(CNN) — Months earlier than Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down a high medical insurance CEO after which seemingly vanished from Midtown Manhattan, one other disappearing act anxious his family and friends.
The 26-year-old scion of a rich Baltimore household who was a highschool valedictorian and an Ivy League graduate, Mangione had maintained an energetic social media presence for years, posting smiling images from his travels, sharing his weightlifting routine and discussing well being challenges he confronted.
He publicly saved monitor of practically 300 books he had learn or wished to learn, even posting a positive evaluation of the Unabomber manifesto on a guide web site.
However then, through the summer season, Mangione appeared to cease posting on-line, prompting anxious messages from a few of his associates.
“No person has heard from you in months, and apparently your loved ones is on the lookout for you,” one person posted on X in October, tagging an account belonging to Mangione. “I don’t know in case you are okay,” one other posted.
Now, as police rush to piece collectively Mangione’s potential motive and actions main as much as final week’s taking pictures of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, those that know him are left questioning how somebody with a promising life may have presumably dedicated such a brazen crime.
“I could make zero sense of it,” stated R.J. Martin, who lived with Mangione at a Hawaii co-living area a number of years in the past, remembering him as pleasant and considerate. “It’s unimaginable.”
A privileged upbringing
Mangione, who was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania on Monday, was charged with homicide, together with two counts of second-degree legal possession of a weapon, one depend of second-degree possession of a solid doc and one depend of third-degree legal possession of a firearm, on-line courtroom paperwork present.
In line with the legal criticism in opposition to Mangione, he was carrying a backpack containing a black 3D-printed pistol and a black 3D-printed silencer. A police official informed CNN he additionally had a handwritten doc stating, “these parasites had it coming,” and expressing “unwell will towards company America.”
Mangione himself, nevertheless, grew up in a rich Baltimore household that made it massive in enterprise.The suspect’s grandfather, Nicholas Mangione, a former masonry contractor who informed the Baltimore Solar he began working at age 11, constructed a neighborhood actual property empire that included nursing residence services round Maryland and two nation golf equipment within the Baltimore suburbs.
The youthful Mangione, who’s one in every of greater than 30 grandchildren of Nicholas Mangione and his spouse, Mary, volunteered at a household enterprise, the nursing residence chain Lorien Well being Methods, whereas he was in highschool, in accordance with his LinkedIn profile.
Mangione graduated from the distinguished Gilman College, an all-boys establishment that is named one in every of Baltimore’s toniest non-public colleges, the place he was the highschool valedictorian in 2016.
Freddie Leatherbury, a highschool classmate, informed CNN that Mangione “had all the things going for him. However he wasn’t actually snobby. He was humble. He was unassuming and straightforward to strategy.”
In his valedictorian speech, Mangione lauded his classmates for “arising with new concepts and difficult the world,” citing profitable fundraisers and accomplishments in sports activities and teachers.
“To the category of 2016, a sort of class that solely comes round as soon as each 50 years, it’s been an unimaginable journey, and I merely can’t think about the previous few years with some other group of fellows,” he stated.
Mangione attended the College of Pennsylvania, the place he graduated in 2020 with a grasp’s and bachelor’s diploma in pc science and a minor in arithmetic, a college spokesperson informed CNN. Mangione was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, social media images present.
In an interview for a college weblog submit, Mangione talked about how he had began a online game improvement membership.
“In highschool, I began taking part in a number of unbiased video games and stuff like that, however I wished to make my very own sport, and so I discovered the way to code,” Mangione stated. “I simply actually wished to make video games.”
A former colleague of Mangione who labored with him as a counselor at a Stanford College summer season program throughout his school years described him as outgoing and socially charming.
“I’m flabbergasted,” the colleague stated, asking to not be named due to the sensitivity of the information. “I by no means bought the impression he would self-destruct.”
After graduating, Mangione labored as a software program engineer for the web automotive gross sales firm TrueCar, in accordance with his LinkedIn web page. His most up-to-date deal with was in Hawaii, NYPD officers stated.
Mangione is registered to vote at his household’s deal with in Cockeysville, Maryland, a Baltimore suburb, and is registered as unaffiliated with a political occasion, in accordance with the state’s voter registration lookup web site. He’s the cousin of Maryland State Delegate Nino Mangione, a Republican, the state lawmaker’s workplace confirmed to native media.
The Mangione household additionally run a household basis that has practically $4.5 million in property, and have been longtime benefactors of Loyola College in Maryland, which named its aquatic middle after them.
Non-public safety guards have been blocking entry to the household’s home on a golf membership Monday afternoon.
In a press release launched by Nino Mangione’s workplace, the household stated they’re “shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest.”
“We provide our prayers to the household of Brian Thompson and we ask individuals to wish for all concerned,” the assertion stated.
