Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Luigi Mangione Facing Death Penalty as Health Care Industry Celebrates Itself

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Luigi Mangione will be facing lethal injection if he is convicted in the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione has asked for a laptop to assist in his defense.  Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, apprehended at a McDonald's, where an employee believed he resembled the man who shot Thompson and called the police. Police say the man had a gun with a suppressor and fake IDs — including one for New Jersey which reportedly was used at the hostel in New York, and a hand-written manifesto. Reportedly, it outlined complaints about the healthcare industry.    JOINING NANCY GRACE TODAY: Jason Oshins - NY Defense Attorney Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, Author: "Deal Breaker,”  featured in hit show: "Paris in Love" on Peacock www.drbethanymarshall.com/ , Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall, Twitter: @DrBethanyLive Tom Smith - Former NYPD Detective,     Co-Host of the GOLD SHIELDS Podcast, https://thegoldshieldshow.com, FB & Instagram: @thegoldshieldshow Sheryl McCullom - Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder, ColdCaseCrimes.org, Host of new podcast: Zone 7, Twitter: @ColdCaseTips  Ben Dobrin  - Virginia Beach Emergency Medical Services EMS Marine Dive Team and EMS Search and Rescue, Professor of Social Work: Virginia Wesleyan University  Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan", @JoScottForensic   Lauren Conlin - Podcaster/Reporter/Host- Co-Host of Primetime Crime on YouTube. Website: www.popcrime.tv & primetimecrimeshow.com X- @Conlin_Lauren, Instagram- @LaurenEmilyConlin, YouTube: @PopCrimeTV  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last days, the federal government has announced that Luigi Mangione, accused in gunning down a health care CEO boss boss will face the death penalty. If administered, it will be by lethal injection. Not only that, the health care industry's PR awards just went down and Luigi Mangione was not the only specter floating around the gala event. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Just weeks after the UnitedHealthcare boss, Brian Thompson, was murdered on a Manhattan street, bleeding out there on the sidewalk, all the superstars of the healthcare industry bravely returned to Midtown Manhattan.

It was just seven blocks over from where shell casings were found on the sidewalk. The occasion, the 2025 PR Week Healthcare Awards, celebrating the men and women that craft the public perception of pharmaceutical companies, health care insurance companies, hospitals, care providers. How do they do it? Through lobbying, corporate outreach, advertising. Yep, it was a pretty glitzy affair. Did anybody bring up the disaster of Brian Thompson, a father of two boys, murder? It was certainly haunting the entire ballroom. I wonder if this will be the defense's exhibits. For instance, I learned that Eli Lilly, the country's largest

pharmaceutical company, reported $45 billion, that's B as in brother, billion dollars of revenue in 2024. That's nearly 33% more than last year. Their net income was up 102%. Their profit margin jumped from 15 to 24%. Dang. This on the heels of their launch, something called Kisunla. It's a new drug for Alzheimer's that costs a single patient $32,000 a year. UnitedHealthcare, while mourning the murder of Brian Thompson, reeled in a record $400.3 billion, as in brother, in revenue 2024,

and got their best ever adjusted profit of over $25 billion. Wow. Okay, they're all celebrating. It was at a place called Gustavino's. It's an upscale east side venue. I never had the opportunity to be there. Probably couldn't afford it anyway. Now, unlike the most recent big event for the health care industry, the J.P. Morgan Health Care Conference, that was in January. It was very security heavy. But this night at Gustavino's, nobody even checked ID, asking right when you walked in, would you like some champagne? I think I could use a glass right now, and I'm a teetotaler. Okay, while they're toasting champagne for all of their profits, Luigi Mangione, according to many, is rightly facing the death penalty.

