Youre supporting a criminal, a woman on the other end of the line told Mantova.
Im not coming to your place anymore.
Fine, dont come!
Luigi Mangione attended the prestigious, all-boys Gilman School in North Baltimore.Amy Davis/”Baltimore Sun”/Tribune News Service/Getty Images
the 64-year-old replied in his heavy Italian accent, and hung up.
Some echoed the womans sentiments, accusing Mantova of supporting murder.
One man called with a death threat.
Some callers want to talk about their negative experiences with health-insurance claims and denials.
(Mantova turned them down but thanked them for the offer.)
Italian music blares from the speakers.
So, he was happy to post it.
Another photo of the suspect showed them at Starbucks, black mask pulled tightly over their nose and mouth.
This wasnt a random victim the bullets seemed to indicate that Thompson was targeted because of his work.
This support has transcended political, racial, and even class divides, reads Mangiones only public statement.
Finally, on Dec. 9, a name was released.
The primary suspect was Mangione.
The details made public about the 26-year-old only exacerbated the frenzy around the crime.
So, what happened?
But who is Luigi Mangione, really?
And how did he become the most debated and polarizing murder suspect in recent history?
Even when playing as a kid, Mangione was analytical and science-oriented.
Once, he and a group of friends drew pictures of their dream homes.
It was everything I needed.
Nothing more, nothing less, Mangione later recounted in a Reddit post.
They thought I was weird.
I thought their mansions were full of lots of bullshit.
I suppose Ive always been hyper-obsessed with efficiency, and Ive never been very materialistic.
Theyve done so much for their community.
Mr. Nick made it from nothing.
Capitalism runs through their veins.
Nick, Mangionesnonno,was a pillar of the Italian American community.
The son of a Sicilian immigrant, he grew up in Baltimores Little Italy neighborhood.
They left physically, but they were [often] here to support festivals, events.
Mangiones mother, aunts, uncles, and cousins often played in the local bocce league with Blattermann.
Occasionally, Mangione would sub in for his older cousin Michael, who Blattermann says looks like Mangiones twin.
He was a good kid, she says of Luigi.
(Mangiones parents donated to both Republicans and Democrats.
Luigis 2016 Pennsylvania voter registration didnt declare a party.)
Theyre viewed very favorably, Maronick says of the Mangiones.
They seem to have a lot of clout, [and] to treat people well, Maronick says.
My sense is that this is very difficult for them.
Boys in ties and button-downs shuffle between the grand white-columned buildings on campus.
In Baltimore, Gilman is more than just an institution its an identity.
Luigi was in this crew of kids you knew were going to do groundbreaking science research.
Mangiones sisters and many of his cousins went to Catholic private schools in the Baltimore area.
I think [Luigis parents] understood how precocious he was as a student, as a science kid.
If you ask me to rank my class in wealth, he would not have been high.
And in a town where lacrosse is king, Mangione played soccer and wrestled.
But Luigi was the only one [of them] you could shoot the shit with.
Once you got him talking, he had all of the kind of suave, cool-guy vibes.
Mangione spent a lot of his time at the robotics lab in Gilmans science building.
He was always keeping everybodys energy up.
In high school, Mangione would get to school in the morning at seven to study before classes started.
There was an arrogance to him, remembers James.
Classes at Gilman were structured more like college courses.
One teacher Mangione connected with taught a course about U.S. history through the lens of class conflict.
Be excited for what the future holds for us, Mangione told the sea of boys.
We may have been born into one of the most exciting times on Earth, regardless of the singularity.
We might not recognize it in our day-to-day lives, but the world is changing fast.
He majored in artificial intelligence and minored in mathematics at the Ivy League engineering school.
The symptoms worsened his freshman year, which had a significant impact on his life at Penn.
Luigi was always chasing perfection, because his identity was being smart.
He wrote that the drinking and lack of sleep exacerbated his brain fog.
