UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty said the company remains in a “state of mourning” over the shocking death of Brian Thompson, but that it owes it to him to “make health care work better for everybody, in every way.”
In a memo to employees, Witty described Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, a UnitedHealth insurance subsidiary, “as one of the smartest guys” and “one of the best guys.”
He vowed that the company would make good on its promise to continue offering quality healthcare to its members.
“No matter what’s happening, we’re going to be there for the moms and dads who brought one of their kids to a clinic this morning," said Witty. "We’re going to be there for the sickest and the most vulnerable among us, whose homes our nurses and case workers are visiting today.”
“We’re going to make sure medicines are filled, infusions are administered and people can navigate their therapies for the rarest states of disease,” he added. “The same people who were counting on us last week are counting on us today — none of that’s changed. Our patients, our customers, partners and clients need us to be at our very best. And then again tomorrow. The day after next. Next week. Next month. Next year.”
Witty noted that while the past few days “have been dark, our patients, members, customers are sending us light.”
A bag of bullets discovered by a person walking dogs in Central Park is not connected to the brutal slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the New York Police Department clarified to Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
"The bag discovered in Central Park bag is weathered, it does contain ammunition of different calibers, but there are no distinctive writings on the shell casings. It is not connected to the Midtown homicide," DCPI said.
It was previously reported that the bag contained bullets with messages written on them that matched the bullets that were found at the scene of Thompson's murder.
Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League grad, is accused of gunning down the insurance CEO in cold blood. He is currently jailed in Pennsylvania.
Ominous "wanted" posters of CEOs have surfaced in New York City in recent days.
A TikToker first exposed the posters naming executives in the health care industry.
They contained the statements "Denying medical care for corporate profit" and "Healthcare CEOs should not feel safe" in all capital letters along with pictures.
The posters started showing up after 51-year-old UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot last week, according to the New York Sun and Newsweek.
Thompson was killed Dec. 4 when a man, whom police have since identified as Luigi Mangione, shot the UnitedHealthcare CEO outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
"We are aware of the posters and are investigating these incidents," a spokesperson for the NYPD's Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Information told FOX Business.
FOX Business' Aislinn Murphy contributed to this post.
{{#rendered}}Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in interviews this week that the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was wrong but also served as a "warning" of sorts that "you can only push people so far."
"We'll say it over and over," Warren said on MSNBC. "Violence is never the answer. This guy [Luigi Mangione] gets a trial who's allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth[care], but you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands."
Mangione was arrested Monday after a manhunt and charged with Thompson's murder, which was committed outside a hotel in Manhattan last week. Mangione has become a folk hero to some far-left figures who feel Thompson's death is comeuppance for health insurance providers like UnitedHealthcare that deny coverage or charge exorbitant premiums.
Warren made similar remarks about the killing in an interview with progressive outlet HuffPost.
"The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health care system," Warren said.
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," she added. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
Fox News Digital's David Rutz contributed to this post.
New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday that a gun recovered following Luigi Mangione’s arrest in Pennsylvania matches three shell casings found at the scene where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot.
“First, we got the gun in question back from Pennsylvania. It's now at the NYPD crime lab. We were able to match that gun to the three shell casings that we found in Midtown at the scene of the homicide,” she told reporters Wednesday.
“We were also able at our crime lab to match the person of interest’s fingerprints with fingerprints that we found on both the water bottle and the KIND bar near the scene of the homicide in midtown,” she added.
Local and state investigators have gone to “every hotel and or motel in town” in Altoona looking for possible surveillance video of UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione, police sources told Fox News.
Mangione was caught in the Pennsylvania city east of Pittsburgh on Monday and investigators are asking lodging staff there to run the name Mark Rosario in their systems.
Rosario is an alias that police say Mangione was using and is allegedly the same name printed on one of the fake IDs found in his possession during his arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona earlier this week.
{{#rendered}}Major fundraising site GoFundMe and ecommerce retailer Etsy are cracking down on support of Luigi Mangione, the suspect arrested in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
But tens of thousands have been raised in the alleged killer's defense, elsewhere.
Following Mangione's high-profile arrest earlier this week and being charged with the health insurance executive's slaying, fundraising campaigns and merchandise celebrating the accused killer as a hero began cropping up online.
GoFundMe says it has removed all fundraisers dedicated to Mangione on its site, telling FOX Business in a statement, "GoFundMe’s Terms of Service prohibit fundraisers for the legal defense of violent crimes. The fundraisers have been removed from our platform and all donors have been refunded."
