Photo by Pennsylvania Department of Corrections via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Luigi Mangione, who is accused of second-degree murder for allegedly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City, could face additional charges, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Asked why Mangione was charged with second-degree murder, Bragg told ABC News that prosecutors wanted to bring charges quickly and first-degree murder “has a number of delineated circumstances.”
“Murder 2 is the intentional killing of a person, punishable by 25 years to life under New York law,” Bragg said Wednesday.
“Murder 1 has a number of delineated circumstances, including, for example, a serial murder, murder of a witness, murder of a police officer,” he explained.
“As we learn more about motives and other things like that … there may be additional charges,” Bragg said.
Mangione is also charged in New York with criminal possession of a forged instrument and several counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate, is accused of shooting Thompson outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4 while the CEO was heading to an investors conference.
Thompson’s murder ignited online anger at the health insurance industry and some people online have celebrated the suspect.
“Celebrating murder is abhorrent,” Bragg said. “I sit across the table from families who’ve had a loved one killed. And to think of people celebrating that … is beyond comprehension to me.”
“What I would say to members of the public … [who are] celebrating this and maybe contemplating other action: We will be vigilant and we will hold people accountable,” Bragg said.
The ghost gun allegedly in Mangione’s possession when he was arrested has been matched to three shell casings recovered at the murder scene, according to the NYPD.
Bragg, who has focused on cracking down on ghost guns during his time as DA, stressed, “They are lethal in the same way as a traditional gun. What is so scary about them is you can buy a 3D printer and you can print them right from your kitchen table.”
“[It’s] something we’re seeing more and more in use,” he said.
Fingerprints recovered from a water bottle and a Kind bar near the crime scene have also been matched to Mangione, police said.
Mangione was apprehended in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday after nearly one week on the run. He’s also facing charges in Pennsylvania, including allegedly possessing an untraceable ghost gun.
Mangione plans to challenge his extradition to New York.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said it will seek a governor’s warrant to try to force Mangione’s extradition. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement that she’ll sign a request for the governor’s warrant “to ensure this individual is tried and held accountable.”
Bragg said, “We will get the defendant here and bring him to justice through our court proceeding.”
“We’re prepared to go forward,” he said. “We’re on the path to accountability and justice.”
(GREEN LAKE, Wis.) — Ryan Borgwardt, the husband and father who authorities said faked his own death at a lake and fled the country, has returned to the U.S. willingly and is now in custody in Wisconsin, the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office announced on Wednesday.
Borgwardt — who is accused of intentionally misleading authorities to believe he drowned this summer — notified officials he was returning and he landed in the U.S. on Tuesday, Sheriff Mark Podoll said at a news conference, but the sheriff did not reveal from where he flew.
Podoll said authorities are still putting together where Borgwardt was and who he was with since he vanished in August, but said he’s “cooperated” with law enforcement.
Borgwardt “researched other individuals that had successfully disappeared recently,” including lake deaths and “how deep a body has to be without resurfacing,” according to the criminal complaint.
When he was abroad and trying to stay under the radar, Borgwardt said he checked the news but usually avoided clicking on articles, the complaint said. The criminal complaint mentions Borgwardt having been in the country of Georgia.
Borgwardt said when he did click on a news article, “he would use a VPN and sometimes make it look like he was in Russia or somewhere else other than Georgia,” the complaint said. “Ryan stated that he knew that Georgia would have to extradite him and he wanted to be informed and prepared.”
Asked what compelled Borgwardt to come back, Podoll said, “His family, I guess.”
Podoll did not say if Borgwardt has had contact with his wife and children.
Borgwardt, who is charged with obstructing an officer, made his first court appearance on Wednesday. He faces up to a $10,000 fine and nine months in prison for alleged obstruction of an officer.
A signature bond was set at $500, since he “voluntarily turned himself in” from “halfway around the world,” the judge said. When the judge asked if he could afford any bail, Borgwardt replied, “I have $20 in my wallet.”
The case began on Aug. 11, when Borgwardt texted his wife that he was turning his kayak around on Green Lake and heading to shore soon, Podoll said.
But the dad of three never came home.
