Who is Luigi Mangione, the young Italian-American assassin fanatic of the UnaBomber
The 26-year-old man arrested yesterday is a computer science graduate and belongs to the American upper-middle class. His grandfather, a famous Baltimore real estate developer, came from a poor Italian immigrant family. He admired the texts of the American mathematician-terrorist
3' min read
3' min read
On Monday, 9 December, at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, police arrested US citizen Luigi Mangione, suspected of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York for gun possession.
Who is Luigi Mangione?
A profile of the 26-year-old, accused of murder for last week's fatal shooting is emerging by the hour. Mangione is a native of Baltimore, Maryland, an industrial city that rose to fame for a famous song by Bruce Springsteen, the singer of the American working class. Authorities found him in possession of a 'ghost gun', a largely untraceable firearm, and a three-page handwritten document that helps reconstruct his personality. Mangione had no criminal record and his last address was in Honolulu, the capital of the Hawaiian Islands.
He had attended the Gilman School, a private, boys-only high school in Baltimore, where he also made his mark. He had in fact been named valedictorian, the title for the student with the highest academic achievement in a class. In a statement, the school called the situation 'deeply distressing'.
A former classmate, Freddie Leatherbury, told the Associated Press news agency that Mr. Mangione came from a wealthy family that ran a country club and nursing home, which was higher even by that public school's standards. His grandfather, Nick Mangione Sr. came from a poor immigrant family living in Baltimore's Little Italy, but later made his fortune in real estate. Shortly after the suspect's indictment, local Republican Congressman Nino Mangione, believed to be his cousin, said the family was "shocked and devastated".
Degree and first occupations
After college in Maryland, Mangione graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in computer science, and had also founded a game development club. A friend who attended Ivy League university at the same time described him as a 'super normal person' and 'smart'. After graduation, the boy had found a job as a 'data engineer' for TrueCar, a site selling new and used cars. A spokesman for the company told the British BBC that he had not worked there since last year. According to his LinkedIn profile, before the online dealership he had worked as a programming intern at Firaxis, a video game developer.
