The Hated One

This is how they caught Luigi Mangione (Patreon)

Published:

2024-12-16 20:36:58

Imported:

2024-12

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Luigi Mangione has been identified as the suspect who on December 4 unalived a UnitedHealthCare CEO outside Hilton Hotel in New York City. Mangione was sitting in the corner of a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, wearing a blue medical mask and looking at a computer. Someone from the restaurant recognized him as he was wearing similar clothing as the suspect the New York Police was looking for.

But the restaurant was 300 miles away from the crime scene. How did the suspect escape so far and how could the police follow him all the way there?

It wasn’t this tip that ended the manhunt. It was a series of events and mistakes that eventually left enough trail for the police to follow. This is how Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the CEO assassination, got caught.

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First impressions

When the footage of the deed first came out, it was very quick and cold. It almost looked it was done by a professional. The target is Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealth, a major health insurance company set on a path of multiple strategic mergers and acquisitions. [10, 15 – 17]

He is walking outside Hilton Hotel in Manhattan where the company will hold an investors conference.

How did the shooter know about this? The investors conference is an annual event and was publicly announced on the corporate website. [0]

It was probably just a matter of waiting him out with a little bit of social engineering on LinkedIn.

On the footage, there is a man holding a gun. He’s covered head to toe, fully masked, not leaving a trace of hairstyle or enough of his face to be identified. Until later on, the police reveal an image from a surveillance camera at a hostel the suspect was booked in. [7] It might seem this is the moment that lead to his end as we can see his face with a mask pulled down, but I don’t think that’s the case.

The images show his face in difficult lighting conditions from a very unnatural high angle in both images and smiling ear to ear in one of them. He is still wearing his hoodie, which is obfuscating a good portion of his visage, including his hairstyle, ears and neck. Despite some popular misconceptions, facial recognition AI is going to have a hard time ID’ing someone from such pics alone. It’s a very imprecise tool that is prone to error and can’t be relied upon as much as the hype would have you believe. [1]

So to help identify him, the police publicize the images in hopes to get the public to provide more information. But not even his family or friends could recognize him from these images. Now the only hope is that there will be a crucial tip based on his profile that will lead to his arrest.

The backpack

What’s more important than a suspect’s face? It is their profile. Their general height, build, skin tone, types of clothes they’re wearing, accessories, hats, glasses, bags… Similar manhunts in the past were relying on the same tactic – not advanced algorithms, but combing through every surveillance camera available and good old fashioned profiling.

In this particular instance, even though he seems to have been going for a gray man outfit, I find a couple of things that make him stand out even in New York City.

The first thing that sticks out the most is the backpack. He chose the most unique looking backpack imaginable, although I might understand a few reasons why. The bag seems to be the gray variant of PeakDesign Everyday Backpack. This is a $300 bag that is marketed primarily to influencers, photographers and techies. It’s usually featured as a camera bag. [2]

So all of that plus the premium prize suggest this backpack is gonna be very unique in any regular public area. I think the police was able to snatch multiple images from surveillance cameras mostly just following the bag itself.

The bag might have been chosen intentionally though. It has very large side openings which allow for extremely convenient and quick access to large equipment for quick street shooting. I mean, it’s an amazing bag. I wish I could have it. I have a PeakDesign tech pouch and it’s absolutely amazing. I am not sponsored, but honestly, I wish I was ‘cuz I wanna afford that amazing backpack. So PeakDesign, in case you’re watching, hit me up!

