20/20 - Mangione Episode 2: "B.T."

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

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Hi, this is Brian Buckmeyer, here with another weekly episode of my new podcast from ABC Audio and 2020, Burden of Proof, Luigi Mangione. Remember, you can also listen to Ad Free by subscribing to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts. Click the link in the description to learn more. Now, here's the next episode of Burden of Proof, Luigi Mangioni. My name is Shannon Maldonado. I'm the founder of Yowie, a gift shop from the lens of artists and handmade objects. I chose Shopify because when I was testing other platforms, it was definitely one of the most user-friendly. It was important to me to think about where we would be in the future. All of the tools for reading your sales like planning inventory, they're just right there on your dashboard.

For anyone starting a small business, the biggest thing I can tell you is it doesn't have to be perfect. Shopify can help you build upon it. Start your free trial on Shopify.com. It's December 10th, 2024. The country wakes up to major news in the killing of United Health Care. CEO Brian Thompson. We're going to turn now to breaking news in the fast-moving investigation into the suspect of the killing of United Health CEO Brian Thompson.

The day before, Luigi Mangione was detained in Pennsylvania on charges of weapon possession in forgery. Overnight, New York filed his own charges. The 26-year-old was charged with murder. Murder and other charges, including criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a forged instrument. He pleaded not guilty to all states. state charges. Mangione was also eventually charged by federal prosecutors and faced stalking

charges in that case. He initially pleaded not guilty, but, as you may have heard, on Friday, he pleaded guilty to two counts of stalking in connection with the killing of Brian Thompson, and admitted to shooting him. After that plea, Mangione's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss his state charges, but as a Friday afternoon, Mangione's state murder trial is still scheduled to begin in September. He is scheduled to be sentenced in the federal case this December. We'll get into any developments on all that in later episodes. But for now, we're going to keep following this story as it unfolded. So back to December 10th, 2024, when people were first learning about this case, when Mangoni was first charged by the state of New York. With this new set of charges,

Manjone is formally accused of killing Brian Thompson. He's no longer a person. He's no longer a person of interest. He's suspect number one. And now, New York authorities want their suspect back, ASAP. So that afternoon, Mancione has an extradition hearing. It's the beginning of the process to transfer him to New York's custody so he can be tried there. A swarm of press has made it to Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, and waits outside the Blair County Courthouse. It's a massive, gothic-style building with beautiful stonework and sculpture. and a five-story clock tower that stands tall over neighboring buildings. In a narrow alley on the less ornate backside of the courthouse,

dozens of camera crews stand waiting. A white Ford Explorer which Sheriff on the side pulls up. Into a kind of back entrance, Sallyport area? ABC's chief investigative correspondent, Aaron Kuterski, was there. The press, already standing, only a couple feet away from the police car, inches forward. Police officers crowd near the cruiser's back door as Luigi Mangione shackled at the ankles and wrists steps out. He's being brought into the Blair County Courthouse. He's in custody. He's in an orange jumpsuit surrounded by correction officers escorting him into court. And he sees

all of the photographers and reporters who are gathered there to take pictures of this. And he screams out. And clearly out of touch and insult the intelligence of the American people and live experience. An insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience. And at that point, the officers kind of grab him a little more roughly and sort of shove him into the door. With that, America hears from Luigi Mangione for the first time. During the hearing, Mangione's lawyer, Thomas Dickie, asked for bail, which was denied,

and signals Mangione will fight the extradition to New York City. He tells the press afterwards that Mangioni plans to plead not guilty. For law enforcement, the manhunt is over. The multi-state, multi-agency effort to capture a suspect has been successful, and officials are celebrating. New York City's mayor at the time, Eric Adams, face-times, one of the first of the same. Al-Tuna arresting officers. The video was posted to the New York City Mayor's ex-account. You can hear the triumph in their voices.

