Bay Area Ties of Luigi Mangione, Suspect in CEO’s Killing, Raise Questions

Updated 12:38 p.m. Tuesday 

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old man charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, has Bay Area ties and was reportedly the subject of a recent missing person report in San Francisco.

Mangione was arrested in central Pennsylvania on Monday morning as a “strong person of interest” in the killing of Brian Thompson, and he was charged in Manhattan late that night. He is believed to have spent at least a summer in the Bay Area, working at Stanford in 2019, but it appears his family may have had reason to believe he was in San Francisco as recently as last month.

The San Francisco Standard is reporting that Mangione’s mother reported him missing to the San Francisco Police Department on Nov. 18, according to a police source with knowledge of the case.

Kathleen Mangione made a report, but it was not immediately clear whether he had been in San Francisco or she had reason to believe he had, according to the Standard. Mangione is believed to have been suffering from a painful back injury and stopped communicating with family and friends unexpectedly about six months ago, the New York Times reported.

SFPD Chief Bill Scott, when asked at an unrelated press conference Tuesday morning, would neither confirm nor deny the existence of a missing person report.

During a press conference on Monday confirming Mangione’s arrest, New York City Police Department officials said that he had ties to San Francisco but did not elaborate.

Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after local law enforcement was dispatched to a McDonald’s, where an employee spotted someone matching the description of the murder suspect.

He was found with a firearm and suppressor consistent with the weapon used in the killing, along with a mask and clothes matching the wanted person’s clothing. He also had multiple fraudulent IDs, including one from New Jersey that matched the one the suspect used to check into a New York City hostel before the shooting, according to New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

A written document that was said to include information about his “motivation” and “mindset” was also recovered.

According to a LinkedIn profile that seems to belong to Mangione, he worked as a head counselor at Stanford’s pre-college summer program for high school students. Stanford spokesperson Dee Mostofi confirmed that a person with the same name was employed as a head counselor from May to September 2019.

During that time, Mangione advised students in the program and worked as a teaching assistant for those studying artificial intelligence. Head counselors generally live on campus, serving as “visible role models and leaders” for the programs’ participants, according to Stanford’s website.

He was officially charged with second-degree murder in connection with Thompson’s killing Monday night, the Times reported. He also faces charges in Pennsylvania of forgery, tampering with records, falsely identifying himself to law enforcement, carrying a firearm without a license and possessing an “instrument of crime” with intent.

According to court records, his last known address is in Honolulu.

Mangione is currently being held in prison in Blair County, Pennsylvania. He was denied bail and appeared at an extradition hearing Tuesday where his attorney, Thomas Dickey, said he was contesting his extradition to New York, the Times reported.