Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old charged with the homicide of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, as soon as belonged to a gaggle of Ivy League avid gamers who would play murderer video games, in accordance with a report.
Alejandro Romero, a College of Pennsylvania scholar from the identical Discord gaming group as Mangione, mentioned they’d play “Among Us,” a sport the place some gamers should secretly kill others with out elevating suspicions.
“I just found it extremely ironic that, you know, we were in this game and there could actually be a true killer among us,” Romero informed NBC Information.
“As soon as his photo and name popped up on X, my friend texted me asking if I knew him, and then either I was calling some 10 friends or they were calling me,” he continued. “I didn’t speak to anybody today who wasn’t already aware of what had happened.”
Mangione, a Maryland native, was arraigned on weapons expenses Monday night after being arrested that morning when a McDonald’s employee at an Altoona, Pa., franchise thought they acknowledged him from wished posters and known as the police.
Romero, who mentioned he had not seen or spoken to Mangione since 2020, remembered him as a typical faculty scholar.
“He just fit a mold,” Romero mentioned. “He just seemed like any other normal frat dude that you could see at a frat party.”
After the pandemic minimize their senior 12 months brief, the Discord group saved the chums linked, however just for a while, in accordance with Romero, who mentioned individuals began to float as they bought jobs and began their grownup lives.
Within the years since leaving faculty, Mangione left behind a weird and befuddling mixture of political opinions on social media — with posts expressing viewpoints from seemingly each nook of the political spectrum.
Mangione additionally expressed his love for a slew of authors, bloggers, thinkers, and revolutionists together with Aldous Huxley, Tim City, Jonathan Haidt, and Ted Kzacinski, leaving a assessment of his “Unabomber Manifesto” on Goodreads, a social media website for e book opinions.
What we all know in regards to the capturing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
- Brian Thompson, the CEO of insurance coverage large UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down Wednesday outdoors a luxurious Midtown lodge in a “brazen, targeted attack,” police mentioned.
- Thompson was named CEO of UnitedHealth in April 2021. He joined the corporate in 2004. He was one among a number of senior executives on the firm below investigation by the Division of Justice.
- Thompson’s spouse, Paulette, mentioned her husband had been getting threats earlier than he was killed.
- Thompson’s capturing led to sick help on-line, and even spurred a tasteless lookalike competitors in NYC.
- An individual of curiosity has been nabbed by law enforcement officials inside a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa.
- The suspect has been recognized as Luigi Mangione, 26, initially from Towson, Md. He’s a former Ivy League scholar who hated the medical group.
Observe together with The Submit’s stay updates on the information surrounding Brian Thompson’s homicide.
The 26-year-old shared a quote on his Goodreads account from Kaczynski, the notorious “Unabomber’’ who terrorized the nation for almost twenty years by mailing lethal bombs earlier than he was nabbed in 1996.
“Think about a society that topics individuals to situations that make them terribly sad then offers them the medication to remove their unhappiness,’’ Kaczynski wrote at one level in a quote appreciated by Mangione.
When requested about Mangione’s perplexing on-line persona, Romero had related questions.
“I feel like people are unsure how to label him,” he informed the outlet. “I’m personally struggling to know how this all suits.