And it also seems the suspect wanted the bag to be found, because when he ditched it and the police recovered it, it only contained a Tommy Hilfiger jacket and Monopoly money. So he wanted to send a statement while on the run. [3] [14]

The profile

I think this is one of the major mistakes in a series of more to come. He clearly felt way too confident to be sending a statement by leaving evidence behind, because his profile game and operational security where a far cry from perfect. In some cases, he appeared very careful and cautious, while in others, he made detrimental errors. [9]

When booking into the New York City hostel, he shared a room with two other men. This sounds as an odd choice, but the men said they never saw Mangione’s face because he always kept his mask on. [4]

He only showed his face to the hostel’s receptionist whom the police say he was flirting with when she asked him to see his smile. That was a mistake, no doubt about that, even more so for the fact he went out of his way to use a fake New Jersey license. [5 – 7]

The problem was, that after the police were able to follow him based on his backpack, they’ve picked up enough of his profile to keep following his movements even after he ditched it. The man was always wearing the same type of clothes, always trying to hide his face with a mask and hooded clothing.

He is seen biking in the city using the same clothes and shoes. He is seen in a Starbucks shop. And he is seen walking on the street. The police were able to trace his movements all the way back to November 24, when he first arrived into the city. [4, 5] And they also knew exactly when he left the city when he was on the run. [8] The police were able to follow his movements back in time from camera to camera.

And here is where I think he made the biggest mistake. Here is a picture taken from a taxi camera he is about to take. Even if you can’t see his full face, you can be reasonably certain this is your guy. Then he steps into the taxi and for some reason, he looks straight into the camera, point blank, up close, still wearing a mask, but clearly showing his full eyes and brows.

And while before you had a semi-complete picture of the bottom half of his face, now he gave everyone a full closeup of the top half of his face, completing the full profile of his visage when wearing a hoodie. This is the picture that nailed it for me that this was not a professional as some people assumed. I don’t know many assassins but I know it’s self-defeating to be searching for surveillance cameras with your own gaze to avoid detection.

To be honest, the fact that nobody tipped off the police about his whereabouts when fleeing 300 miles into Pennsylvania, says a lot more about the American public and their opinion on the matter, than the skill and ability of this guy to evade detection.

For some reason, this guy is seen bringing his phone to this area and he is actually using it. [10]

That’s a treasure chest of data points the police can easily pick up from telephone companies and Google or Apple, even if it was a burner phone. That phone will be instantly identified and will provide full history of its location, all calls, texts and contacts, and where that phone was obtained from. That’s before the police even gets their hands on the device. The police knew this was an amateur and that boosted their confidence that they were going to catch him.

Conspiracy

Because he clearly went out of this way to hide his face with a mask, he evidently thought about that. But he did it in the most naive and sloppy way, completely oblivious to everything about profiling. I’ve seen a lot of people on social media claiming this is all a conspiracy. That the guy they caught in Pennsylvania McDonald’s is not the shooter because the shooter was so careful and skillful in New York City. But all of these mistakes happened before he even boarded the bus to leave the city. He regularly moved around and ordered from fast-food chains. He discarded trash from candy bars and water bottles that the police were able to collect for DNA samples. [4, 7, 11] He left a smudged fingerprint on a Starbucks cup. [11] There is no chance this was a guy who knew what he was doing. He left everything for the police to use against him for the moment he finally does get caught. [9]

Getting caught

So it’s several days after the shooting. The guy has much of the American public on his side due to the disgruntled feelings Americans have towards private health insurance companies. So he decides to go to a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He is on his laptop, wearing a medical mask and the same type of clothes he had in NYC. Someone from the restaurant recognizes him and calls the police. They arrive and question him. He presents the same FAKE ID he used to check into the New York City hostel. And that’s how we know that all rationality and thought were exhausted on planning of the attack and none was left for the rest. [12, 13]

Conclusion

I have a suspicion that if he didn’t have so much of the American public on his side, at least judging by the comments and memes on social media, he would have been tipped off a lot sooner. [8]

Even after changing his clothes and ditching the backpack, he maintained the same profile. He left troves of data points throughout his movements and lingered on in public places long enough for someone to tip the police. And that’s how Luigi Mangione got caught.

If you like this rundown of “how they got caught”, let me know in the comments and this could become its own series. And please support me on Patreon as YouTube is punishing my videos on subjects like this one. I am doing my podcast there that you can access in full and with early access if you become a paid member. Thank you for your support!