Why? Reality check. A ghost gun, a silencer, multiple fake IDs, and a handwritten manifesto attacking the healthcare industry. Earlier this morning in Altoona, Pennsylvania, members of the Altoona Police Department arrested Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old male on firearms charges. At this time, he is believed to be our person of interest. That's right. In the last hours, a person of interest nabbed in the fatal shooting of health care boss Brian Thompson. From what we understand, a McDonald's employee in Altoona in western Pennsylvania spotted the guy and thinks he looked like the health boss assassin, probably trying to use a

fake ID in a McDonald's, according to law enforcement and the New York Post. The man being eyed for the cold-blooded execution of Brian Thompson. The guy has a gun, a silencer, four fake IDs, and other items consistent with what L.E. was looking for in the case. But is it him? Does he match this description? According to a McDonald's employee, he does. What else do we know? Where is Altoona, Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania, 280 miles away from Manhattan, a little over a five-hour drive, but the manhunt across the nation going in every direction from Manhattan, divers, drones, you name it, all used, employed to find the killer of the health care boss. What led to the detainment of this guy? We also understand that in his possession is a New Jersey ID, a fake ID possibly used to check into that Manhattan hostel.

In the last hours, police press conference. Listen. A man was taken into custody today at Altuda, Pennsylvania this morning. He has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione. He's a male, 26 years old. He was born and raised in Maryland. We know he has ties to San Francisco, California. And his last known address was Honolulu, Hawaii.

He has no prior arrest history in New York. Members of the NYPD Detective Bureau including the Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, our federal partners at the FBI, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, and of course, members of the Altoona Police Department in Pennsylvania. On Thursday, one day after this crime was committed, the NYPD released a photo of the shooter in this case. This picture was obtained by the NYPD during one of their extensive video canvases. We took that photograph and we asked for the public's help in identifying this subject and the public responded. Hundreds of tips began to pour into our hotline. Each tip was

investigated thoroughly and we began to release additional photographs as they came into our possession. The NYPD provided these photos to numerous media outlets. Local, national, and international outlets released the photo via television, print, social media, and online content. Luckily, a citizen in Pennsylvania recognized our subject and called local law enforcement. Members of the Altoona Police Department responded to the call, and based on their investigation, they notified the NYPD.

This investigation is still active and ongoing. Thank you very much. I had a couple of questions about the document that he was found in possession with. Can you go a little bit more in depth about those motivations that you mentioned? Was that CEO specifically named in that document? Was there anything more about him wanting to go after others? And also in that document, was there any indication that explains how the level of detail that he went into killing him? Like, is there anything? That document is currently in the possession of the Altoona Police Department as part of their investigation.

But just from briefly speaking with them, we don't think that there's any specific threats to other people mentioned in that document but it does seem that he has some some ill will toward corporate america can you point to a single linchpin that helped crack this case there's numerous linchpins in this case in the fact that we've recovered an enormous amount of forensic evidence an enormous amount of video. And once again, with your help and the public's help. So I couldn't I really couldn't put it on one thing. But if I had to, it would be the release of that photograph from the media. We had divers in the water yesterday that came up negative results. The passport. We don't believe that he was planning on doing any traveling at this time. We don't think at this point in our investigation, we don't think he was trying to flee the country. The person at the McDonald's,

were they buying food? What were they doing at that exact moment? It was an employee at the McDonald's. Right, but what was the suspect doing? He was sitting there eating. Great. Will the suspect be brought back to New York and charged here, and when? We're going to have to work that out with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He's going to be facing gun charges there,

and at some point we'll work out through extradition to bring him back to New York to face charges here, working with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Anita? Hi, Anita from the New York Post. I was just hoping to get more details on the capture itself. Did he put up a fight? Did he say anything to cops?

And we've also reported that he published online anti-health care industry rantings. Can you share with us some of the services that he posted on? We're still working through his social media. We're going to do a complete scrub of that. Preliminarily, like I said, he seems that he has some ill will toward corporate America, but that will all come out as part of our investigation. We're not done here.

We're still going to be putting this together. We're still going to be working very hard to bring this to a successful conclusion. A ghost gun, a silencer, fake IDs, and a handwritten manifesto attacking the healthcare industry? Sounds like our guy. But what else led to this detainment in Pennsylvania? Hey, Dr. Bethany Marshall joining us. Our renowned psychoanalyst out of LA, author of Deal Breaker. You can see her on Peacock now. Dr. Bethany, the theory that the assassin meant to scatter toy monopoly money over the dead body, that tells me a lot about him. He's got a lot of time sitting in somebody's basement thinking and plotting. It almost rules out a day job in my mind.

