Luigi Mangione indicted on murder charges by New York grand jury

Luigi Mangione was charged with murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, and murder in the second degree as a crime of terrorism over the killing of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson.

Luigi Mangione is led into the Blair County Courthouse for an extradition hearing. Picture; Getty Images via AFP.

A grand jury in New York has indicted Luigi Mangione on murder charges in the death of UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson.

Mangione was indicted on a count of murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, and murder in the second degree as a crime of terrorism, among other charges, according to an indictment unveiled Tuesday.

“This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said at a news conference Tuesday.

The Dec. 4 slaying of UnitedHealth Chief Executive Brian Thompson shocked the country and launched a dayslong manhunt for the shooter. Police say Mangione targeted Mr Thompson, waiting an hour outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan and shooting Mr Thompson in the back and leg while the CEO was on his way to UnitedHealth’s investor day. Mangione’s attorney declined to comment.

Mangione was arrested in a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania earlier this month after the 26-year-old was seen eating in the restaurant. Officers said he was in possession of a ghost gun, 3D-printed silencer and handwritten notes that criticized the US healthcare system. He is currently being held in custody in Pennsylvania, where he faces firearm and forgery charges.

Mangione has a court hearing in Pennsylvania on Thursday, which could pave the way for him to come to New York to face the murder charges.

Since Mangione’s arrest there has been intense public interest in when his parents, part of a large and prominent Baltimore family, came to realise that their son was a suspect in a brazen killing that had captivated the nation. The family had been desperately searching for him for the better part of the year.

People close to the family said he had cut off contact. One said that he “went off the grid six months to a year ago and wasn’t communicating with anybody,” and that his distraught mother was doing all she could to find him. Another said the Ivy League engineering graduate was “MIA for about eight months.”

In November, his mother, Kathleen Mangione, reportedly contacted the San Francisco Police Department to report her son missing.

Joseph Kenny, New York Police Department chief of detectives, said an officer in San Francisco working on Mangione’s missing-person case reached out to authorities after seeing a photograph distributed by New York police, citing a resemblance.

Police spoke to Mangione’s mother the weekend before he was arrested, Mr Kenny said.

“She didn’t indicate that it was her son in the photograph,” he said, “but she said it might be something that she could see him doing.”

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