Hey, Tyler. I can't say I was expecting it, wake it up this morning, but that was great experience. Well, you're going to be the most popular police officer in your town. There are press conferences, news appearances, lots of back-slapping up and down the northeast. While there's all this attention on Pennsylvania, back in Brian Thompson's Minnesota home, things are quieter. In lieu of a press conference, there's just a piece of paper taped to the Thompson front door. In part, it reads,

Brian was an incredibly loving, generous, talented man, who truly lived life to the fullest and touched so many lives. According to local police and later the Department of Justice, threats have been directed towards his wife and children. One threat claimed, according to authorities, that Thompson was killed because he was profiting off the backs of poor Americans and that his family should suffer. At one point, police blockades went up around their neighborhood.

Brian Thompson's family, including his widow and mother, attended the hearing on Friday and sat in the front as Mangione pleaded guilty in federal court. Afterwards, the family put out a statement. Today's guilty plea marks an important step towards justice for Brian and for our family. While nothing will ease the pain of losing him, we are grateful that the federal justice system has held the person responsible for this heinous act accountable. We will continue to seek the justice Brian deserves.

The day Mangione was arrested back in 2024, the Thompsons were quietly saying their final farewells. A local Lutheran church held the private funeral service. Even the church became the target of Iyer. Last Monday, we held the funeral. for Brian Thompson, who is the CEO of United Healthcare. Additionally, we've also received some anonymous messages from people expressing anger that we would hold a funeral like this.

Here's a church leader speaking to the congregation in the days after Brian's service. We've acknowledged very publicly that the health care system needs reform and change. At the same time, acts of violence against anyone in that system or not are a violation of God's intention for humanity. God's justice is always restorative, never retributive. Death does not get the last word.

As New York works to get their suspect back, the world fixates on trying to learn everything about Luigi Mangione. Less attention is paid to Brian Thompson. Less is said about him. Who was Brian Thompson? From ABC Audio in 2020, I'm Brian Buckmire, an attorney and ABC News legal analyst. And this is Burden of Proof, Luigi Mangione.

Episode 2, BT. We have reached out to many people who knew Brian Thompson, family, friends, coworkers, former classmates, former teachers, even the mayor of his hometown. The vast majority of these people did not return our request for, for comment or declined to speak with us for this series. Brian had a public-facing role but wasn't a household name or a talking head. Not the kind of business leader who was often on TV or profiled in glossy magazines. You can hear him in United Healthcare's earnings calls,

bunded up and prepared for questions about profit margins and growth forecasts. Here he is during a call in October 2023. I think the key point is all of our businesses in United Healthcare right now are really demonstrating innovation and market success at the same time. In a video posted by the Des Moines Register after Brian's death, you can hear Brian giving a presentation in 2022 about how United Healthcare is using data to, quote, develop innovative customer solutions.

The key to enabling a better consumer experience is to bring together all of the disparate single-point solutions and deliver a holistic, simpler experience in a way that ultimately improves people's health. Two days after Brian was killed, United Health Group, the parent company of United Healthcare, held a fireside chat for employees. Video of it was leaked to an independent journalist

and posted on social media. In the leaked video, the United Health Group CEO at the time, Andrew Whitty, Brian Thompson's boss, spoke a bit about Brian's personal. personality. Always. Somebody who could bring a smile to a roof.

Somebody who had a wicked sense of humor and a sharp wit. And somebody who I'm going to miss enormously. Some of Brian's colleagues told the Wall Street Journal that they remembered him chewing gum and cursing regularly. A casual, layback demeanor to match his humble Midwestern roots. In the fireside chat, Witty also talked about Brian's legacy. And now there are very few people in the history of the U.S. healthcare industry

who had a bigger positive effect on American healthcare than Brian. A week after Brian's death, Woody also wrote an op-ed for The New York Times. It included a peek into Brian's early life long before he was CEO. Quote, he was raised in the same Iowa farmhouse as his mom. His dad spent more than 40 years unloading trucks, at grain elevators. B.T., as we knew him, worked farm jobs as a kid and fished at a gravel pit with his brother. Brian was born and raised near Jewel, Iowa, a town that even now has just around a thousand people. His mom was a beautician, and his dad, according to his obituary,

worked at a grain storage facility. The obituary also noted that Brian's parents were high school sweethearts. Brian went to the same high school as his parents. During high school, he is one of Iowa's winners in a national essay contest and got a free trip to Washington, D.C. His teacher told the New York Times, Brian was nervous because it was his first time flying in an airplane. The essay contest was covered by the local paper, the South Hamilton Record News. It asked students to reflect on how the United States should avoid or resolve international conflict. The paper, also ran Brian's full essay. He wrote, We can't put our world in jeopardy ever again by looking only inward without looking outward.