But that said, we know he's white male. We know he's got money and a guy that can fund himself cash wise for nearly two weeks in Manhattan. We also know that while he may have meant to scatter fake monopoly money all over the dead bodies, sending a message as if the nine millimeter bullet didn't do that. He didn't leave the money behind, but he did leave behind a water bottle with DNA and fingerprints on it. He left behind a candy or bar wrapper. He left behind a burner phone. If they can break into that burner phone, that is going to be a tremendous source of evidence. But he forgot to stro the money. Nancy, he forgot it.

This guy is obsessional. In the crime world, you may say methodical. I say obsessional, meaning he has been thinking about this for a long, long time. When I have a patient like this come into my Beverly Hills office, they usually are enraged at one person, and that is all they can talk about, what they would like to do, what the person's look on their face would be like. You know, Nancy, with obsessional paranoia, the person sort of alleviates their rage by constantly thinking about inflicting harm on the victim. But I also think although he obsessed about this and planned it out, this was his first crime. He did not think about what it would be like to drop a candy wrapper, drop the water bottle. He didn't have

time to plan them. He didn't have time to scatter the monopoly money. This was all in his head. He had never practiced before. Hey, you know what? Tom Smith, former NYPD, knows this area like the back of his hand. Tom, the burner, the cell phone. I mean, there's an outside chance it's his actual cell phone, but the reports we're hearing is it's a burner phone. Lauren Conlon, yes, no, burner phone, actual phone. Burner phone, Nancy. Tom Smith, what I'm coming to you about is the phone. What an idiot.

I think Bethany's right. This may be his first time at the rodeo. And, you know, like, let me think of a good one. Robert Blake, remember when he and his henchmen got his bodyguards got together and murdered Bonnie Lee Bakley and they had this extensive to-do list. Very often you can catch the perp because of their to-do list and they're over planning. Right. Uh, but the burner phone, they're really hard to break into. Do you remember in the Alex Murogg trial, they had to bring in the Secret Service to crack his phone?

Yeah. And I agree with Lauren. It's a burner phone. And who knows what's on there? Yeah. He could just use it for simple things. Again, if he plans it out and knows burner phones and what to use them for, there may not be a lot on there, but the ability to break in there might not be that difficult because of the low technology that burner phones usually are and the limited amount of information that'll be on there. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. As health care honchos attend a swanky PR award glitzy gala evening at Gustavino's in Manhattan, Luigi Mangione is now facing the death penalty.

Eh, eh, eh, eh, Boo hoo. Some would argue that's what you get for gunning down a CEO boss in cold blood on the sidewalk in Manhattan, leaving behind a widow and two little boys without a father. All the surveillance video, all the pictures that we've got so far, talking on the phone just before the murder. Hey, Dr. Bethany Marshall, and then I'm going to follow up with Renal defense attorney, Jason Oceans. Dr. Bethany, he's not worried. Look at him. He has practiced this over and over and over. He has been watching the victim like a hawk from the moment the victim got into town. This guy knows the itinerary by heart. He knew that there was a breakfast. He knew that that started at 8 o'clock. He knew that the victim was going over ahead of time from the Hilton over to the executive forum where he was set to speak that morning.

Now, all of this surveillance video is from individuals and businesses along the trek. Check it out. So what I'm getting at, Dr. Bethany, this guy is cold, cool, and calculated. This is definitely cold-blooded and methodical, to use the panel's term. Nancy, there's one thing this guy forgot to do. He didn't watch the Nancy Grace Show because if he had, he would have known that there were surveillance cameras all along that street. And that 15 minute phone call, that makes me wonder if this is like the DC sniper where an older, more ruthless person

recruited a younger person or that he's acting in concert with somebody else. And that's why he's on that phone. Hey, Lauren, it was a call 15 minutes before the shooting, not a 15 minute phone call. Correct? Correct. The phone call occurred at 630 a.m. So, Dr. Bethany, but I agree with what you were saying, but he did not yak for 15 minutes. It's almost as if he's checking in because I'm wondering, is he speaking or is he listening? I can't tell. Plus, his mouth is covered right there. And I'll tell you why.