Responders found Borgwardt’s overturned kayak and life jacket in the lake and believed he drowned, officials said.
Crews scoured the lake for weeks using divers, drones, sonar and cadaver K-9s, but never found him, officials said.
In October, investigators discovered Borgwardt’s name had been checked by law enforcement in Canada two days after he vanished on the lake, the sheriff said.
Authorities also learned Borgwardt had been communicating with a woman from Uzbekistan, the sheriff said.
Borgwardt’s other suspicious behavior included: clearing his browsers the day he disappeared, inquiring about moving funds to foreign banks, obtaining a new passport and getting a new life insurance policy, the sheriff said.
Authorities determined Borgwardt was alive and likely in Eastern Europe or western Asia, but they didn’t know exactly where he was located. Authorities made contact with a woman who speaks Russian, and in November, they reached Borgwardt through that woman, authorities said.
Borgwardt said when he got the email from authorities, his “heart hit the floor,” the complaint said.
Borgwardt told police he was safe but didn’t reveal his location, the sheriff said.
Borgwardt did reveal to authorities how he faked his death.
“He stashed an e-bike near the boat launch. He paddled his kayak in a child-sized floating boat out into the lake. He overturned the kayak and dumped his phone in the lake,” the sheriff said at a news conference in November. “He paddled the inflatable boat to shore and got on his e-bike and rode through the night to Madison, [Wisconsin]. In Madison, he boarded a bus and went to Detroit, and then the Canadian border.”
Borgwardt said the Canadian Border Patrol was “suspicious” that he didn’t have a driver’s license or flight itinerary with him, but “ultimately, they allowed him to continue,” according to the complaint.
At the airport in Toronto, Borgwardt said he bought a flight to Paris.
On the plane, Borgwardt said he searched for news in Green Lake and saw “something about the missing kayaker and believes that his plan had worked,” according to the complaint.
After he landed in Paris he flew to a country in Asia, the complaint said.
An unidentified woman picked him up and they went to a hotel where they stayed for a couple of days, the complaint said.
Borgwardt was later in an apartment, according to a video he made for law enforcement.
No one else is facing charges, the sheriff said.
Asked if Borgwardt will be required to reimburse the county for the money spent on the search, Podoll told reporters, “That’s part of the restitution that we present to the court.”
(NEW YORK) — The ghost gun allegedly in Luigi Mangione’s possession when he was arrested in Pennsylvania has been matched to three shell casings recovered at the scene of Brian Thompson’s murder in New York City, NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday.
Fingerprints recovered from a water bottle and a Kind bar near the crime scene have also been matched to Mangione, she said.
Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate, is accused of gunning down Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO, outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4.
Written on the shell casings were the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” according to police sources.
Mangione was apprehended in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday after nearly one week on the run.
Mangione allegedly had a spiral notebook detailing plans about how to eventually kill the CEO, according to law enforcement officials.
One passage allegedly said, “What do you do? You whack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention,” the officials said.
The writings said using explosives in the attack could “risk innocents,” according to the officials.
Detectives are still examining Mangione’s writings but are considering the contents of the notebook to represent a confession, sources said.
Investigators have started interviewing members of Mangione’s family, according to sources.
A judge in Pennsylvania ordered Mangione held without bail on Tuesday. In Pennsylvania he faces charges including allegedly possessing an untraceable ghost gun.
Mangione plans to challenge his extradition to New York, where he faces charges including second-degree murder.
“He has constitutional rights and that’s what he’s doing” in challenging the interstate transfer, defense attorney Thomas Dickey told reporters on Tuesday.
Mangione is “taking it as well as he can,” Dickey added.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said it will seek a governor’s warrant to try to force Mangione’s extradition. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement that she’ll sign a request for the governor’s warrant “to ensure this individual is tried and held accountable.”
Mangione’s attorney told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that anyone speculating on the case should take the potential evidence “in its entirety,” not taking pieces of writing or other evidence “out of context.”
“People put out certain things, parts of different things,” he said. “I think any lawyer involved in this situation would want to see it all.”
Mangione plans to plead not guilty to the charges in Pennsylvania, Dickey said. Dickey said he anticipates Mangione would also plead not guilty to the second-degree murder charge in New York.
ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik, Mark Crudele, Luke Barr, Peter Charalambous and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Millions of Americans should prepare for an Arctic blast that will blanket much of the country in below-freezing temperatures over the next several days.
Frigid conditions are expected over a large swath of the contiguous U.S. in the aftermath of a powerful cold front moving through the East Coast on Wednesday, forecasts show.
Once the rain and wind has subsided, the icy conditions will extend east and south from the upper Midwest — reaching as far as Texas and Florida.
The cold air moving over the Great Lakes while they are still ice-free is expected to generate a lake effect snow event.
The National Weather Service has issued a lake effect snow warning for portions of northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York, where locally 2 feet to 3 feet of snow is possible, forecasts show.
A winter storm warning has also been issued across portions of Wisconsin and Michigan, where locally 1 foot to 2 feet of lake-effect snow is possible.
Chilly temperatures got an early start in the upper Midwest. On Wednesday morning, wind chills dipped to as low as -38 degrees in eastern North Dakota.
The arctic air mass will then move east and south, bringing the coldest air of the season from Texas to New York. A frost advisory has even been issued for parts of northern Florida, including Gainesville.
The frigid temperatures are expected to last through Friday and evening Saturday morning in some regions, including Minneapolis, Chicago, New York City and Atlanta.
The cold will begin to ease this weekend, first across the center of the country, then reaching the East Coast by Sunday and Monday.
Above average temperatures are favored across much of the country next week, according to the latest forecast from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
(MALIBU, Calif.) — A raging wildfire fanned by strong Santa Ana winds has spread to nearly 4,000 acres in Malibu, California, destroying homes and leaving more than 20,000 people under evacuation orders, including 98-year-old actor Dick Van Dyke and other celebrities in the oceanfront community.
The Franklin Fire, which erupted Monday night near the campus of Pepperdine University, was 7% contained on Wednesday morning as more than 1,500 firefighters were deployed to battle the blaze in the rugged and hilly terrain of Malibu Canyon, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
Burning through thick dry vegetation, the fire has been fueled by Santa Ana winds that have topped 90 mph, officials said.
In a message posted on his Facebook page, Van Dyke, who is set to turn 99 on Friday, said he and his wife, Arlene, were forced to evacuate as flames threatened their home in the secluded community of Serra Retreat in the hills of lower Malibu Canyon. He said all of his pets, except for his beloved cat Bobo, managed to escape.
“Arlene and I have safely evacuated with our animals except for Bobo…,” Van Dyke wrote. “We’re praying he’ll be ok and that our community in Serra Retreat will survive these terrible fires.”
In a follow-up Facebook message, Van Dyke posted a video of his cat, writing, “Hoping Bobo is ok.”
Other celebrities residing in the area were forced to flee the flames or stay on lockdown. Recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Cher also evacuated, according to her publicist.
“Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill said in an Instagram post that he has also been affected by the fire.
“We’re in lockdown because of the Malibu fires,” the 73-year-old Hamill said in the post. “Please stay safe everyone! I’m not allowed to leave the house, which fits in perfectly with my elderly-recluse lifestyle.”
The Franklin Fire erupted just before 11 p.m. Pacific time on Monday and quickly grew amid the blustery Santa Anna winds, which blow southwest toward the Pacific Ocean.
At least seven homes have been destroyed by the fire and another eight have been damaged, according to Cal Fire.
Power to about 40,000 customers was shut off by Monday night, including 11,000 in Los Angeles County, as Southern California Edison worked to mitigate the impacts of the Santa Ana winds, whose strong gusts can damage electrical equipment and spark more wildfires.
There have been no reports of deaths or injuries. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Pepperdine University canceled classes for the second straight day. When the fire erupted, officials put the campus on lockdown for about six hours before the order was lifted. As the fire grew on Tuesday, students were again ordered to seek shelter in the campus center and library, where students said they watched flames creep onto campus.
“Fire activity around Pepperdine’s Malibu campus has greatly diminished as the Franklin Fire has burned through most of the fuel immediately surrounding campus, but some flames are still visible in small pockets of campus,” the university said on its website.