I simply wasnt able to recover from a week of disturbed sleep, Mangione wrote.
Still, Mangione was social and was known as a friendly, charming student.
After Mangiones arrest, one friend toldBusiness Insider, I would set my sister or friend up with him.
Just knowing his personality, I would completely trust him.
In May 2019, a Penn Facebook account called Penn Crushes tagged Mangione, writing, Hot damn.
You make us engineers have hope!
He replied, Despite all my best efforts … yup still single.
David says Mangione was always good-natured about the attention.
As a camp counselor, he was popular, too.
He was such a thoughtful and deeply compassionate person, said a Hawaii friend.
Mangione had moved to Hawaii after graduation, determined to focus on his health.
For his first six months there, Mangiones home was Surfbreak, a co-living space marketed to digital nomads.
He worked remotely as a data engineer at the online car-buying platform TrueCar.
He spent his free time hiking, stargazing, and reading.
He was known for getting around on his bicycle, and walking his friends home at night.
His yoga teacher, Dorian Wright, says he modified Mangiones practice to help with his lower-back pain.
He added, Data engineering paid super well but was mind-numbingly boring.
Danny also says he never heard that complaint from Mangione.
Remember that the human body is supposed to exist in a pain-free state.
Constant pain means something is wrong.
Even with metal in my back, Im not in pain.
But its simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.
Mangione also quoted another readers passage about Kaczynskis manifesto, which he found interesting.
When all other forms of communication fail, reads the passage, violence is necessary to survive.
He hopped around to different countries, sometimes traveling by motorcycle.
He was very friendly, Obaratold NBC.
They claimed that Mangione visited a shooting range during his trip a popular activity for tourists there.
He also complained about back pain, they said, and turned down going on a hike.
Tell them you are unable to work/do your job, he wrote.
We live in a capitalist society.
Elon Musk praised Urbans book about political polarization,Whats Our Problem?
Urbans book posits that people in the U.S. have lost the ability to communicate because of political tribalism.
We live in a capitalist society, Mangione wrote last year on social media.
Japan is peak NPC-ville, Mangione wrote in an April 16 email to Bhogal.
Scary lack of free will in this country.
They spoke for two hours.
(When asked if Bhogals representation of the call was accurate, Mangiones attorneys declined to comment.)
During the call, Bhogal tells me, he got the sense Mangione had been feeling alienated.
Bhogal says that Mangione came across as anti-tribalist, anti-DEI, pro-free speech, pro-equality, and anti-consumerism.
He didnt like that people were being pushed into echo chambers.
We discussed his travel experiences and the conversation seemed normal, Dholani later tweeted about the hourlong interaction.
Mangione, once very active on Reddit, made his final post on the platform on May 25.
In a subreddit dedicated to the Unabomber, he shared a video called Streaming Overdose 2024, China.
It depicted people staring into their phone screens, livestreaming themselves.
The friend didnt hear from him again after that.
Have you heard anything from [Luigi] in the past couple months?
Mangiones cousin asked one of Luigis Gilman classmates on Sept. 21.
Or know anyone who has?
Another friend tweeted at him in November saying, Know you are missed and loved.
She told police officers shed last spoken to her son in July.
When police investigated, they discovered the company had closed its office in the city.
The only evidence they found connecting Mangione to San Francisco was a bank withdrawal there in August.
The first investigator assigned to the case, Sgt.
(The friend didnt respond to interview requests.
Mangiones legal team declined to comment.)
Distraught, Kathy continued to call the San Francisco Police Department asking for updates on the case.
A national manhunt ensued, as law enforcement released video and images of the masked suspect.
Only 0.5 percent of claims are not approved based on clinical evidence and patient safety.)
Wanted posters of other health care chief executives appeared around New York.
There was talk of a hotline executives could call if they feared for their lives.
When San Francisco Police Sgt.
This ones weird, Horan remembers Siragusa saying as he dropped off the case file.