Jason Ocean is joining me, renowned defense attorney, joining us out of this jurisdiction who also, you and I have walked this track before together, Jason Ocean. So back around Court TV and HLM days. Jason. Absolutely. The reason I'm wondering if he was listening to something and not talking, I prosecuted an arson murder and just before the guy burned his mansion down and tried to fake that his wife died in the fire from smoke inhalation, he called and checked the Weather Channel, Jason. I was so happy. He called and checked the weather channel, Jason. I was so happy.

He called and checked the weather channel to find out if it was going to rain the day he was setting the house on fire. So for all I know, this guy's checking the bus schedule or checking. Now, I know he was not on a flight. I know he was on a bus. But every time I'm headed to LaGuardia, I call or I check online to see if my Delta flight is delayed. OK, how do I know if he was just checking something or actually speaking to someone in Bethany's train of thought? What if he calls someone? It was a quick call. Hey, I'm on the way right now. I'm walking.

I just passed Starbucks. It could be that. It could be that. It could be anything. I think the theory that, you know, the potential theory that he was directed by someone and that's why he was on the phone is fascinating. And also struck by that, his lack of knowledge, you know, the overall aspect of the cameras that are everywhere. I think he didn't plan for that. That was the one thing in this seemingly meticulous planning that was not done. But that phone call could be very critical.

If we can find out if it was an incoming or an outgoing call and the limited technology it has and the ability to bust that phone up. I got to figure out how the Secret Service actually cracks it. You'd think it would be easy because, you know, Cheryl McCollum with me, forensic expert, when I was researching for my last book, Don't Be a Victim, I found out that about, I think it was 70% or 80%, some crazy astronomical number of people still use the factory code, uh, that they had on answer machines or they do one, two, three, four is their code or one, one, one, one, or of course, 69, 69. That's a new tried and true. Or, um, let's see, lucky numbers that they come up with like seven, seven, seven, seven.

It's so predictable, but then you got somebody like this who's half smart, and he's probably got some bizarre code on his cell phone, the burner. You know how long it took them to crack Alex Murdoch's phone? They had to bring in the Secret Service to do it? Nancy, look, that phone call could have been something as simple as he called in sick to work because he knew he wasn't going to do it. Exactly. And if you look, that phone call could have been something as simple as he called in sick to work because he knew he wasn't going to make it. Who you can call at 645 a.m. is a very small group of people. So it could have been he's checking the bus schedule because he's leaving that morning and wants to make sure. That's smart, smart, smart. But you just you just

really gave me a clue. Cheryl, who are you going to call at 6 o'clock in the morning? That's right. Not very many people. Okay, go ahead. Because if you call your mom or a sister or something like that, you're going to scare the daylights out of them. So it's got to be somebody that's obvious. So you can leave a message for somebody because you know they're not at work yet.

You can check the bus schedule. I'm not as interested in that as I am his other messages, what he wrote on the shell casings, the threat before the murder, the fact that he would choose New York and not the victim home state. Why not shoot him at any red light going to work? Oh, Cheryl, Cheryl, you just gave me another tidbit. Hold on. I want to tell everybody at first we were led to believe that the bullets were engraved in some way with deny, defend, depose. with a black sharpie, which tells me even more. Do you know that you can get a handwriting sample off of that? Not that I think police are going to need a handwriting sample when they've got fingerprints and DNA, but you never know what might click with the jury. What about it, Cheryl? A hundred percent. But again, it tells you he took extra time to leave a message on shell casings.

He took extra time to get the monopoly money. That's a message. Shooting him in New York City the morning of that meeting was a message. He could have shot him anytime in his home state at a red light, but he didn't. While CEOs and PR gurus toast the health care industry's huge, record-breaking profits from 2024. Luigi Mangione sitting behind bars facing the death penalty. The suspect was in a McDonald's and was recognized by an employee who then called local police. Responding officers questioned the suspect, who was acting suspiciously and was carrying multiple fraudulent IDs as well as a U.S. passport. First, I want to go out to our dive expert.

