According to sources, Luigi Mangione’s fingerprints match fingerprints found at the crime scene of the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s assassination

CNN
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Fingerprints collected at the scene of the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO and those taken during the arrest of suspect Luigi Mangione are a positive match, two law enforcement officials briefed on the matter told CNN on Wednesday, while authorities are investigating the motive investigate behind the killing.

This is the first positive forensic match that investigators say directly links Mangione to the crime scene outside a midtown Manhattan hotel where Brian Thompson was shot a week ago.

CNN has reached out to Mangione’s attorney for comment on the fingerprint match.

The development comes as authorities investigate the background of suspect Luigi Mangione, who remains in custody in Pennsylvania as he fights extradition to New York.

Since he was arrested at McDonald’s on Monday thanks to a tipster, the 26-year-old’s past has increasingly come into focus. The privileged scion of a wealthy family, high school valedictorian and Ivy League graduate disappeared from the sights of his loved ones in recent months, only to emerge as a suspect in a high-profile murder that may have been fueled by his battle with a pain-killing back injury .

The killing of Thompson — a husband and father of two — highlighted the anger many Americans feel toward the health care industry. Mangione, her avatar, garners sympathy online and offers to pay his legal bills. It has also sparked fear in executive suites across the country, as an NYPD intelligence report obtained by CNN warns that online rhetoric “could indicate an increased threat to senior leadership in the near future…”

Mangione’s attorney denied his client’s involvement in the killing and said he plans to plead not guilty because police found a gun and a fake Pennsylvania ID when he was arrested in Altoona.

“I haven’t seen any evidence that they have the right guy,” Thomas Dickey told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.” On ABC’s “Good Morning America” ​​on Wednesday, Dickey reiterated that he had not seen the evidence, including documents that police said were in Mangione’s possession at the time of his arrest.

In some of Mangione’s writings, he referred to pain from a back injury he suffered in July 2023, New York Police Department Chief Detective Joseph Kenny told Fox News on Tuesday. Investigators are reviewing an insurance claim for the injury.

“Some of his writings were about the difficulty of enduring that injury,” Kenny said. “So we’re looking at whether the insurance industry either rejected a claim from him or didn’t fully help him.”

Mangione – who faces numerous charges in New York and Pennsylvania – was denied bail at an extradition hearing Tuesday afternoon at the Blair County Courthouse in Pennsylvania.

As the suspect entered the courthouse, handcuffed and shackled and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit with “DOC” written on the back, he could be heard screaming, among other things: “This is completely unrealistic and an insult to the intelligence of the American.” People. It’s a lived experience.”

New York prosecutors have charged Mangione with one count of murder, two counts of second-degree weapons possession, one count of second-degree possession of a forged document and one count of third-degree weapon possession, online court documents show.

In charging documents, Detective Yousef Demes of the Midtown North Detective Squad laid out evidence that officials say proves Mangione is the person pictured in surveillance video fatally shooting Thompson outside a Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan as Thompson headed to his company’s annual investor conference. He noted that the man seen in surveillance footage from a New York hostel was wearing the same clothing.

After Mangione was arrested at the Altoona McDonald’s, police found “a black 3D printed handgun and a black silencer” that were also 3D printed, according to the criminal complaint. While incarcerated, Mangione also produced a fake New Jersey ID card that listed the name Mark Rosario as the identification card, which matched the ID the man had used at the hostel, Demes wrote.

Dickey said his client will plead not guilty to the charges he faces in Pennsylvania. He also expects Mangione to plead not guilty to murder charges in New York and said it is possible he could represent him there.

As Mangione fights extradition, a Pennsylvania court has given him 14 days to file a habeas corpus petition. If he does so, a hearing will be scheduled.

Prosecutors have 30 days to obtain a gubernatorial order, which New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she would work with prosecutors to sign. Weeks said his office is prepared to “do what is necessary” to bring Mangione back to New York.

There could be several reasons why Mangione is fighting his extradition, Agnifilo said. That would give him more time to think about his defense, ask prosecutors to present more evidence at his next hearing or try to get bail in Pennsylvania, which is unlikely, said Agnifilo, who previously worked at the Manhattan district attorney’s office had.

With Mangione fighting extradition, it could be weeks before authorities can bring him to New York for prosecution, according to CNN legal analyst and defense attorney Karen Agnifilo.

Most defendants prosecuted in another state on more serious charges waive their right to extradition, but in murder cases like Mangione’s, “there’s no chance he’ll be released, so he fights extradition,” she said .

“Eight or nine times out of 10, the defendants forego extradition because they realize it’s so superficial and so easy, and most of them don’t want to languish in custody in the other state because you don’t even have the option “To fight them.” “That’s not the case yet,” said Agnifilo.

Judge Dave Consiglio denied bail on both state charges and said Mangione will remain at the Huntingdon State Correctional Facility. It could take up to two months for authorities to return Mangione to New York after receiving the governor’s arrest warrant, Agnifilo said.

According to an NYPD intelligence report obtained by CNN on Tuesday, the suspect appeared to be driven by anger against the health insurance industry and “corporate greed” as a whole.

“He appeared to view the targeted killing of the company’s highest-ranking official as a symbolic exchange and a direct challenge to alleged corruption and ‘power plays,’ claiming in his note that he was the first to approach it with such brutal honesty. ‘,” said the NYPD assessment, which was based on Mangione’s “manifesto” and social media.

Along with a three-page handwritten “statement of responsibility” found on Mangione when he was taken into custody, investigators are looking at pages of notes in a spiral notebook that the suspect wrote in, a law enforcement source briefed on the matter told CNN.

It contained to-do lists of tasks that needed to be completed to make a kill possible, as well as notes justifying those plans, the source said. In a notebook passage, Mangione wrote about the Unabomber, which he also wrote about in online posts.

Mangione knew that UnitedHealthcare was holding an investor conference around the time Thompson was shot – and the suspect mentioned he was going to the conference site, NYPD Chief Detective Kenny said.

In the notebook passage, Mangione concludes that using a bomb against his intended victim “might kill innocents” but that shooting would be more targeted, and considers what could be better than “killing the CEO at his own conference.”

The three-page document contained no specific threats but suggested “antipathy toward corporate America,” Kenny said.

CNN’s Steve Almasy, Sara Smart, Gloria Pazmino, Amanda Musa, Celina Tebor, Elizabeth Hartfield, Jordan Valinsky and Kara Scannell contributed to this report.