“No, we won’t talk… we’ll make a statement,” Luigi Mangione’s uncle tells us as he crosses the driveway of his huge house in Cockeysvillea residential neighborhood of Baltimore. In front of the house Samuel Mangioneunder a thick fog, a dozen cars are parked: a family reunion is taking place.
A family that was known in Baltimore for its real estate empire (including two country clubs, a nursing home, a radio station) and for the generous philanthropic donations of the Mangione Foundation: to the Opera, to museums, to the Catholic archdiocese, to hospitals and clinics (the obstetrics unit at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center is named after him). And that will now be known forever as the family of the murderer of Brian Thompson, the CEO of the health insurance company UnitedHealthcare.
Luigi Mangione, 26, was charged Monday night with the murder of Brian Thompson: he is in jail awaiting extradition to New York. Wearing an orange jumpsuit, as guards took him before the judge, he shouted: “an insult to the intelligence of the American people.”
Many on the Internet called him a hero and raised $8,000 for his legal costs. Amazon has blocked the sale of commemorative t-shirts. The family has already released a brief statement in which they declare themselves “shocked and devastated.” for Luigi’s arrest and expresses his “prayers” for the victim. At the head of the message was Luigi’s cousin, Nino the family politician (Republican delegate to the Maryland legislature).
Luigi was recognized on Monday by employees of a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania: he had arrived there on a Greyhound bus after a five-day getaway with stops in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
The employee called the police, Luigi showed them a fake ID in the name of Mark Rosario but when asked if he had been to New York recently, he began to shake. He had the 3D pistol and the silencer in his pocket, $8,000 in cash and $2,000 in foreign currency, and the “manifesto” against the health system, “the most expensive in the world despite the fact that the United States ranks 42nd in life expectancy.” “. He also spoke of “a relative” of his who was not going to receive adequate treatment. It is assumed that he is referring to himself: in 2023 he underwent spinal surgery for a painful pathology that he has suffered from since childhood, a spondylolisthesis.
Six months before the murder, he walked away from his family and friends: he disappeared. He was in Hawaii, possibly San Francisco or Japan. On November 18, his mother Kathleen reported him missing to the police.a.
The Mangione family owes its wealth to the success of the patriarch Nicholas grandfather of Luigiwho lived with his family in a single room in Little Italy until he was eight, and started working at 11. “Nick Mangione is a family man: to understand him, the key is to look at his wife Mary to whom he is dedicated, and in the five sons and five daughters to whom he is little by little passing on his business,” said Nancy Pelosi’s father, Thomas D’Alesandro former mayor of Baltimore, who was a friend of his. “He may be a bit brutish, he may have an aggressive personality, but he has a big heart, and he achieved success the hard way.”
Nick died in 2008 from a stroke; Mary, in 2023. It is a united family: the mansion of Samuelworth 1.5 million dollars, stands next to its brother’s identical Peter; behind it is Hayfields Country Club, where his parents lived.
Luigi grew up not far from there, with his father Louishis mother Kathleenwho organized trips around Italy, and two sisters, Lucia (artist) and Santa Maria (doctor). His path seemed on track: internship at the family nursing home; graduation (first in his class, but also good at athletics) at the prestigious Gilman Schoolwhere he said he learned the “value of exploring the unknown and new things”; degree in computer science and artificial intelligence from the University of Pennsylvania.
But along with the physical pain, the psychological pain had emerged. He used to post photos of his trips on social media. Suddenly, I had begun to fear smartphone addiction. In an online review of the Unabomber manifesto, he condemned violence but was fascinated by it, saying he was “concerned about growing consumerism, it distances us from ourselves.” In another he wrote that his mother forced him to eat with his right hand despite being left-handed out of good manners.