TMZ reported Tuesday that within hours of Mangione being identified, merchandise celebrating the suspect flooded Etsy, including shirts, cups and even Christmas ornaments.
Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, told NY1 that UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione tried to cover his tracks following the killing in New York City, but the department’s detectives were “more meticulous.”
“Those cameras make it quite difficult for people to cover their tracks. He tried, he was thoughtful, this was meticulously planned, but our detectives are more meticulous and of course we have the very sharp eyes of the men and women in the detective bureau who are finding all those stills... and of this heroic McDonald’s employee with her own really sharp eyes who put this together with us,” Weiner said Wednesday, referencing the numerous images of Mangione that law enforcement released to the public.
“I think everybody assumes that this is all automatic in this age of AI and cutting-edge tech – and there is a lot of tech out there – but, really, this is hard work by human beings who are doing those canvasses,” she continued.
“Ultimately, you have to put together, with human beings and their acumen, all of these movements -- aided, of course, by this technology, but the technology piece never can stand alone,” Weiner added.
UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione is being held under maximum security at the State Correctional Institute in Huntingdon, a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Mangione has been placed in a single cell, the department adds.
He was denied bail during a court appearance on Monday in Pennsylvania.
Fox News’ David Hammelburg contributed to this report.
{{#rendered}}An attorney representing UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione says he won't plead guilty to charges in New York as well, according to Fox News Correspondent Bryan Llenas.
In New York, Mangione is facing charges that include murder in the second degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree in connection with the killing, according to a warrant.
“I’m telling you as his lawyer, he didn’t have any … representation until I got involved this afternoon," lawyer Tom Dickey told the New York Post on Tuesday.
"And I’m telling you he’s pleading not guilty,” he added.
Mangione will be pleading not guilty to charges he faces in Pennsylvania that are unrelated to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, his attorney previously said.
Mangione was denied bail during a court appearance Monday in Pennsylvania.
Officers have made a fingerprint match between UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione and evidence at the crime scene in New York City, two police sources told Fox News Digital Wednesday.
The prints were found on a KIND snack bar and water bottle, law enforcement sources told the New York Post.
Prosecutors in New York are seeking to extradite Mangione from Pennsylvania following his arrest at a McDonald’s on Monday in Altoona, Pa.
Mangione is alleged to have shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside of a hotel in New York City last Wednesday.
UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione appeared to reference the filmmaker Michael Moore and a former New York Times reporter in writings found on him during his arrest, a report says.
In his manifesto, Mangione highlighted the left-wing filmmaker and reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal as examples of people who have shed light on corruption and greed within the health care industry, according to the New York Post, citing sources.
Moore made a 2007 film called “Sicko” about the health insurance industry while Rosenthal wrote a book called “An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back.”
Mangione also was found with a notebook that detailed plans for the shooting and described going to a conference and killing an executive, the New York Times reported, citing two law enforcement officials.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot on Wednesday, Dec. 4 outside of a hotel in New York City. He was heading to a company conference at the time of the attack.
{{#rendered}}UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione reportedly tried to check into a motel in Altoona, Pa., prior to his arrest on Monday.
“There was somebody that checked in and the officer goes, ‘did he have a mask on, did he ever take a mask off?’ I was like ‘no, he never did take a mask off,’” John Kuklis, a desk clerk at the Horseshoe Curve Lodge Inn, told ABC’s "Good Morning America."
“He says ‘I’ll be down in five minutes to talk to you. We pulled it up on surveillance... and they go ‘yeah that’s him’,” Kuklis added.
A Horseshoe Curve Lodge Inn employee told Fox News Digital on Wednesday morning that they handed over surveillance footage to Logan Township Police and the FBI stopped by as well the other day.
Fox News’ Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
Cockeysville, Md. -- Alleged CEO killer Luigi Mangione's prominent Maryland family has been shaken to its core over his arrest, but friends and acquaintances of the Mangiones describe them as a "great" family.
Thomas Maronick Jr., a friend of the family and radio host in Maryland, said Mangione's arrest was "stunning," adding that they are a "deeply respected family." The Mangione family owns several golf courses and clubs across the state, as well as at least one radio station and other facilities.
