Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old who has been named a person of interest in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, attended a private prep school in Baltimore before studying at the University of Pennsylvania, according to his LinkedIn account and spokespeople for both schools.
Mangione was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennslvania on Monday, five days after Thompson was fatally shot in New York City. New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed during a press conference that Mangione was arrested with a gun and fake New Jersey ID card that appeared to match the ID the suspect used to check into a New York City hostel before the shooting.
Mangione has not been charged with Thompson's death. He is being held and questioned on local charges, and NYPD officers are traveling to Altoona, about 250 miles from the scene of the crime.
Details about Mangione, including his education, began emerging online following his arrest.
His LinkedIn profile shows that he attended the Gilman School, where he was valedictorian of his graduating class in 2016. Gilman is a private school in Baltimore founded in 1897 as " this nation's first country day school," according to the school's website. Tuition ranges from $21,235 for pre-kindergarten to $37,690 for high schoolers.
Video of his speech at the Founder's Day ceremony in 2016 emerged online after news broke of his arrest.
"Just like we've done these past four years, we'll be exploring the unknown," he said during the speech. "Whether that be attending colleges across the country, traveling across the world during gap years, fulfilling military service in foreign countries."
In a statement on Monday, Henry P. A. Smyth, head of the Gilman School, wrote that they have no information beyond what has been already reported, describing the news as "deeply distressing."
After graduating, Mangione majored in computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating cum laude with bachelor's and master's degrees, in 2020, the school confirmed in a statement to Newsweek.
Between May and September 2019, Mangione also worked for Stanford University, a spokesperson confirmed to Newsweek via email Monday afternoon. He worked as a head counselor under the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies program, the spokesperson said.
Mangione was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity while he studied at Penn, the national fraternity confirmed in a statement to Newsweek.
In a 2018 press release from Penn, Mangione said he decided to major in computer science because he wanted to make his own video games.
"In my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I learned [on my own] how to program, and that's why I'm a computer science major now; that's how I got into it," he said.
According to LinkedIn, he worked as a teaching assistant and the head of recitation committee while studying at the Ivy League school and held several internships, including at Firaxis Games and Johns Hopkins University.
Mangione was arrested after an employee at the Altoona McDonald's recognized him from photographs released by NYPD after the shooting. He was found with a handwritten manifesto saying that he believes violence is the only way to change the health care industry, police said. A police official told CNN that he wrote in the manifesto that "these parasites had it coming."
"I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done," the manifesto reportedly reads.
Update 12/9/24, 4:25 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.
About the writer
Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more