How Luigi Mangione turned back on family and future to become an alleged killer
Luigi Mangione came from a life of wealth and privilege. But he threw it all away after he was arrested at Macca’s for the alleged murder of Brian Thompson. This is how his world collapsed.
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The last meal Luigi Mangione enjoys as a free man may be the hashbrown pictured in his right hand during an arrest at McDonald’s.
The shredded potatoes deep fried in hydrogenated soybean oil, seasoned with a pinch of hydrolysed milk derivatives, are a world away from his life of steak and opportunity as heir to a sprawling real estate and business empire.
After a nationwide manhunt, the alleged smiling ‘hot’ assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was unmasked at the fast food chain about 450km west of New York.
It was the first time his parents Louis, 71, and Kathleen Mangione, 60, had seen or heard from their youngest child since he went missing about six months earlier; turning his back on a family and future of incredible privilege and potential.
The Mangione family are beloved in Baltimore and have deep connections to local politics in the US state of Maryland.
The family fortune was built by Nicholas Mangione Sr, a first-generation Italian-American who “came from nothing” to own a sprawling portfolio of local resorts, country clubs, nursing homes, and the local radio station WCBM-AM.
The alleged shooter’s father owns Lorien Health Services founded in 1977. His mother runs the KZM Boutique Travel company.
The family patriarch, who died in 2008, left behind 10 children and 37 grandchildren, many of whom have continued the family’s long-running support of local institutions like the Baltimore Opera Company, Loyola University, and the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, which named the high-risk obstetrics unit after the Mangiones.
Nino Mangione, a Republican representative in the Maryland House of Delegates, postponed a fundraising event due to the “terrible situation involving my cousin”, saying he was “heartbroken”.
Grandmother Mary C. Mangione left behind an estate worth at least $A47 million, possibly as much as $A147 million, to be distributed among her 10 children. The philanthropist, however, put a special condition in her will to cut off any heirs who had been charged with “heinous” or “violent” crimes, which could leave the accused killer out of any inheritance.
While the family’s successes allowed Mr Mangione to receive an elite education, the opportunity was matched by his sharp intellect and studious disposition.
He was the valedictorian at the private all-boys Gilman School, which carries an annual tuition of $A59,000. And he later graduated cum laude at the Ivy-league University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, majoring in computer and information science.
But instead of using his natural talents and bestowed gifts to continue the family business or build his own legacy, the tech whiz allegedly used his engineering know-how to 3D-print a fully homemade pistol and suppressor.
If convicted, it would be the highest-profile crime ever committed with a so-called “ghost gun”, a DIY weapon without any traceable origin or trackable serial number.
“This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience,”
Mr Mangione allegedly wrote in his manifesto of the plot, according to an extract first obtained by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein. “My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there.”
Mr Mangione’s alleged manifesto outlined an alternative plan to bomb United Healthcare in Manhattan, plus the possible motive of the United States having the most expensive healthcare in the world.
“Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming,” the manifesto said. “United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but [h]as our life expectancy?”
Mrs Mangione reported her son missing on November 18, telling San Francisco police that she hadn’t spoken to him since July.
She believed he was working as a software engineer for TrueCar, but the company said he hasn’t worked for them since 2023.
In 2022 he lived for six months in a Hawaii “co-living” space called Surfbreak, where he told friends a back injury prevented him from having sex due to the extreme pain.
In the summer of 2023, he returned to the mainland for back surgery, according to former Surfbreak roommate RJ Martin.
“He said his lower vertebrae were almost like a half-inch off, and I think it pinched a nerve,” Mr Martin said. “He knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn’t possible.”
The cause of the back injury remains unknown, though he reportedly wrestled and did other sports in high school. A surfing injury was said to have exacerbated it. He maintained contact with Mr Martin until April 15 this year before he stopped responding.
Other residents of Surfbreak called Mr Mangione a “thoughtful and deeply compassionate” person who led a book club, sharing ideas while they watched sunsets near Honolulu’s Ala Moana Beach Park.
Reviews for many of those books were purportedly left on a Goodreads account with the username “Luigi Mangione”, listing 65 titles on topics ranging from Elon Musk to dieting.
The user stopped posting to the site in January 2024 after his last review on Industrial Society and Its Future, otherwise known as the Manifesto of Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.
“It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies,” the Goodreads user wrote.
“He was a violent individual – rightfully imprisoned – who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterised as those of a crazy Luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary.”
David Kaczynski said it gives him “ a great deal of personal pain” that his brother’s infamy may have inspired others, calling the Unabomber’s actions “like a virus” that could spread without understanding he was a disturbed man.
“It doesn’t mean his ideas are ideas of a lunatic, but his behaviour, I believe, is the behaviour of a lunatic,” Mr Kaczynski told NBC. “To the extent that he may have attributed at all to sort of normalising or recasting the violent acts as beneficial to humanity is a terrible mistake.”
Mr Mangione rated the Unabomber’s manifesto four out of five stars, the same rating given to Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Work Week.
In that review, Mr Mangione remembered an infuriating childhood debate with his mother demanding he eat steak with his right hand “because that’s proper manners”.
After being taken into custody, Mr Mangione’s first meal behind bars was a square slice of pizza. Prison food isn’t the filet mignon he’s used to. But he can eat it with any hand he likes.
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Originally published as How Luigi Mangione turned back on family and future to become an alleged killer
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