"This just doesn't seem like anything associated with them," Maronick, whose radio station was owned by the Mangione family, told "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday. "They own golf courses, they own WCBM, they own a retirement home. They just couldn't be more involved in charity and respected in general."
Maronick said he does not remember any time he met Mangione in-person, but said he may have run into him "in passing." He described the family as very "tight-knit," with the patriarch, Nick Mangione Sr., passing down leadership of the family to his son, Nick Jr., who is Luigi's uncle.
An acquaintance of the family who requested not to be named said he was a longtime neighbor of Nick Jr. more than a decade ago. He praised the family in comments to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, talking about Nick Sr. as "the one who started it all," and reminiscing about giving popsicles to the family's youngest members.
"They are a great family, well I guess except for the one," the man said.
Freddie Leatherbury, a former classmate of Luigi Mangione’s at the private Gilman School in Baltimore, told "FOX & Friends" on Wednesday that he "had everything going for him" during his time there.
“The Luigi that I knew, and that so many classmates knew, was a hardworking, driven social kid who had everything going for him,” Leatherbury said.
“It's like a different person that we are seeing in all the headlines. And the yelling in the arraignment, something has happened in the last eight years but back when I knew him, he was nice and polite and driven, athletic, he really had everything going for him and he was everything you could want in a high school kid,” he added.
When asked what he would say to Mangione today, Leatherbury said: “I would say, ‘what changed man?’ I wish we could get inside of his head... there is a lot we would like to learn about what he was thinking.”
{{#rendered}}Attorney Alex Swoyer told ‘Fox & Friends First’ on Wednesday that “every state varies in how they handle their murder statutes” when it comes to the charges that Luigi Mangione now faces following the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
In New York, Mangione has been charged with second degree murder.
“In New York, first degree murder is reserved for certain classifications of murder. For example, the murdering of a police officer,” Swoyer said. “The first narrative that we heard was that this could possibly be a hitman-style killing and that would have been first degree murder, murder for hire. Murder relating to a kidnapping, torture, that sort of thing. Second degree murder is what the state has charged it.”
Swoyer also was asked to react to Mangione’s outburst yesterday while he was being escorted into a courtroom in Pennsylvania.
“I think that he definitely has a message to get out there. One fact that we can look at to prove that is when [he] saw the cameras, he did perform as he did,” she said. “He also carried on his person, his manifesto, he seems to be outspoken, he wanted to speak out in the courtroom and actually respond to questions.”
Luigi Mangione faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if he is convicted on a charge of murder in the second degree in New York.
Mangione is facing that felony charge, as well as charges including criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree in connection with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last Wednesday.
Mangione is alleged to have shot Thompson outside of a hotel in New York City.
He is currently being held at a correctional facility in Pennsylvania and prosecutors in New York are seeking his extradition.
Luigi Mangione will be pleading not guilty to charges he faces in Pennsylvania that are unrelated to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, his attorney says.
Mangione was denied bail during a court appearance Monday in Pennsylvania. He is also fighting his extradition to New York.
Prosecutors in Pennsylvania have charged Mangione with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police, according to the Associated Press.
In New York, Mangione is facing charges that include murder in the second degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree in connection with the killing, according to a warrant.
Fox News' Bryan Llenas contributed to this report.
{{#rendered}}UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's alleged killer, once a private school valedictorian and an Ivy League graduate, may have been triggered by his age and an ObamaCare provision, according to a former investigator.
Thompson, 50, was shot from behind on the sidewalk outside a New York City Hilton hotel on Dec. 4 before a shareholder conference. After a five-day manhunt for Thompson's killer, Luigi Nicholas Mangione, 26, was taken into custody on Monday at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
"He's 26 years old, which is the year you get kicked off your family's insurance claim," retired FBI agent Scott Duffey told Fox News Digital. "Was he well insured or was he not? Those are the things that I would be asking as an investigator."
ObamaCare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, requires health plans that offer dependent child coverage to make the coverage available until the adult child reaches the age of 26, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
"I'm not so sure he has remorse," Duffey added. "I feel like whatever took place in his life relatively soon… he made a conscious decision to go down this road."
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione may have sustained a back injury on July 4, 2023.
"He was posting an X-ray on his social media. Some of the writings that he had, he was discussing the difficulty of sustaining that injury," Kenny told Fox News on Tuesday. "So we're looking into whether or not the insurance industry either denied a claim from him or didn't help him out to the fullest extent."