This guy completely went off the grid in July.
Horan dove in, scrolling through tagged photos of Mangione on his Instagram.
Then he realized something: That smile.
He pulled up the surveillance photo on one of his monitors, and Mangiones Instagram on the other.
Oh, my God, he remembers thinking.
Im sorry to bother you with this, Horan recalls saying.
Were over in San Francisco, but I want to give you this info.
On Sunday, Dec. 8, Kathy and Lou went to church services in Little Italy.
Others who attended say they couldnt tell by the couples behavior that anything was amiss.
The next day, Mangione was taken into custody at a McDonalds restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there.
I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done.
Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.
Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.
Nobody Could Believe It
Over the past four months, Mangione has made headlines around the world.
Back in Mangiones hometown, the conversation was one of disbelief.
Within minutes of his name being released as the shooting suspect, his Gilman classmates cellphones started blowing up.
Did you see the news?
OMG, Luigi?!
I cant believe it.
Are we going to take that down?
he asked a teacher standing nearby.
I hope not, the teacher said.
Hes still a part of Gilman history.
In Little Italy, residents were stunned and crestfallen to hear a Mangione was arrested for the crime.
Everybody was dumbfounded, says Arthur Gentile, a longtime resident.
Nobody could believe it.
The extended Mangione family went on lockdown, maintaining a tight circle of trust.
His parents stopped opening their mail.
His sisters deleted their social media accounts.
Friends dropped off baked goods at their home.
Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigis arrest.
We are devastated by this news.
Mangiones legal team declined to comment when asked if hes been in touch with his family since his incarceration.
Hes stained their name, says a friend of the family.
And theyve done so much for the community.
My heart bleeds for them.
In Little Italy, some I spoke with blamed his Ivy League education.
Thats telling, Blattermann says.
What are you infusing their brains with?
(The professor retracted her statement and apologized after an uproar.)
Blattermann sees the crime as a tragedy for both the Mangione and Thompson families.
How many back injuries are we away from acts of violence?
I think if we really knew the true extent of the issue, it would be pretty horrifying.
Most importantly, Brian was an incredibly loving father to our two sons and will be greatly missed.
Mangione was arriving from Pennsylvania and was being transported to a Manhattan courthouse.
ensure you bring your long lens, the editor told Chin.
Its going to happen right here.
And we would not have seen any of it unless we had been on a boat.
The walk took less than six seconds.
Mangione turned the corner from the helicopter and faced the group of photographers head-on.
The images drew comparisons between Mangione and the Joker, Superman, and even to Jesus.
For Mangiones supporters, the perp walk seemed to cement his status as a modern-day folk hero.
Your Honor, hes not a symbol.
Hes somebody who is afforded the right to a fair trial.
Hes innocent until proven guilty.
Mangiones supporters have sent him so many letters he hasnt been able to keep up with replies.
I talk to three friends in their twenties about why they came out in the freezing cold.
One wears a T-shirt printed with a photo of Mangione, shirtless.
I do think hes hot, so I got this shirt, Hunter Doradea says.
Luigi has bipartisan support among the working class for a reason.
A woman nearby sells T-shirts with the image.
Protest organizers hand out information on how to get politically engaged about health care reform.
A truck displaying St. Luigi on an LED screen drives by and the crowd erupts into cheers.
Inside the courthouse, a slew of reporters are waiting for Mangione.
Make him look sexy, a photographer tells a videographer trying to figure out angles and lighting.
He holds his chin up and looks straight ahead.
She thinks there were search-and-seizure issues from Mangiones arrest in Pennsylvania.
This journal that theyre calling his manifesto, we have never been provided copies.
When Mangione is eventually escorted out of the courtroom, he gazes over to where his supporters sit.
He scans their faces briefly, facial expression unchanged, and then is led out into the hallway.
Hours later, a photo of his cuffed, bare ankles goes viral.