Malibu resident Fred Robert described to ABC News seeing flames “coming straight down Malibu Canyon like a blowtorch.”
Red Flag warnings issued by the National Weather Service signaling the high risk of fire danger remained in effect Wednesday in the Malibu area.
“Time is of the essence for us to grab hold of the fire and start getting containment,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony C. Marrone said at a news conference Tuesday evening.
Marrone said firefighters are tackling the blaze from the ground and air “as they struggle to contain this stubborn fire.”
(NEW YORK) — The Alexander brothers — Alon, Oren and Tal — have been arrested on federal sex trafficking charges, according to New York prosecutors.
For well over a decade, the prominent real estate brothers conspired to “repeatedly and violently drug, sexually assault and rape dozens of women,” according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in New York after the brothers were arrested in Miami on Wednesday.
“At times, the Alexander brothers arranged for these sexual assaults well in advance, using the promise of luxury experiences, travel and accommodations to lure and entice women to locations where they were then forcibly raped or sexually assaulted, sometimes by multiple men, including one or more of the Alexander brothers,” the indictment said.
The allegedly “long-running sex trafficking scheme” began in 2010 and relied on “deception, fraud and coercion,” with the brothers flaunting their wealth to induce women to attend parties, events and trips where they were then attacked, prosecutors said.
Trips were organized in advance and the brothers allegedly shared photographs of women to make sure they were “sufficiently attractive.” The brothers used dating apps or social media to contact them or used party planners as intermediaries, according to the indictment.
The Alexanders also procured drugs, including GHB and cocaine, and would sometimes spike women’s drinks before assaulting them, the indictment said.
The brothers allegedly held down women and “ignored screams and explicit requests to stop.”
The indictment includes two victims, identified only as Victim 1 and Victim 2, and charges the brothers with conspiracy and forcible sex trafficking.
The brothers began their careers at Douglas Elliman, focusing on the real estate market in New York and Miami. They left and launched their own firm, Official, in 2022.
They had previously been accused in civil lawsuits of various acts of sexual misconduct.
(NEW YORK) — He was an Ivy League graduate and the valedictorian of his class at a private all-boys high school in Baltimore, where his wealthy family is prominent in the real estate business and owns country clubs and golf courses. Despite having a privileged background, Luigi Mangione was described by friends as “humble” and believed to be destined for a “bright future.”
But all that changed on Monday when the 26-year-old Mangione was named by police as the prime suspect in the brazen targeted shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson that unfolded in the middle of New York City and captured the nation’s attention.
“He was absolutely not a violent person as far as I could tell,” R.J. Martin, Mangione’s former roommate, told ABC News.
Martin said Mangione’s arrest in the murder case was “beyond shock.”
“It’s unimaginable,” Martin said.
Mangione was charged Monday night with second-degree murder in the killing of 50-year-old Thompson.
Investigators suspect that Mangione held a grudge against the medical insurance agency and may have been inspired by Ted Kaczynski, the mathematician-turn-domestic terrorist known as the “Unabomber” who blamed technology for a decline of individual freedom and mailed handcrafted explosives to targeted individuals between 1978 and 1995.
As police were escorting Mangione into a court hearing Tuesday in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, he yelled to reporters gathered at the scene, “It is completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people” before officers wrestled with him and hustled him into the courthouse.
Thompson, who lived in Minnesota, was walking alone on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk around 6:40 a.m. last Wednesday, heading to his company’s shareholders conference at the New York Hilton, when a mask and hooded gunman was captured on surveillance cameras lying in wait. The shooter calmly pulled out a 3D-printed ghost gun equipped with a silencer and opened fire from behind, police said.
After an intense five-day manhunt that took police to multiple states, Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, when a customer recognized him from surveillance photos and alerted an employee of the fast-food chain who called 911.
Altoona police officers confronted Mangione, who was wearing a medical mask and sitting alone at the rear of the McDonald’s looking at a laptop. They wrote in a criminal complaint that when they asked Mangione whether he had recently been in New York City, the suspect “became quiet and started to shake.”
During a news conference following the arrest, Altoona police officer Tyler Frye said he and his partner asked the man to pull down his mask.