Well being struggles
In recent times, Mangione suffered from troubling again ache and underwent surgical procedure to deal with it, in accordance with a pal and on-line postings.
Round 2022, Mangione moved to Hawaii, the place he lived for about six months at a co-working and co-living area in Honolulu, Martin informed CNN. On the time, Mangione was working remotely, Martin stated.
Mangione helped lead a guide membership for residents and favored going mountaineering and doing yoga, Martin, the founding father of the co-living area, stated. Whereas residents generally mentioned capitalism and the well being care system, “it wasn’t like he had an ax to grind or he was even upset or offended a few specific situation,” Martin stated. He didn’t keep in mind Mangione ever speaking about weapons or violence.
Quickly after Mangione moved to Hawaii, Martin stated, Mangione did a surf lesson and ended up “in mattress for a few week” with again ache. “It was actually traumatic and tough, you understand, whenever you’re in your early twenties and you may’t, you understand, do some basic items,” Martin stated.
Martin stated he fell out of contact with Mangione and final exchanged texts with him earlier this yr. Mangione informed him that he had undergone again surgical procedure and despatched him a photograph of his X-ray that, Martin stated, “regarded heinous, with simply large screws going into his backbone.”
Mangione posted an identical photograph because the backdrop for his X web page, which was taken offline after he was recognized by police Monday.
And on the guide evaluation web site, Goodreads, Mangione reported studying or eager to learn a variety of books about dealing with continual again ache. He additionally linked to handwritten notes laying out his exercise routine, which state that he was affected by spondylolisthesis, the slippage of a vertebrae within the backbone.
Posts from a now-deleted Reddit account that doesn’t record Mangione’s title however intently matches a lot of his biographical particulars – together with his college, age, main and well being situation – say that the person had suffered from again aches associated to spondylolisthesis since childhood however aggravated the situation after a browsing incident.
“My again and hips locked up after the accident,” the person wrote in July 2023, including that “intermittent numbness has grow to be fixed” and “I’m fearful of the implications.”
Just a few weeks later, the person wrote that he had undergone spinal surgical procedure, which improved his signs. The person didn’t seem to submit about medical insurance associated to the surgical procedure, or join the remedy to UnitedHealthcare.
The person additionally detailed previous struggles with well being points together with Lyme illness and extreme mind fog, which he stated began after shedding sleep throughout his fraternity’s “hell week” and precipitated his school grades to start out “tanking.” He expressed frustration about how little was understood by the medical group about mind fog, writing that “it’s completely brutal to have such a life-halting situation… The individuals round you in all probability received’t perceive your signs – they definitely don’t for me.”
Going silent
Mangione’s Goodreads profile additionally sheds extra mild on his fascinated with political violence. Earlier this yr, he reportedhaving learn the 1995 anti-technology manifesto written by the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, the notorious home terrorist and mathematician recognized for sending lethal bombs by the mail.
“It’s simple to shortly and inconsiderate(ly) write this off because the manifesto of a lunatic, so as to keep away from going through among the uncomfortable issues it identifies. Nevertheless it’s merely not possible to disregard how prescient a lot of his predictions about trendy society turned out,” Mangione wrote in a evaluation of the guide in January. “He was a violent particular person – rightfully imprisoned – who maimed harmless individuals. Whereas these actions are typically characterised as these of a loopy luddite, nevertheless, they’re extra precisely seen as these of an excessive political revolutionary.”
In his evaluation, Mangione additionally shared ideas another person had written about Kaczynski in a Reddit thread, quoting a commenter who had described his acts as “conflict and revolution,” saying that he “had the balls to acknowledge that peaceable protest has gotten us completely nowhere” and that “‘Violence by no means solved something’ is a press release uttered by cowards and predators.”
In complete, Mangione’s Goodreads profile listed him as studying or eager to learn practically 300 books, together with a guide about psychological sickness, a biography of the creator of the atomic bomb and Michael Pollan’s well-liked guide on the science of psychedelics.
On X, Mangione posted about science and know-how, together with synthetic intelligence and psychedelics. The roughly 75 accounts he adopted included outstanding teachers and public figures equivalent to Joe Rogan, Edward Snowden, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the best-selling creator of “The Anxious Era,” a guide concerning the unfavorable results of social media on American teenagers.
However Mangione doesn’t seem to have posted something since midsummer – and posts addressed to his X account recommend that a few of Mangione’s associates have been attempting to get in contact with him.
In July, one person tweeted at Mangione, “I haven’t heard from you in months,” urging him to let him know if Mangione may honor the “commitments” he had made for the person’s marriage ceremony.
In late November, simply weeks earlier than the taking pictures, one other person posted at Mangione, “pondering of you and prayers on a regular basis in your title. Know you’re missed and liked.”
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