Brian's high school class had just 50 students, and he graduated as valedictorian in 1993. People who knew him say he was an exceptionally bright student. If you look at his senior spotlight in the South Hamilton Record News, you'll see a black and white photo of Brian. He's wearing his class ring. His light brown hair is neatly parted, and his posture is perfectly straight. Following graduation, Brian plans to attend the University of Iowa and major in pre-law. This is Steve Parenti, an economist at the University of Minnesota. He crossed paths with Brian Thompson decades after his senior spotlight was published.

We asked him to read the piece about Brian. Throughout his high school career, Brian has been in a number of activities. The sports he has participated in include basketball, baseball, and golf. He has also been a member of swing choir, jazz band, and concert band. In addition, Brian has participated in Hamilton Holidays and the Fall Play. Brian has been an all-state trombonists for the past three years. Also, Brian was recently named a State of Iowa scholar. Brian is currently the president of the National Honor Society and president of the senior class.

One of the most memorable moments was being elected to be the 1992 Homecoming King. He has really enjoyed his years at South Hamilton, and he feels very fortunate to have spent the past 12 years with so many great classmates and teachers. Wow. By the time Steve met Brian in 2020, Brian had graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in accounting, gotten married, become a father to two sons,

and risen through the ranks of United Health Group for about 16 years. almost his entire career. Brian's life was not perfect. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to driving while impaired and was sentenced to two days in jail. He paid a fine and was required to complete a one-day DWI program. When Brian was killed, he was living in a million-dollar home in a Minneapolis suburb.

For years, he had been living separately from his wife and children, according to neighbors. But Brian had, in many, ways, lived out the American dream. He started on an Iowa farm with working-class parents, excelled academically and professionally, and ended up in a position of immense power and wealth. I mean, I'd say that we were really very vital colleagues to each other, and we probably would have been really good friends. Steve says he met Brian in 2020, about a year before he became CEO, when he was an executive in charge of United Healthcare's government programs.

At that time, Steve Parenti was part of the first Trump administration's council of economic advisors, and he was consulting with the Department of Health and Human Services. During the COVID pandemic, Congress passed billions of dollars in relief for hospitals and physicians. Allocating that money was one thing. Getting it to where it could be used and used well was another thing. Steve says he was asked to help figure out how that money should be distributed. That's when I met Brian Thompson. He was a really good friend of the chief of staff for the deputy secretary of HHS.

United Health Group confirmed to ABC News that Brian played a leadership role in helping distribute the emergency funding. According to Parenti, Brian said he had an idea for distributing the money. They could use an arm of United Health Group, Optum Bank. Optum Bank has health savings accounts, but also works like a real bank, with routing numbers and the ability to do wiretrans. We'll get your proposal by tomorrow morning 8 a.m. That PowerPoint was the most beautiful thing you ever saw because for once you felt after weeks of trying to make a plan work that this was going to happen and it was going to happen pretty well. United Healthcare was contracted by the government for a million dollars to distribute the funds. For the next three months, Steve says he talked to Brian nearly every day as they hashed out a plan. Hopping on the phone, exhausted at 7 a.m.

I like this whole experience to probably the closest an economist is going to have to working in a wartime situation. You know, because the intensity of what you are doing is effectively a 20-hour day. And you are working with a whole variety of unknowns that you really have not anticipated. And you're working with people that you've never met before. Through it all, Steve remembers Brian having a calming, can-do attitude. It's kind of like, you know, when you're flying and there's like a lot of turbulence and suddenly the pilot comes on and maybe it's just the voice or just the way there, there's no tension there.

