12 10 24 ABC Josh Margolin on arrest of Luigi Mangione in UnitedHealthcare shooting

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Police arresting a suspect yesterday in the Manhattan killing of
United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson after a quick thinking McDonald's
employee in Pennsylvania alerted authorities to a customer who has
found with a weapon, mask and writings linking him to
that ambush.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Joining us now on the KWA Common Spirit Health Hotline
to talk more about it, does ABC News Chief investigative
reporter Josh Margolin. Josh, thank you so much for your
time this morning. Walk us through what do we know
so far about the suspect who is arrested yesterday.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
The last twenty four hours have been in incredibly busy
and rapid fire developments, very eventful. Nine fifteen yesterday morning,
an employee at a McDonald's and outoon in Pennsylvania fees
this individual said, look suspicious. Tells what a customer I
should say, tells an employee, then call the cops. Cops

(00:48):
show up pretty quickly. They're off to the races. The
cops believe that he looks like the one that's in
the pictures on TV subject of the manhunt because of
the Midtown Manhattan shooting from last week, and he's arrested
in unrelated charges connected to the gun and the fake
ID that he has on him, and then by last night,

(01:09):
the New York Police Department has detectives in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
They raced there through a rainstorm on Interstate eighty and
they ultimately charged him with second degree murder. He's being
held at a state prison pending the next steps. He's
going to get to determine if he's going to fight
extradition or not, and he will stand to face charges
of murder in New York and police are believe that

(01:33):
he operated alone, but they are in the process of
going through his writings, going through his social media, has
phoned everything else. They want to see if there was
anybody else that he was connected to, possibly and accomplish.
Possibly somebody that was helping him with reconnaissance as he
was on the run. But at this point it looks
like he operated alone.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
What do we know about Luigi Mangioni is It sounds
like at least some of the details Josh coming out,
it's not what a lot of people initially thought that
there was some sort of vengeance about something with healthcare.
Sounds like he was kind of radicalized a little bit.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Actually, it does seem that he had some sort of
a beef with healthcare. In fact, they found three handwritten
pages of writings on him, and pretty quickly. The head
of the detective Bureau at the New York Police Department
yesterday told reporters that it looks like they could tell
some motive. There was some sort of ill will toward

(02:28):
Corporate America. And then by last night we were hearing
from detectives that they found a reference to United Healthcare
in there. We also saw on his social media that
he's got a real issue, a medical issue that he
apparently was a sufferer of chronic back pain had had surgery. Now, again,
we don't know exactly what the connective line is there,

(02:49):
you know, connecting those two dots, but it's not Detectives
are saying, it's not the hardest thing in the world
to believe or to piece together that maybe somebody who
has chronic back pain that's making him not, you know,
be able to live the life that he wants to live,
that he might be angry at healthcare providers or at

(03:09):
the healthcare insurance company. Obviously, all of that is now
subject to the investigation, and they're working feverishly to get
that done. But that's the picture that is developing, as
opposed to some sort of personal grievance with the CEO,
with Brian Thompson, you know, some sort of type of
thing we see, you know, in true crime all the time.
It doesn't appear to be that.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
So what are the next steps when it comes to
just the entire process of this. I know you said
he will be charged in both Pennsylvania and New York.
Where do we see this trial going on from here?

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Well, he is charged in both places. Pennsylvania will allow
New York to take the lead on this because New
York obviously has the murder charges. The question is, does
man GIONI agree to be extradited to New York quickly
or not? That'll be up to him, But in the
next number of days or weeks, we will know that
at some point. If he doesn't wait extra it might

(04:00):
take up to two months before he gets back to
New York. If he does wave extradition, we should expect
to see him back in New York this week or
next week, and then from there the processes as we've seen.
You know, it's a high profile crime, but the process
is the process. He will stand to they will, the
grand jury will meet, they will decide whether or not
they want to add more charges. It's likely they decide

(04:21):
to add charges right now. It's second degree murder, which
is the premeditated murder charge in New York State, and
also gun charges. And we'll be off from there.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Josh, quick follow up to that, broaden list out as
United Healthcare, some of these other healthcare companies taken any
kind of security precautions in lie to this.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Well, absolutely, First, we've seen a number of things very
very clearly, very very quickly. So United Healthcare at their
headquarters in Minnesota, they've put fencing up around. They are
totally locked down. People are being somewhat critical of them
for not answering questions or being more forthcoming, and that's
obviously a corporate decision, but they have taken physical steps. Also,

(05:00):
a number of healthcare companies have moved to take pictures
or even full bios of senior executives off of their
websites because they want to make sure that people can't
necessarily spot them. We have a situation, as you can
see online health insurance companies are hated by many people.

(05:21):
Whether that hatred is legitimate or not. It's a reality
and in this day and age, in a country with
four hundred million guns and a lot of anger, the
companies are trying to minimize the risk to their personnel.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well if more on the arrest and the man accused
of the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, ABC
News Chief Investigative reportner, It's Josh Marklin