I'm curious about the search in the lake at Central Park. The New York Police Department dive team is called into action after the discovery of the backpack near Heckscher Playground. The divers are seen trawling a Central Park pond behind an area cordoned off with police tape next to Bethesda Fountain in a body of water known as the lake near Central Park Boathouse. The NYPD has been searching Central Park since the gunman was seen escaping on an e-bike into the park. Police have not yet recovered the distinctive gun used in the shooting and it's unclear if officers recovered any evidence from the water. Joining me, special guest Ben Dobrin, Virginia Beach Emergency Medical Services, also the Dean of Professional Services at Virginia Wesleyan University. He is an expert diver, and he is actually a dive instructor. Well, I do a lot of police diving also,

in addition to emergency diving. And so I'm looking at this on Google Maps and it's a relatively closed area. So that makes it a lot easier than having to go like into the ocean or a Great Lake or the Chesapeake Bay. So it makes it a lot easier for the divers. It's also, I just looked it up, it's only four to six feet deep. So that also makes it a lot more simple to do a dive operation. But what they could be doing is they could be looking for anything that they can find. And one thing that your listeners and watchers need to understand is anything that exists above water exists underwater. People use it as a garbage dump. We find, you name it, bikes, washing machines, shopping carts. So there's a lot of

debris. The more people that are around, the more people use it as a dumping ground. But there's two things that I imagine they're looking for. Just listening to the different news reports and listening to you. They're looking for the firearm, obviously, but that telephone also, they're looking for that. You know, those are both very small items that are relatively easy to discard. And one of the things that if you find an item like that, you're going to have to recover it. Evidence recovery is the same underwater as it is above water from the police perspective. But the one thing we have to keep in mind is that it's in a different environment. Evidence above water is in the air, so all you have to do is keep it in the air. But evidence that's recovered underwater, you have to recover it with the water. If you take it out of the water, things start to break

down relatively quickly. What I'm talking about specifically is fingerprints. If you take something out of the water, and fingerprints can last for about a week underwater, so the clock is ticking. But if you remove, whether it's a firearm or the telephone or any piece of evidence, you're going to want to take it out of the water and just bring some of the local water with it and then bring that to your forensics office, and then they're going to drain the water and then do all the magic that they do to get the fingerprints off of it. Okay. Ben Dobrin is joining me, not only Dean Professional Services at Virginia Wesleyan, he is a dive instructor and a police diver. Now, Ben, you just taught me something I didn't know. Number one, when items are taken out of the water, you have to preserve them in preferably the ambient water, the water in which they were in.

Because the moment they hit the air, it starts to degrade, for instance, fingerprints. Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and star of a hit series, Body Bags, with Joe Scott Morgan. I wanted to talk to you about the gum, but I'm going to follow up on what Dobrin is telling us. Yes, prints are preserved underwater because prints, fingerprints, are based on the oil in the body. Oil, water, get it? You can explain better than me. Go ahead. Yeah, our fingerprints come about as a result of the discharge of the fatty lipids that we have in the pores that surround the print that's left behind. Remember, we don't have fingerprints on the tips of our fingers. We have friction ridges that leave behind fingerprints. So in this particular case, we believe that this is a weapon that has a

magazine in it, Nancy. So if you have a magazine, that means that you're going to be pressing down on the rounds as you're loading the magazine in, and also you're touching that surface of the magazine. The magazine is then fitted into essentially the grip of this weapon. And it's kind of in a protected space there. So what Ben is talking about is right on the money. You have this protected space. If you can keep this in the water that it comes from and take that into the lab, they can get around that weapon pretty quickly and raise any kind of latent prints that might be there. You did that so eloquently, Joe Scott. I would have just said, you know, like oil and water don't mix.