You actually feel like this is going to work out okay. The thing that was crazy, it was easygoing, but he was enormously competent. It was sort of like this, it was sort of the best of what you sort of think of like the ultimate Midwestern. Often bank was used to give billions of dollars to hospitals across the country. And after that, Steve says his and Brian. worked together was over. We never met before personally, and we never met after.

I wish I knew I'm better in person. I wish we had a drink. I wish we could have talked about a lot of stuff. Steve says he's really proud of the work he and Brian did together. He considers it a career highlight. But critics raised questions about United Health Care's involvement in this. Why was a private insurer getting paid to distribute public funds? Steve had ties to United Healthcare

through his research at the University of Minnesota and his own private consulting. Did that have something to do with why United Healthcare was brought in? Steve says it did not. Sometimes there's a perception of pay for play, but that's really not the case. As for Brian Thompson, after his work with Steve, he kept rising at United Healthcare.

About a year later, he became CEO. Steve says that was a huge accomplishment. It's selling that much, at such an intense place. If you're not performing, you will not survive. There are folks that I've known at United that are very ambitious, and it's obvious that they're ambitious. Sometimes they don't last very long.

There are others that are very confident and quiet like Brian was, and they rise to the top. Brian Thompson, the calm, easy-going, gum-chewing Midwesterner had reached the pinnacle of corporate success. But the peak he had gotten to, CEO of a huge health insurance company. Eventually, at the time when Brian was killed, some supporters of Luigi Mangione felt that made him a villain,

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Shopify can help you build upon it. Start your free trial on Shopify.com. When Alto Police searched Luigi Mangione's backpack, one of the items they discovered, according to prosecutors, was a red spiral notebook, which included several dated entries in a letter addressed to the feds. Prosecutors alleged this was all written by Luigi Mangione. According to the federal indictment, the writings in the notebook, quote,

expressed hostility towards the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular. Prosecutors released photos of what they say are the writings. The handwriting in the letter to the feds is precise and orderly. The writer even numbered the pages and included instructions for flipping the page over. Back, in parentheses, with an arrow. In the letter, the writer criticizes the state of American health care and compares health insurance companies to the mafia. These mafioso have simply gotten too powerful,

and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit. The writer mentions United Health Group specifically, saying that is one of the largest companies in the U.S. So it's this massive, massive conglomerate and touches everybody in so many different ways. This is Wendell Potter. I am a former health insurance company executive. I was vice president of corporate communications at Cigna for several years,

and that was my title when I resigned in 2008. He resigned after managing what he says was a major PR crisis. A teenager in California needed a liver transplant, but Cigna had denied coverage for it. It became a big story in the local media, and Cigna decided to reverse the decision. But it was too late. Five hours after Cigna said it would cover her transplant, she passed away.

I was really struggling to be a spokesman for the company, defending the company's decisions, and I turned in my notice. Sina said in an email that, quote, The World, Healthcare and our company have each evolved significantly since Mr. Potter, worked here nearly two decades ago. We are continually working to improve support for patients and their care, and we remain committed to helping build a more sustainable health care model for America. Wendell spent 20 years working for health insurance companies. Today, he's a critic of the industry and writes a newsletter covering it. United Health Group comes up a lot.

Wendell says the company's sheer size puts it in the spotlight. It makes up 15% of the of the entire U.S. health insurance market. It has by far the most people enrolled in its health plans than any other insurers. So that's another reason. It's just so big. But it has grown as big as it is over the course of several years through just one acquisition after another. It has gobbled up a lot of other health insurance companies. In more recent years, it has ventured into and made more and more acquisitions in the health care delivery side.

It owns hundreds of physician practices and clinics across the country. It has home health operations, even hospice operations. It has an enormous pharmacy benefit manager called OptumRX. In their statement to ABC News, United Health Group said, quote, the U.S. health system remains deeply fragmented and too often leaves people to navigate, disconnected benefits, care delivery, pharmacy, and administrative processes on their own.

