In New York, the legal process against Luigi Mangione is moving forward, with a grand jury now hearing evidence related to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Sources familiar with the situation told CBS News that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office began presenting their case to the grand jury on Thursday to obtain an indictment. The Manhattan DA’s office has not commented on the matter, adhering to the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings.
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New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she has spoken with Pennsylvania’s Governor, Josh Shapiro, several times to make sure Mangione is extradited quickly following his arrest on unrelated charges in Altoona.
In an interview Thursday morning, Hochul said:
I want to get him back here in the State of New York and run him through our criminal justice system. Because that horrific attack occurred on our streets, and the people of our city deserve to have that sense of calm that this perpetrator has been caught and he will never see the light of day again, if there is justice. You cannot assassinate an individual on the streets of New York. Not now, not ever.
As Mangione fights extradition from Pennsylvania to New York, he is being detained in a maximum-security individual cell at Huntingdon State Correctional Institution, located in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections has specified that Mangione, while not placed on suicide watch or in solitary confinement, is kept separate from the general inmate population. The department indicated there have been no reports of violent behavior from him while in custody.
Days before Mangione was arrested in a dramatic takedown at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) officer had already recognized him as the potential suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and notified the FBI four days before his arrest, according to two sources familiar with the investigation, who spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle.
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The officer, part of the SFPD’s Special Victims Unit, made this connection on December 5, 2024, by linking Mangione’s face from surveillance images to a missing person report filed by his mother, Kathleen Mangione.
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Kathleen reported her son missing on November 18, after not hearing from him since July. She noted that Mangione, previously employed by TrueCar, a company with a now-closed San Francisco office, had seemingly vanished. TrueCar confirmed that Mangione had not worked for them since he was laid off in 2023, unbeknownst to his mother. Mangione’s last known position was as head counselor at Stanford University’s Pre-Collegiate Studies program in 2019.
Mangione’s arrest on Monday in Pennsylvania was prompted by a McDonald’s customer who recognized Mangione from images released by the NYPD, which featured the suspect’s face in security footage taken from a New York hostel. On Tuesday, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told NBC News that the suspect had not been on law enforcement’s radar before his capture, contradicting recent reports.
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Tisch said:
This was not a name that was called into us.
The revelation that SFPD had potentially identified Mangione days earlier raises questions about the communication and coordination between law enforcement agencies. It’s unclear how or if the FBI acted upon the information provided by SFPD on December 5. Both the FBI and SFPD declined to comment on the specifics of the case, directing all inquiries to the NYPD.
Mangione, a 26-year-old with a background that includes a degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a stint in Hawaii’s tech community, now faces charges from New York prosecutors for murder, unlawful possession of a gun, and other related offenses. At the time of his arrest, Mangione was in possession of items that linked him directly to the crime scene: a firearm and a suppressor, which matched the murder weapon, along with a handwritten manifesto. This document, according to the New York Times, highlighted Mangione’s deep-seated resentment towards health insurance companies and corporate greed, stating, “Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.”
On his way into court on Tuesday afternoon, Mangione shouted about “an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience.” Mangione’s lawyer, Thomas Dickey, has since claimed his client was “agitated” that he did not have legal representation at the time.
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Mangione’s attorney has indicated that his client will plead not guilty to the homicide charges in New York and the gun charges in Pennsylvania.