“As soon as we pulled that down, or we asked him to pull it down, me and my partner recognized him immediately, just from what we saw in the media with photos, videos, we just didn’t even think twice about it. We knew that was our guy,” Frye said.
Document found on suspect ‘speaks to both motive and mindset’
Mangione appeared in court Monday night in Pennsylvania, where he was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and fraudulent pieces of identification. During his arrangement, the defendant, who appeared in court without an attorney, offered insight into his family history, suggesting he has been estranged from his relatives in recent months.
Despite his family’s wealth and prestige in the Baltimore area, Mangione requested on a court form that a public defender represent him. Though he has since retained a defense attorney, Thomas Dickey.
When a judge asked if he had been in touch with his family, Mangione said he was in touch “until recently.”
A Pennsylvania prosecutor asked the judge to hold Mangione without bail, saying the defendant had several thousand dollars in cash on him at the time of his arrest.
Mangione asked the judge to “correct” details the district attorney shared in court, specifically about how much money he had on him.
“I don’t have that much money,” he said, suggesting the cash was “a plant or something.”
Document speaks to ‘motivation’: Police
In a backpack Mangione had with him, police allegedly found a black 3D printed pistol and a black silencer, which was also 3D printed, that appears to match the weapon used to kill Thompson, according to the criminal complaint. They also discovered a three-page document on Mangione that NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said “speaks to both his motivation and mindset.”
In an interview Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny said the handwritten document from Mangione may shed light on why the executive of the country’s biggest insurance company was targeted.
“He does make some indication that he’s frustrated with the healthcare system in the United States, specifically he states how we are No. 1 most expensive healthcare system in the world … he was writing a lot about his disdain for corporate America,” Kenny said.
Sources with knowledge of the document told ABC News that UnitedHealthcare was mentioned in the document, but Tisch said it remains under investigation if Mangione has a personal connection to the healthcare giant.
Law enforcement sources also told ABC News that the document says “These parasites had it coming” and “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done.”
Mangione “appeared to view the targeted killing … as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and ‘power games,'” according to a confidential assessment by the NYPD intelligence bureau and described to ABC News by a source. Mangione allegedly described himself as the “first to face” UnitedHealthcare “with such brutal honesty,” according to the assessment.
Among the writings recovered in a spiral notebook were alleged plans concocting how to eventually kill the UnitedHealthcare CEO, according to law enforcement officials.
“What do you do? You whack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention,” one passage allegedly said, according to the officials.
The notebook also allegedly makes reference to the Unabomber, but the writings said that using explosives could “risk innocents,” according to the officials.
Detectives are still examining Mangione’s writings but are considering the contents of the notebook to represent a confession, sources said.
To plead not guilty
Dickey told reporters on Tuesday that Mangione will plead not guilty to the Pennsylvania charges. He said he anticipates that Mangione will also plead not guilty to the second-degree murder charge in New York.
The attorney said he has limited information about the facts of the New York murder case but he conceded Mangione is “accused of some serious matters.” He added that Mangione is “taking it as well as he can.”
Dickey told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that he had “not been made aware of any evidence that links the gun that was found on his person to the crime.”
“A lot of guns look the same,” Dickey said. “If you brought a gun in and said, ‘Well, it looks like that,’ I don’t even know if that evidence would be admissible. And if so, I would argue that it wouldn’t be given much weight.”
Dickey also cautioned that anyone speculating on the case should take the potential evidence “in its entirety,” not taking pieces of writing or other evidence “out of context.”
Family ‘shocked and devastated’
As investigators sift through Mangione’s online activity, they are examining multiple social media posts that suggest he may have suffered a major back injury including a photo of an X-ray of a spine posted on X and at least two books about back injuries on his Goodreads profile.
Martin told ABC News that he was aware of Mangione’s back surgery.
“I knew he was going to have a surgery so earlier this year I checked in with him,” Martin said. “He confirmed to me that he had had the surgery and he sent me X-rays. It looked heinous with giant screws going into his spine.”
Another high school classmate of Mangione, who asked not to be identified, told ABC News that the suspect had undergone back surgery in recent months.
