On the one-year anniversary of the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Luigi Mangione arrived for the third day of his pre-trial suppression hearings at New York State Supreme Court. Mangione, who is the prime suspect in the shooting of Thompson, was arrested at an Altoona, Pennsylvania, McDonald’s on Dec. 9, 2024, following a five-day manhunt. The defense, led by Karen Friedman Agnifilo, is arguing against admission of evidence secured during the Altoona arrest. (Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all state and federal charges against him.) The evidence includes Mangione’s backpack, which included a 3D-printed gun, silencer, electronic devices, and notebooks allegedly written by Mangione.
On Thursday, the prosecution called Altoona officer Tyler Frye to testify. Frye was one of the two police officers to respond to the McDonald’s 911 call made after customers complained that a masked man sitting inside the fast-food restaurant resembled the photos that had been released of the UHC shooter. So far this week, the prosecution has entered into evidence bodycam video footage from multiple police officers on scene and at the precinct, audio of the McDonald’s 911 call, and photos of items they say were found on Mangione during the arrest.
One item was a handwritten checklist, allegedly found in Mangione’s backpack. A police officer in the bodycam footage — from when Mangione is at the Altoona police precinct — tells another officer that the checklist said Mangione had “planned to do an ‘intel check-in’” the next day, (Dec. 10) and that the previous day (Dec. 8), he’d bought USBs and a digital camera at Best Buy. The police officer also mentioned “a survival kit.”
A photograph of the checklist was shown in court but has yet to be released to the public. On a white piece of paper, the date Dec. 8 was listed with the words Best Buy underneath and a small square was drown to the left. “Hot meal,” “water bottles,” and “trash bag(s)” were also listed under the 8th. On Dec. 9, there were notes about emails, AAA batteries, and what looks like “Archive LNM accts (LI, X).” The latter may refer to archiving social media accounts, like LinkedIn and X.
Also entered into evidence was a Greyhound bus ticket dated Dec. 4 from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, seat 8C. The ticket included a carry-on and stored bag. The name on the ticket was Sam Dawson. Mangione had given Altoona PD a fake ID with the name Mark Rosario. A Mark Rosario New Jersey ID was also allegedly used by the UHC shooting suspect at a New York City hostel ahead of Thompson’s murder. If Dawson is another alias used by Mangione, that had not been previously reported. A Visa gift card was also photographed into evidence, as well as a Septa ticket — the public transit system around Pennsylvania — dated Dec. 4, which is the date of Thompson’s murder. The ticket listed Drexel Station at 30th Street, 1:06 p.m. Thomspon was shot just before 7 a.m. in Manhattan.
On Thursday, Mangione arrived at court wearing a grey suit and white button-down shirt. He sat between lawyers Marc Agnifilo and Karen Friedman Agnifilo and took copious notes on a yellow legal pad, in writing that looked like it was divided neatly into two columns.
New bodycam footage from officers at the Altoona precinct was entered into evidence, as well, showing Mangione being searched as layers of his clothing are stripped off and entered into evidence. Next to him are items found on his person, including a Skippy peanut butter jar from his pocket during one of multiple frisks at McDonald’s, which also procured a blue-and-white, Hawaiian-print wallet and a small pocketknife.
In the footage, an Altoona cop filling out an intake form asks Mangione for a home address. Mangione pauses and then, when prompted again, provides a redacted address where he gets mail. He does not initially give an emergency contact, but when the police officer says they need someone’s information to contact in the case of his death, he gives his mother’s name, Kathy Mangione. He is not able to answer the address where she currently lives, but gives the officers a phone number. (Mangione’s parents had moved out of his childhood home a few months earlier.)
As Rolling Stone previously reported, Mangione was estranged from his family at the time of his arrest. His mother had filed a missing person’s report for him in November in San Francisco, because that is where she believed his employer’s headquarters were stationed. In the bodycam footage, Mangione tells the cops he’s “homeless” and has been unemployed from software engineering company TrueCar for about a year.
On Thursday, defense attorney Jacob Kaplan cross-examined Altoona officer Frye. He pointed out that when an officer asked Mangione if there’s anything in the backpack he should know about, Mangione invoked his right to remain silent. He also asked Frye if in officer training, which Frye had concluded at Altoona six months prior, he learned he could lie to a suspect in order to get a statement. Frye confirmed they are trained to be able to use a ruse. Frye’s fellow arresting officer admitted to lying to Mangione that they were called because he was loitering for too long at a McDonald’s, when in fact they were called because customers suspected he resembled the UHC shooting suspect.
On Thursday, Judge Gregory Carro reversed a previous ruling he made Tuesday, that he would be sealing all evidence. He said the prosecution and defense would agree on which exhibits to release to the public.
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