Luigi Mangione’s mother attended a church ceremony less than 24 hours before her son was arrested on suspicion of assassinating the CEO of United Healthcare.
Brian Thompson, the man suspected of killing an executive who was shot to death on a New York City street, captivated the nation when he was captured by authorities after five days on the run from police.
And in the blink of an eye, Cathy Mangione went from a desperate mother searching for her estranged 26-year-old son to the mother of a suspected murderer.
“In less than 24 hours, their lives were completely turned upside down,” Santo Grasso, a longtime family friend who came to the church event, told the Journal.
Sources close to the successful family say a distraught Kathy spent half of this year searching for her son, who had “left the family six months to a year ago and had no contact with anyone.” It is said that he was WSJ reported.
His absence affected the family so much that they decided to hire a private investigator to find his whereabouts.
But on that day, before her son’s arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Kathy seemed to accept that some semblance of normalcy had returned to her life.
On Saturday, she went out to lunch with some friends at an Italian market near Baltimore’s waterfront.
Luigi Mangione’s mother, Kathy Mangione (pictured), attended a church ceremony less than 24 hours before her son was arrested on suspicion of assassinating the United Healthcare CEO.
As Mangione was herded into the courtroom by a crowd of sheriff’s deputies for his extradition hearing on Tuesday, he slammed the officers, accusing them of being “totally out of touch” and “insulting the intelligence of the American people.” .
The next afternoon, she and her husband attended a ceremony honoring one of the brothers at a church in the city’s Little Italy.
But when her son finally showed up on Monday, it was under the most shocking circumstances. His name was plastered all over the media for shooting and killing a healthcare CEO.
The family later issued a statement expressing shock and shock, saying, “We only know what we read in the media.”
Luigi’s arrest, discovered by a customer at McDonald’s, has shaken up the lives of his extended Baltimore-based family, including 16 uncles and aunts and more than 30 cousins.
Mr. Grasso, a 73-year-old former detective, remains convinced that Mr. Luigi’s parents were blindsided by their son’s arrest, considering how calmly they watched Sunday afternoon’s church service. There is.
“They just seemed to be in normal life mode,” Grasso said. “I know them so well that if something had attacked them or eaten them, I would have known.”
It’s unclear whether the family was aware that photos of their son on the run from authorities had been posted, but Grasso suggested they probably were.
“I would probably look at that photo and say, ‘Maybe it’s not him, it can’t be him,'” Grasso told the magazine, thinking about how he would react in the same situation.
Assassination suspect Luigi Mangione (center) comes from a prominent Baltimore family. Pictured: Mangione with (LR) brother-in-law Paul Giulio, sisters Lucia and Maria Santa, father Louis and mother Kathleen.
Photo: Mugshot of Mangione’s stony face after his arrest for the murder of Brian Thompson
Joe Di Pasquale, a friend of all four of Luigi’s grandparents, was shocked by the news and said that a year or two ago, at his Di Pasquale’s Italian Market, the smiling, polite, overachievers I remembered when I saw Luigi.
Pasquale said he and his wife were so impressed by his character that they encouraged their children to be more like him.
“We’ve always modeled how we do things for our kids,” he told the outlet. “I drove the kids crazy.”
For the past year, Luigi’s family had no idea where their son was or what he was doing, and they frantically texted friends for help.
Kathy had filed a missing person’s report with San Francisco police just last month.
“She would have tried everything to find her son, but she couldn’t do it,” a source close to the Mangiones told the magazine.
However, the prominent family, their relationship with their son, and their mindset during the search for him attracted national attention.
There were multiple indications that Luigi estranged himself from his family for at least a year before finally cutting ties — based on Reddit posts and book review site Goodreads that Luigi appears to have written. .
Luigi sustained a severe back injury that caused him to suffer from debilitating pain for several months, including after surgery in July 2023, which is correlated with his mental state. Many people are thinking.
His spinal cord injury left him unable to surf or be “physically intimate” with his partner while living in Hawaii, his former landlord told the New York Times.
Surveillance camera footage showed a gunman believed to be Mangione fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson at point-blank range outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan on December 4.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in front of the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan.
After Luigi started going MIA, friends said they were told that he was having trouble administering pain medication due to his injuries.
Other friends told the media that Luigi may have been injured in a surfing accident in Hawaii, where Luigi lived intermittently from around 2022 until this year.
Although his schoolmates talked among themselves about Luigi’s alleged separation, Luigi’s wealthy and influential Maryland family remained cautious about their troubled son.
“They’re a big Baltimore family. They like to keep things quiet,” said a college friend.
He designed an app for his fellow students and painted a picture of a bright, caring classmate who helped those around him, but who changed later in life.
“He was so smart, so kind, so kind. Just a really nice guy. And he was an innocent kid, almost like my little brother.
“That’s why this in itself is so shocking,” said the student friend.
“I met him in Baltimore about two years ago,” he added. “Something was wrong.”
The friend said Mangione was told he was temporarily away from a work project and was “on vacation.”
“He said he was taking some things off. His voice was much deeper, more serious, and toned down,” the friend said.
“I just attributed it to maturation and aging. Something had changed, but I didn’t know what exactly it was.”
“A few months later, I heard he became estranged and isolated from everyone, and they had to hire a private investigator to track him down, but they never found him.”
Dorian Wright, owner of Power Yoga Hawaii in Honolulu, detailed an encounter with United Healthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione, who attended one of his classes in 2023.
His former yoga teacher posted an Instagram Story on Thursday expressing both regret and sympathy as Mangione’s motives became clearer.
Power yoga’s Dorian Wright also detailed an encounter with Wednesday, 26, recalling how he struggled with certain poses during a class in Hawaii due to back pain.
“I remember with him, like a lot of people who come in with injuries, at the beginning of class or when we were doing a certain pose, we were like, ‘Oh, I can’t do this. ” Wright recalled, offering new insight to CBS News.
On Thursday, his former yoga teacher posted an Instagram Story simultaneously expressing regret and sympathy for Luigi’s situation, who now faces extradition to New York.
“You never know what pain a person is going through,” he wrote above a photo of Luigi’s mugshot after his arrest.
As this case continues to make headlines, “please reach out to a friend today and let them know you care,” he concluded.