“Whether it was complications from his back surgery or personal issues with his family and the healthcare system, it definitely came as a huge huge surprise just because he’s not the type of person to do this without reason,” the classmate said.
Mangione’s family released a statement Monday saying they are “shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest.”
“We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved,” Mangione’s cousin, Maryland Republican Delegate Nino Mangione, who represents parts of Baltimore County, wrote on X on behalf of the family.
Mangione’s extended family owns Hayfields Country Club in Hunt Valley, Maryland, Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City, Maryland and WCBM, an AM talk radio station based out of Owings Mills, according to ABC affiliate station WMAR.
High school valedictorian
In Baltimore, Mangione attended Gilman School, an all-boys private school with an annual tuition of nearly $40,000. He was the valedictorian of his 2016 graduating class.
“The class of 2016’s inventiveness also stems from its incredible courage to explore the unknown and try new things,” Mangione said in his valedictorian speech.
The school said in a statement that Mangione’s “suspected involvement in this case is deeply distressing news on top of an already awful situation.”
The friend who asked not to be identified said Mangione “was not a problematic kid” in high school.
“In high school, he’d never really got into trouble, was not attention seeking or anything like that. Just a bright kid with a bright future,” the friend said.
Mangione is a May 2020 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, according to a school spokesperson. He studied computer science and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from the Ivy League institution.
Following his graduation, Mangione worked as a data engineer at online car marketplace TrueCar, Inc. beginning in November 2020, according to a LinkedIn account that appears to belong to Mangione.
A representative for TrueCar said that Mangione stopped working for the company in 2023.
Mangione’s last known address was in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was arrested in November 2023 for trespassing in a Hawaii state park, court records show. He pleaded no contest and was ordered to pay a $100 fine.
NYPD officials said a background check of Mangione has, so far, uncovered no other criminal in New York and throughout the rest of the country.
Mangione also has ties to San Francisco, where in 2019 he worked as a head program counselor at Stanford University, according to a school representative.
His family was searching for him
The friend who asked not to be identified said Mangione fell off the radar of his family and friends about six months ago.
The classmate said he was notified by other classmates that Mangione’s family was “inquiring about his whereabouts.”
Mangione’s mother filed a missing person report in November with the San Francisco Police Department, seeking information on her son’s whereabouts, two law enforcement sources told ABC News. Both the San Francisco police chief and a spokesperson for the department referred further questions about that inquiry to the NYPD.
“I didn’t hear anything about him until today when all the news dropped,” the friend said on Monday. “It really sucks for his family, who must be going through it right now.”
Unabomber manifesto review
A Goodreads account that appears to belong to Mangione left a four-star review on Ted Kaczynski’s “Industrial Society and Its Future” — more commonly known as the “Unabomber manifesto.”
In the review, Mangione described Kaczynski as “a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people.”
“While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy Luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary,” Mangione wrote.
A source confirmed to ABC News that the Goodreads account is part of the law enforcement investigation.
According to the NYPD intelligence analysis conducted in the case, “Mangione may have found inspiration in Ted Kaczynski — the violent, anti-technology extremist known as the Unabomber — echoing in his note and reflecting in his targeting a similar mindset of the need for unilateral action to bring attention to abusive corporate actions.”
This story has been updated.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous, Madison Burinsky, Kate Holland, Chris Looft, Sabina Ghebremedhin, Kaitlyn Morris, Hannah Prince and Alexandra Myers contributed to this report.
John Kuklis, a clerk at the Horseshoe Curve Lodge in Altoona, Penn., is seen on “Good Morning America,” on Dec. 11, 2024. ABC News
(ALTOONA, Penn.) — Before he was arrested Luigi Mangione walked into the Horseshoe Curve Lodge in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday looking for a room, according to the desk clerk who greeted him and noticed what he described as the man’s shifty behavior.
“He basically just walked in kind of cagey, just looking around, making sure he wasn’t being watched, asked if he could get a room here,” the hotel clerk, John Kuklis, told ABC News.
But that wasn’t the reason Kuklis had to turn the man away. They didn’t have a clean room available at that early hour, he said.
