Attorney for suspect in health care CEO killing says he needs to see evidence to assess ‘truthfulness’ and ‘accuracy’

By Karina Tsui, Steve Almasy and John Miller, CNN

(CNN) — Luigi Mangione’s lawyer said he wants to examine the fingerprint and ballistics evidence police say they have against his client who has been charged with murder, among other counts, for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

“Those two sciences, in and of themselves, have come under some criticism in the past, relative to their credibility, their truthfulness, their accuracy, however you want to do it,” Pennsylvania-based attorney Thomas Dickey said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” Wednesday.

“As lawyers, we need to see it. We need to see: How did they collect it? How much of it? And then we would have our experts … take a look at that, and then we would challenge its admissibility and challenge the accuracy of those results.”

Dickey’s remarks come after the commissioner of the New York Police Department, Jessica Tisch, announced authorities found a positive match between a 3-D-printed gun Mangione had in his possession when he was arrested in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s and the three shell casings discovered at the crime scene of the shooting in Midtown Manhattan.

Tisch also said Mangione’s fingerprints match those investigators found on items near the scene of the December 4 assassination – a water bottle and energy bar wrapper the suspect allegedly purchased at a Starbucks around 30 minutes before the shooting.

“We got the gun in question back from Pennsylvania. It’s now at the NYPD crime lab,” Tisch said at a public event Wednesday. “We were able to match that gun to the three shell casings that we found in Midtown at the scene of the homicide.”

The three 9 mm shell casings had the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” written across them, one word per bullet. Police have been looking into whether those words, which match the title of a 2010 book critiquing the insurance industry, may point to a motive in the killing.

Uncovering evidence in writing

“I haven’t seen any evidence that they have the right guy,” Dickey told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” earlier this week. Along with the fingerprints and ballistics, investigators are examining writings police said were in Mangione’s possession at the time of his arrest.

In some of Mangione’s writings, he referenced pain from a back injury he got in July 2023, New York Police Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told Fox News on Tuesday. Investigators are looking into an insurance claim for the injury.

“Some of the writings that he had, he was discussing the difficulty of sustaining that injury,” Kenny said. “So, we’re looking into whether or not the insurance industry either denied a claim from him or didn’t help him out to the fullest extent.”

Along with a three-page handwritten “claim of responsibility” found on Mangione when he was taken into custody, investigators are looking at the suspect’s writing in a spiral notebook, a law enforcement source briefed on the matter told CNN.

It included to-do lists to facilitate a killing, as well as notes justifying those plans, the source said. In one notebook passage, Mangione wrote about the late Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber who justified a deadly bombing campaign as an effort to protect against the onslaught of technology and exploitation. Mangione had written about the Unabomber in online posts as well.

Mangione knew UnitedHealthcare was holding an investors’ conference around the time Thompson was shot and killed — and the suspect mentioned in writings he would be going to the conference site, the NYPD’s Kenny told Fox News on Tuesday.

In the notebook passage, Mangione concludes using a bomb against his intended victim “could kill innocents” and shooting would be more targeted, musing what could be better than “to kill the CEO at his own bean counting conference,” a law enforcement official briefed on the matter told CNN.

The three-page document did not include specific threats but indicated “ill will towards corporate America,” Kenny said.

The suspect appeared to be driven by anger against the health insurance industry and against “corporate greed” as a whole, according to an NYPD intelligence report obtained Tuesday by CNN.

“He appeared to view the targeted killing of the company’s highest-ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and ‘power games,’ asserting in his note he is the ‘first to face it with such brutal honesty,’” says the NYPD assessment, which was based on Mangione’s “manifesto” and social media.

A glimpse into the suspect’s state of mind

The killing of Thompson – a husband and father of two – has laid bare many Americans’ fury toward the health care industry, with Mangione garnering sympathy online and offers to pay his legal bills. It’s also struck fear in executive suites across the country, as an NYPD intelligence report obtained by CNN warns online rhetoric could “signal an elevated threat facing executives in the near-term.”

As Mangione entered the courthouse earlier this week, shackled at the hands and feet and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit with DOC emblazoned on the back, he yelled, in part, “It’s completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people. It’s lived experience.”

“He’s irritated, agitated about what’s happening to him and what he’s being accused of,” Dickey told CNN, explaining Mangione’s outburst and struggle with the police.

“He never had any legal representation until he walked into that building yesterday. And I talked to him … look at the difference between when he went in and when he came out … now he has a spokesperson and someone that’s going to fight for him.”

Dickey has denied his client’s involvement in the killing in New York and anticipates he will plead not guilty there to the murder charge. Mangione also plans to plead not guilty to Pennsylvania charges related to a gun and fake ID police say they found when they arrested him in the Altoona McDonald’s, Dickey said.

The 26-year-old was denied bail at an extradition hearing Tuesday afternoon at the Blair County Courthouse in Pennsylvania. Speaking to CNN, Dickey said Mangione would likely get a hearing on December 23.

CNN’s Dalia Faheid, Michelle Watson, Bonney Kapp, Dakine Andone, Sara Smart, Gloria Pazmino, Amanda Musa, Celina Tebor, Elise Hammond, Emma Tucker, Jordan Valinsky, Danny Freeman and Kara Scannell contributed to this report.

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