It is unlikely but not out of the question that Luigi Mangione, who is suspected of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week, will face federal charges, and it is "fair to be concerned" that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg will "mishandle this case," former prosecutors told Fox News Digital.
Mangione was arrested by police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday morning after a five-day manhunt when a McDonald's patron recognized his face from wanted posters.
On Tuesday, Mangione refused to waive his right to an extradition hearing in a Pennsylvania court, and his attorney said he intends to file a writ of habeas corpus challenging Mangione's arrest. Bragg and Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks are working to get the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate to New York.
"There is no obvious hook for a federal murder prosecution," James Trusty, who served as a prosecutor in Maryland for 27 years, told Fox News Digital, based on the publicly available details of the case.
However, Trusty said, evidence for potential federal charges could be found on Mangione's laptop that was seized upon his arrest.
Although federal authorities can hand down murder charges, Trusty said "the types of things that could make it go federal is if [the murder] was in conjunction with organized crime, drug trafficking or a hate crime, which has a more narrow definition than just ‘I hate insurance companies,’" Trusty said.
Members of the Altoona Police Department wrote in a criminal complaint obtained by Fox News Digital that they found a "black 3D-printed pistol and a black silencer." Possessing such a "ghost gun" – a home-cooked weapon that is unserialized and therefore untraceable – is a federal offense, former Joint Terrorism Task Force head and Port Authority Chief Security Officer John Ryan told Fox News Digital.
Thomas Maronick Jr., a Mangione family friend, told "FOX & Friends" Wednesday that the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson “doesn’t seem like anything associated with them.”
“It’s just stunning, it’s shocking because I’ve known the Mangione family as I have been a talk show host from 2003 to 2023 on WCBM, the station they own. And I’ll tell you – this just doesn’t seem like anything associated with them. This is a very deeply respected family from Baltimore County,” he said.
“They own golf courses, they own WCBM, they own a retirement home, just couldn’t be more involved in charity and respected in general,” Maronick continued. “So when I saw the name I first had to do a double take -- is this the same people I’ve known and I’ve been on their station for so long, it really shocked me.”
Maronick said he found it surprising that Mangione’s family didn’t recognize Luigi in the numerous surveillance images released of him prior to his arrest Monday in Pennsylvania.
“I know that they were very close-knit,” Maronick added. “For a member of the family to sort have gone rogue is really surprising.”
{{#rendered}}The New York Police Department Chief of Detective Joseph Kenny said that there is a "sense of relief" following the apprehension of Luigi Mangione.
Mangione, an Ivy League-bred murder suspect, led law enforcement on a five-day manhunt until his apprehension and arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Kenny told WABC-TV that the relief came from his detectives and that the danger “had been mitigated.”
“Some of these detectives had not been home since Wednesday morning working on this case," he said. "So it was a sense of relief not only that the danger had been mitigated, that he had been apprehended, but it was a sense of relief from my detectives that they could finally catch a break.”
The McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione was arrested, has been bombarded with negative reviews online following his capture, continuing a strange show of support for the accused murderer.
Dozens of negative reviews have been posted on the establishment's Yelp page within the past two days, most coming after Mangione was arrested on Monday.
He was arrested, initially on unrelated charges, after a McDonald's employee and customer called police because they thought he looked like the person wanted in the New York City shooting death of Brian Thompson.
Many of the reviews mention the restaurant having "rats," referring to snitches, and say they recommend avoiding the place at all costs.
"As a vegan, I give all McDonald's restaurants in the US as low a rating as possible but this particular location serves up some extra rotten meat with a side of snitching," one person wrote.
Another said, "Full of bootlickers and rats. McSnitches get McStitches, as one says. I hope you regret all your decisions."
Contributing to the backlash, another person wrote, "How could you snitch on the guy standing up for the people, to protect the corporate interests that kill us."
Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old Ivy League grad accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood on a New York City sidewalk, was silent as he was walked out of a Pennsylvania courthouse Tuesday afternoon.
Mangione will fight extradition to New York, but DA Alvin Bragg's office has vowed to get Mangione to NYC to face justice as fast as possible.
Mangione's exit from court was significantly less dramatic than his entrance, where he screamed and thrashed violently as officers attempted to control him.
"It's completely out of touch, and an insult to the intelligence of the American people and its lived experience," Mangione shouted, prompting his detail of about 10 officers to hurry him inside.
{{#rendered}}Coverage for this event has ended.