That's exactly what I'm saying here. That the oil. One more thing about. Please jump in. Yeah. You think about, you know, Ben had mentioned how densely populated and all of us have been to to manhattan uh how densely populated this area this guy and pay very close attention we're about to say this guy if he did this he ain't the first person to think about dumping a

weapon into that lake all right so they have a Herculean task at hand here, dealing around, dealing in this filthy water where they're going to be using their hands, crawling along. How many other weapons are in there? Just because you find a firearm submerged doesn't mean it's the firearm that was used. Ben, I want to follow up with you on this. This is a great thing to throw at Jason Oceans when we come back. But this guy did so much planning, Ben, but I bet he didn't measure the depth of this lake and has no idea. Even though it's big, it's 20 acres, I guarantee you he didn't know that it was just four to six feet deep. And I just found that Google. And if you go a little bit further north, it looks like there's the reservoir in the park.

And that's 40 feet deep. So that is significantly deeper. I mean, obviously, you can dive that. It just takes a little bit longer to get down and get up. But four to six feet is super easy. If they find something, they can just pop their head out of the water and look at it. And what he just said is we've done training dives in local lakes where we have found multiple guns when we weren't looking for. I mean, we're just doing a training dive and we found guns. I found a flintlock pistol I wasn't looking for one time because, you know, in a populated area,

people think, oh, if I discard a firearm in this lake, nobody will ever find it. Well, you know, it's hard to see, but if people are looking for it, they're going to find it. You know, the New York City Police Dive Team is one of the most respected in the world. If it's in that little area there, they're going to find something. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Luigi Mangione sitting behind bars facing the death penalty death by needle this as he demands I want a laptop what that's right Mangione's laptop request is now up to the jail after the

judge announces the judge has no problem with it. Hmm. Maybe Mangione can better communicate with all of his fans sending him money and sexy pictures of themselves. But right now, Mangione's request to get a laptop behind bars is up to Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, the MDC, as he awaits trial in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. His lawyer is proposing he gets a specifically configured laptop that would only allow him to review case materials. Right, and Diddy doesn't have a phone.

Okay, let's just stop right there. And remember Brian Thompson bleeding out on the sidewalk? You think he thought of his two little boys, maybe his wife that morning? This is what happened. Laptop and glitzy party at Gustavino's be damned. A man nabbed in Western Pennsylvania in the Altoona area at a local McDonald's. He has now been arrested on charges relating to a gun. Sources telling us it was a so-called ghost gun, a gun that has no serial number that is often put together with a kit. The parts of the gun purchased or obtained separately. A ghost gun and a silencer along with a handwritten manifesto attacking the healthcare industry. Wow. Joining me right now is expert Tom Smith, NYPD detective, 30 years and the star of the Gold Shields podcast. Tom, again, thank you for being with us. We've

learned a lot about the gun. At first, it looks like it's been manipulated with a homemade silencer on it. We are now understanding that is not a homemade silencer, that this is a weapon that is often used by veterinarians to put down, that's a nice word for it, animals. The magazine is in the grip. And when many people thought that it was jamming and he was clearing it after each shot, which I thought he did really calmly and methodically, we now know it may be a bolt action that has to be manually cycled after each shot. That changes things, Tom Smith. Yes, it does, because now he knows he's proficient in that weapon, knowing every time he fires it, he's going to have to chamber around. And if I could show you real quick, this is a Glock, not the same weapon that was used,

but similar functioning. Every time he fires that weapon, he'd have to click it like this in order to chamber a round to fire the next round. And the thing about him is he knows the weapon because he knows that's coming. It's not a surprise to him. So he fires a round, has to clear it, fire another round, clear to chamber a round each time. And he knows the weapon and he knows that is coming and has to do that. And that's why he stays kind of calm. Any other criminal I've ever dealt with in New York City, once a weapon's jammed, they throw it away and they run. He knows exactly how this weapon is being used. Okay. For once, the movie's got it right, Tom Smith, because in the movies,

you always see the person jam the weapon and they just throw it or they throw it at the person they're shooting at. Here, when you look at the video, he's walking toward the victim. I guarantee you, Tom Smith, this guy practiced probably at a gun range. Oh, yeah. And he probably practiced with that weapon because, like I said, there's a big difference when you're viewing this, whether someone's panicking or anticipating the movement he's doing. He knows what he has to do to fire that weapon. You know, I want you to explain one more time for novices out there about the bolt action. We now don't believe the gun was jamming everybody. We believe it was a bolt action that has to be manually recycled after every shot. Could you explain that and demonstrate one more time, please, Tom? Yeah, this is a nine millimeter weapon and the magazine