United Health Group's capabilities are designed to help make the system work better. Like other major health insurance companies, United Health Group has faced scrutiny over the last few years. There's an ongoing Department of Justice investigation into alleged Medicare fraud, which United Health has said they are complying and cooperating with. United also told ABC News that independent audits

confirm that the company's Medicare practices are among the most accurate in the industry. There's also a lawsuit alleging insider trading by executives, including by Brian Thompson while he was United Healthcare CEO. United has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit and said in a statement that, quote, the company denies any allegations of wrongdoing and intends to defend the matter vigorously. And there's an ongoing class action lawsuit alleging that United Health Group used AI to wrongfully deny care to patients. United Health Group said, quote, the company denies any allegations. of wrongdoing, and that medical necessity determinations are made by qualified physicians,

not AI. Claim denials appear to be at the heart of a lot of the public criticism of United Healthcare. After the shooting, United Health Group put out a statement saying it pays 90% of claims upon submission. Wendell Potter says the other 10%, the claims that are sent for further reviewer denied, they can make a big difference to customers. That 10% is very, very significant. We asked United Health Group to characterize the 10% of claims that are sent for further review or denied. They said one-half of 1% are due to medical reasons.

About half are because of administrative errors, and the remaining majority are because of factors like someone not having insurance coverage or duplicate claims submissions. They said when a claim is sent for further review because of an administrative error, they work to resolve it with a care provider. The summer before the shooting, people protested outside the United Healthcare headquarters in Minnesota over claims denials.

Activists targeted United Healthcare in Minnesota with at least two protests, staging a sit-in, even carrying a mock coffin. Protesters accusing the company of greed in pointing out Brian Thompson's $10 million compensation package. That $10 million compensation package was a combination of salary and stock options, and it made Brian one of the highest paid executives in all of United Health Group. In 2023, the last full year he was CEO, United Healthcare brought in $281 billion of revenue. In response to the protests and the claims made during them, United Health Group said, quote, we understand people's frustration with the health care system and take those concerns seriously. The spring after Brian's death, United Health Group looked at,

its financial outlook for the year, and that May, Brian's boss, Andrew Whitty, resigned. Wendell didn't know Brian personally. But I would listen to their earnings reports on a regular basis, so I would hear his voice. Wendell says he talked to people who did know Brian, and they told him Brian was a nice guy, who cared about patience.

But Wendell says, as a CEO of a major corporation, Brian's duties would have been to his shareholders. Every employee of one of these big corporations, you have an understanding. You have to do your part to make sure that the company meets Wall Street's profit expectations every three months. When Brian walked over to the Hilton for the Investors Conference,

he had been CEO for just a few years. He was bringing in big profits for United Healthcare and overseeing 140,000 employees. Around 50 million Americans were getting insurance through the company he ran, but most of them had no idea who he was. Until he became a part of the biggest news story in the country. Hi, I'm John Favro.

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After Brian Thompson's murder, vitriol against healthcare companies was at a fever pitch. According to authorities, wanted posters and hit lists with photos of other CEOs and insurance executives circulated online. In response, some companies took down photos of their leadership from their websites and scrambled to ramp up private security for executives. At the United Health Care Campus in Minnesota, fencing and layers of new security were put in place. During the leaked fireside chat, United Health Group CEO Andrew Whitty told employees that the company was working hard to make sure they felt safe in the face of all of this. He also told them to tune out the critical noise about their employer. It does not reflect reality. It is simply a sign of...

an area which we live. As all of this continued to unfold, Steve Parenti wrote an article about his one-time colleague, Brian Thompson, for the Minnesota Star Tribune. A lot of folks reached out to me from United that were personal friends, just said, thank you, we're happy you said this.

Because I got the sense that they just felt like they just couldn't. United has had issues before. There had been protests, but nothing like this had ever happened before where essentially the headquarters suddenly becomes this barricaded community essentially. And I think there was a real anxiety amongst anybody there to say anything.

