-printed ghost gun.
Thompson was fatally shot outside the Hilton Midtown hotel on December 4. That’s what the NYPD said person of interest had used a fake New Jersey ID check into a hostel in the Upper West site of Manattan.
Luigi Mangione’s ties to Philadelphia
Mangione is from Towson, Maryland, and graduated from Gilman Schoola private all-boys high school in Baltimore, as valedictorian in 2016.
Mangione graduated from Penn in 2020 with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, a university spokesperson said. He studied computer science with a minor in mathematics.
Penn graduated its Class of 2020 on May 22, 2022, according to a digitized commencement program.
Mangione was a teaching assistant at Penn and founded the University of Pennsylvania Game Research and Development Environment, a video game development club. In 2018, Penn Today, the university’s official news website, featured Mangione in an article about UPGRADE. The article has now been removed.
Mangione was also a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mangione has worked as a data engineer at TrueCar, a website for car buyers, since graduating. A video he posted to Instagram showed him living in Oahu, Hawaii, at Surfbreak Coliving in 2023.