port is in here, just like you mentioned, it's at the bottom of the handle. So once a round is fired, he has to manually clear that round to chamber another round in order to fire it. He'll fire it again and do the same thing over and over again. So like I said, he's very aware of how that gun is used and what he needs to do to fire it. You know, another issue, Tom Smith, and I'm going to bring everybody back in in just a second. But Tom, another feature of this particular gun that is traditionally used by veterinarians to put down animals is it has a very quiet shot, very quiet shot. And the gun we're talking about has a long, as we saw, could you hold yours up again, has a very long barrel like that. This one even seemed a little bit longer than yours.

And that can be confused because it looks like a silencer, but it's not. It's a long weapon and easier to aim because you have more of an angle of your target in front of you. So like I said, he is very aware of how this weapon is used and what it needs to do to fight. This gun is a specialized gun. This guy practiced and practiced and practiced. He had everything planned out. You know he practiced with the murder weapon. He didn't just trot over to Connecticut and buy a gun and then use it the next day. That did not happen. Think of the mindset here. This is a gun he brought with him on a bus. Didn't get on a plane because he couldn't get through TSA with a gun for Pete's sake. And the airlines know who you are. They have your picture. They have you every three feet in the airport. He didn't want that. He wanted to travel with his gun. What criminal that's practiced

and practiced and planned and planned wants to use an alien gun? Well, it's hard to trace. That's why if you're using a normal weapon with a serial number and so forth, it's easily traced whether you find it in a month or a year. This, we have no idea whether there's any serial numbers on it, whether there's any distinguishing markings on it. So it could be very benign in identifying it. And that's why he picked it. What I'm saying, Dr. Bethany Marshall, is that this guy did not just go into a gun shop and buy the gun just before the murder. If he planned this methodically to get to Manhattan and to carry out this crime, staking out the scene, the moment he got there, November 24, 10 p.m.,

he didn't go to bed. He went to this location where the forum was going to be held. He didn't buy a new gun. I don't think. I think he brought his preferred weapon with him after practicing for hours on end. This guy is upper middle class. This guy has money. He has disposable money. And he had access to a weapon in a professional environment. This is not somebody who goes to a gun shop with a fake ID and tries to skip the background check and gets a gets a gun. This is a man who knows this weapon. This is also a man who's researched where the CEO is going to be. Early reports on the shooting of Brian Thompson pointed to a silencer being used or a modern version of a rare World War II gun. The investigators found themselves looking into a Connecticut gun store they believe may have sold

the weapon. That lead did not pan out, but now Chief Detective Joseph Kenney says they are looking into the use of a veterinary gun being used as the murder weapon. Kenney says the weapon is normally used on farms and ranches. When an animal needs to be put down, the animal can be shot with this type of weapon that doesn't cause a large noise. Welcome back. In the last hours, a man nabbed at a local McDonald's. The 26-year-old taken into custody on gun charges apparently had a ghost gun, a silencer, multiple fake IDs and a handwritten manifesto attacking the health care industry. It's not just this moment. This moment is the culmination of thousands of law enforcement man hours like this.

Amid speculation that the shooter traveled to New York on a bus that left from Atlanta, NYPD officers have traveled south for part of their investigation. APD confirmed through a statement that its officers are assisting the NYPD investigators whom arrived in Atlanta on Saturday. Sources say they are searching through video from the bus station in town and others along the route to New York City. Officers are working to find a name from tickets purchased for a November 24 Greyhound trip. You notice the investigative reporter said looking for a name. I guarantee you it's not going to be his name.

Let me just say that the security and verification procedures at the bus station, a lot less stringent than it is at the airport. He could have gone in with any fake ID and gotten a bus ticket under a fake name, just like he had a fake ID that he got out of Jersey, just like he used a fake ID when he checked into that youth hostel. And speaking of the youth hostel, Lauren Conlon joining me, investigative reporter and star of Primetime Crime on YouTube. Lauren, much was made of him flirting with the receptionist. That's not what happened.