At the time, many comments on videos and articles about Brian's death were unsympathetic. Some even suggested he deserved to be killed. Remember that op-ed, United Health Group CEO at the time, Andrew Whitty wrote for the New York Times, memorializing Brian Thompson and defending United Health Care's role in the medical system, it got almost 2,500 comments, mostly complaints about United Health Care and disdain for Woody's defense of the company

and its former CEO. One commenter said, quote, Brian Thompson may have been a swell guy, but that's irrelevant. This is about the malpractice of insurance companies. It's worth noting many comments like this, or posted more than a year before Mangione's plea on Friday.

Based on what authorities have released, Brian Thompson is not named at all in Luigi Mangione's alleged letter to the feds, or in other alleged writings from the Red Spiral notebook. But that notebook does reference a CEO, as in, quote, what do you do? You whack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean counter convention. What Brian's legacy is, is to perhaps, a national conversation, but it didn't require his life to be taken.

After Luigi Mangione's federal guilty plea on Friday, United Healthcare put out a statement. Brian Thompson's life was cut short by an act of violence that devastated everyone who knew and loved him. We are grateful to law enforcement for bringing Brian's murderer to justice, and our thoughts remain with Brian's family and loved ones during this difficult time. Brian ended up on that Midtown Street, heading to an intervention. investors conference, because he was a top performer. He'd been a top performer his whole life, all the way from Jewel, Iowa, to the C-suite of a Fortune 500 company. But as the weeks go by in December 2024, Brian Thompson fades more and more out of view. All eyes are on the man accused of

killing him. Less than a week before Christmas, Luigi Mangione waves extradition. He agrees to be prosecuted in New York. So he's flown from Pennsylvania to New York City, first in a plane, and then in a helicopter. The helicopter lands in downtown Manhattan by Wall Street, on a dock along the East River. It was positively cinematic.

That's ABC News' Aaron Kuterski. There's Luigi Manchioni departing a helicopter that had landed in lower Manhattan, and he is surrounded by a cordon of officers. Over a dozen officers, some in bulletproof vests, some wearing black helmets and holding automatic rifles.

The mayor at the time, Eric Adams, the police commissioner, Jessica Titish, are seen almost like bobbleheads in the crowd of officers and officials who are around Mangione as he's escorted in handcuffs down the long wooden dock to a waiting car to drive him to court. Mangione is clean-shaven in wearing a bright orange Department of Correction

drum suit. He's expressionless during the entire slow, long walk down the dock. Right away, this scene, this cinema, brings even more attention to Mangioni. Photos circulate of Luigi Mangione with his head bowed in the center of all the officers. A pop of orange in a sea of dark uniforms and sunglasses. On social media, some users at the time posted Mangione is iconic. Some compared the scene to a shot from a superhero movie. Others say they feel sympathy for him.

Later, his defense attorneys described this purplock as befitting a captured cartel chief or comic book villain and claimed Mangione was treated like an orange-clad, shackled trophy. Mangione has pleaded not guilty in his statement. murder case. Basically, as Luigi Manjone arrives in New York, the fascination with him only grows. He's become sort of a celebrity, a part of culture. But like Brian Thompson, he was once just a high school valedictorian, a top performer, well-liked and full of promise. So how did he wind up here, shackled and surrounded by police? With the eyes of the world focused on

him. Burden of Proof, Luigi Mangione, is a production of ABC Audio and 2020, hosted by me, Ryan Buckmire. Produced by Vika Aronson and Audrey Mozthek. Our lead producer is Camille Peterson. Edited by Tracy Samuelson. Music by Evan Viola. Mixing by Bob Mallory. Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Sasha Aslanian, Michelle Margulis, Tanya Simpson, Aaron Kuturski, Josh Margolin, Pugolin, Pugos, Peter Haralambos, Jared Kofsky, Jake Lefferman, Katie Mel Downey, and Sue Yun. Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming. Amon McNiff is our executive producer. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify.

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