“I told him that he wouldn’t be able to get one right now, that our housekeeper hadn’t cleaned the rooms yet, that he had to come back at one o’clock. He asked if he could wait here. I told him no, because at the time, I didn’t know that I could just allow him to wait for, you know, half the day. And he said, ‘OK.’ And he turned around and just left. Didn’t say nothing. Never took his mask down,” Kuklis said.
Mangione’s arrival on Monday, the morning he was later arrested, came days after last week’s fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. Mangione faces a second-degree murder charge in connection with that killing. His defense attorney, Thomas Dickey, said he anticipates that Mangione will plead not guilty.
The Horseshoe Curve Lodge is roughly a 17-minute walk from the McDonald’s where authorities would later confront Mangione, and take him into custody. Rooms at that hotel cost around $60 a night, according to a review of online price quotes.
At first, Kuklis thought the young man might be a veteran just returned to civilian life — there are “a lot of vets that stay here,” Kuklis said, and thought that might perhaps be why the young man was acting somewhat circumspect.
He added, “When [vets] come back, they have — anybody that walks up behind ’em, or you feel a little shadow, or you hear a specific noise, you just kind of look over your shoulders, watch yourself, and he just, he was like, wouldn’t turn his head, but his eyes were constantly looking like, is there somebody coming behind me, watching his surroundings?”
Had Mangione been able to get a room, Kuklis said, he would have been asked to show ID — but that didn’t happen. Mangione has been charged with falsely identifying himself to police, according to a complaint filed in Blair County, Pennsylvania.
Tuesday, officers called the hotel, asking if the suspect had stayed there, the clerk said.
“They called this morning and asked if he had stayed here, I says, no,” Kuklis said, but mentioned to police the young man’s earlier attempt to book a stay. “The officer goes, ‘did he have a mask on? Did he ever take a mask off?'” Kuklis said, realizing in real time to the officer, “No, he never did take the mask off.'”
“Next thing I know there’s three Logan Township police cars pulling in the parking lot. I’m like, holy crap” Kuklis said. “We pulled up our surveillance stuff, they go, ‘Yeah, that’s him.'”
Looking back, Kuklis said he “didn’t even realize” that furtive young man might have been carrying the very weapon allegedly used to gun down the CEO. “I mean, theoretically, I guess he could have just pulled it out and shot me.”
(GREEN LAKE, Wis.) — Ryan Borgwardt, the husband and father who authorities said faked his own death and fled the U.S., is back in custody in Wisconsin, according to the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll will announce more details at a news conference at 11 a.m. ET Wednesday.
The case began on Aug. 11, when Borgwardt texted his wife that he was turning his kayak around on Green Lake and heading to shore soon, Podoll said.
But the dad of three never came home.
Responders found Borgwardt’s overturned kayak and life jacket in the lake and believed he drowned, officials said.
Crews scoured the lake for weeks using divers, drones, sonar and cadaver K-9s, but never found him, officials said.
In October, investigators discovered Borgwardt’s name had been checked by law enforcement in Canada two days after he vanished on the lake, the sheriff said.
Authorities also learned Borgwardt had been communicating with a woman from Uzbekistan, the sheriff said.
Borgwardt’s other suspicious behavior included: clearing his browsers the day he disappeared, inquiring about moving funds to foreign banks, obtaining a new passport and getting a new life insurance policy, the sheriff said.
Authorities determined Borgwardt was alive out of the country, but didn’t know exactly where he was located. Authorities made contact with a woman who speaks Russian, and on Nov. 11, they reached Borgwardt through that woman, authorities said.
Borgwardt told police he was safe but didn’t reveal his location, the sheriff said.
Podoll said Borgwardt did reveal to them how he faked his death.
“He stashed an e-bike near the boat launch. He paddled his kayak in a child-sized floating boat out into the lake. He overturned the kayak and dumped his phone in the lake,” the sheriff said. “He paddled the inflatable boat to shore and got on his e-bike and rode through the night to Madison, [Wisconsin]. In Madison, he boarded a bus and went to Detroit, and then the Canadian border. He continued on the bus to an airport and got on a plane.”
One of the reasons Borgwardt picked Green Lake is because it’s one of the deepest lakes in the state, Podoll said.