We now know that to check into that hostel, and it's not just at a hostel, that's what they're doing at fancy hotels too when they say, you know, we need some ID. Look at them the next time they ask you that. They look back up at your face, right? So yeah, there was a little flirtation. You can see him smiling right there. That's about $10,000 worth of orthodontia on that mouth right there. But that's another can of worms. Lauren, so I don't know that the clerk was flirting with him. She very well may have said, pull down your mask. I got to make an ID. I mean, this is not the Ritz, okay?

Right, right. And you're correct, Nancy. I did visit the hostel and everybody working there was friendly, not overly friendly. Something I noticed was that there were multiple cameras throughout the lobby of the hostel. There were cameras outside of the hostel as well. So my understanding is they most likely have multiple angles of this guy, of this shooter. I also visited the businesses surrounding the hostel. I went inside to a local bodega. I went inside to a Dunkin' Donuts, and they informed me that they do not do any sort of talking about what they know to anyone but the NYPD, but also that they turned over footage as well. So I believe that NYPD is going through all

of the footage they have right now, which look, it's going to take some time. This is not going to happen overnight, but I think there's going to be a lot more and stills being released of this guy and what he did during his time in New York before the shooting. Straight out to you, Cheryl McCollum. Let's look at this guy. Who is he based on everything we know right now? Nancy, I think one thing that's imperative that everybody's not mentioning is when you talk to the clerk at the hostel, if this were my case, the first thing I would have asked her is, does he have an accent? And that's why I think, again, they are focused on Atlanta. They know where the bus originated. They know what he sounds like. If he's from here,

they're going to know it. The other thing about that weapon. Remember, we have three words, which means three possible shell casings. So that gun either jam and we have an unspent or we have three spent, which means he missed one. Possibly a ghost gun, a silencer, fake IDs and a handwritten manifesto attacking the health care industry? Sounds like our guy. But what else led to this detainment in Pennsylvania? To Dr. Bethany Marshall joining us, renowned psychoanalyst. Weigh in, Dr. Bethany. What's your take on it?

Who is he? Nancy, this guy is upper middle class. He's educated. He knew to do this hit at the health care conference because he's sending a message. If he did it at a traffic stop or at the victim's home, it would not send the message. The scribbling on the the ammunition. He got that from researching internal documents at insurance companies and citing words that employees or claims processors use to deny claims. I am going to guess that he had a family member who was denied care. And because of that denied care, the family member died and he cannot

get over it. So this is, although he looks like a street thug on, you know, at first glance, he is not. He's got a square chin, perfect teeth, wax between the eyebrows, eyes going slightly down at the outer edges. He can change a lot, but there are some things he can't change, like his fingerprints and DNA, Joe Scott. Yep, you're absolutely right. Those are unique to him, Nancy. And here's one other thing. I did a little digging. One of this weapon that they keep referring to that's the veterinarian euthanasia weapon, they believe might be what's referred to as a Station 6 brand weapon. My research revealed that there are essentially, I think, either four or five locations in the metro area of Atlanta

where these can be specifically purchased. And I think that if they believe that that's what this is and that he transported it, I think you're on the money here relative to getting on a bus with this thing. He may have picked it up down there at some point in time. And it's not a very efficient weapon for doing the task that he was trying to do. So I don't know. Maybe he was trying to, you know, he's not going to draw attention to himself like when you buy a suppressor separately from a weapon, perhaps. And it's not very efficient because you have to you lose your sight picture every time you have to rotate that bolt on the back of that weapon, which is what he's doing.

He's spinning it. I think that many of the answers that we're looking for are probably going to rest as well, and this is something that we will hear a lot about, I believe, with UnitedHealthcare and their chief security officer, who was actually hired back in August of 2023. I want to know what she knows. I want to know what her assets know within that business. Are there letters that have been written? Are there lawsuits that have been filed relative to what Dr. Bethany mentioned about healthcare claims that may have been blown off,

or maybe they didn't receive what they wanted? But trust me, the security apparatus within that company is going to be working on it. Well, Mangione can enjoy his laptop, and the insurance PR gurus and CEOs can enjoy their champagne. I will look forward to the jury trial of Luigi Mangione. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.