Luigi Mangione Forced to Watch Himself Kill UnitedHealthcare CEO

In a tense Manhattan courtroom, 27-year-old Luigi Mangione — the Ivy League graduate accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — sat stone-faced Monday as prosecutors replayed the haunting surveillance video of the killing that shocked corporate America.

For the first time, Mangione was forced to watch the very footage that made him one of the most wanted men in the country — a cold, daylight execution in the heart of Midtown.

The video, projected across multiple courtroom screens, showed Thompson, 53, walking briskly down East 45th Street toward a morning meeting when a man in a gray jacket appeared behind him, raised a gun, and fired once into his back. Thompson collapsed instantly. The shooter turned and vanished into the crowd — his face obscured.

Now, that man — believed by prosecutors to be Mangione — watched his own alleged crime unfold from the defense table in a gray suit and patterned red-and-white shirt. Witnesses said his expression barely changed.

“He didn’t flinch,” one observer whispered. “It’s like he still believes he did the right thing.”

Mangione once had a promising future. A graduate of an elite Ivy League university, he studied economics and interned at financial firms before turning inward and bitter, according to former classmates. “He was brilliant but strange,” said one college friend who asked not to be named. “He thought corporations were poisoning society. I never thought it would come to this.”

Authorities allege that Mangione targeted Thompson out of “ideological rage,” driven by resentment toward the healthcare giant’s business practices.

The court also reviewed new evidence from Mangione’s dramatic five-day flight from justice — including previously unseen surveillance from a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where police finally caught him.

At 9 a.m. that December morning, Mangione was seen quietly wiping down a table before sitting to eat a single hash brown. He wore a blue surgical mask and a brown knit cap pulled low, but his distinctive thick eyebrows caught a customer’s attention.

“Someone said he looked like that CEO shooter from New York,” recalled McDonald’s manager Tom Everett in court testimony. “You could only see his eyebrows.”

Everett called 911. “It didn’t even seem urgent at first,” the operator’s recording revealed. But within 15 minutes, two officers approached Mangione. As they questioned him, he calmly took another bite of his food.

“It was eerie,” Officer Andrew McCall testified. “He wasn’t nervous. Just… quiet.”

Mangione handed over a fake ID, then his real one. Dispatchers confirmed his identity seconds later. When the courtroom replayed that driver’s license photo — a younger, smiling Luigi — the defendant looked up at it, expressionless.

Monday’s hearing was part of a broader effort by Mangione’s defense team — husband-and-wife attorneys Karen and Marc Agnifilo — to suppress evidence they claim was obtained illegally. That includes a 3D-printed “ghost gun,” a handwritten manifesto, and personal writings seized from Mangione’s backpack after his arrest.

“They had no warrant, no probable cause,” Karen Agnifilo argued. “You can’t trample the Constitution just because the case is high-profile.”

Judge Gregory Carro listened intently as prosecutors countered that public safety outweighed any procedural missteps.

In the back rows, a small but loyal group of Mangione’s supporters watched silently. Some wore shirts reading “Justice for Luigi.” Others simply stared, perhaps unsure what justice means when their hero stands accused of murder.

The hearing will continue into next week, marking nearly one year since the high-powered CEO was gunned down in broad daylight.

For now, Mangione remains behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center, awaiting trial in both state and federal court.

Outside the courthouse, one bystander summed up what many felt: “He looked like a man watching his own ghost.”

Source: New York State Supreme Court records and eyewitness testimony