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How does a young Ivy League graduate from a wealthy family, well-liked by nearly everyone he encountered, become an alleged cold-blooded killer?
The mystery surrounding Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO, has only deepened since his shocking arrest at the end of 2024.
Luigi Mangione, 26, hails from a powerful Maryland family, with deep roots stemming from his late patriarch grandfather, Nicholas Mangiano, a first-generation American who built a thriving real estate empire in the state.
Originally from Towson, Maryland, Mangione grew up in a lavish $1 million home with his parents. Despite his affluent background, he held strong anti-capitalist views. He attended Baltimore’s prestigious Gilman School, which costs $40,000 a year. According to a teacher, it is one of the area’s most esteemed institutions.
The educator commented, “Every family in this area knows that if you’ve got a superb kid, and you want them to go to a really good college, you send them to Gilman.”
Mangione excelled at the school, graduating as valedictorian in 2016. However, those who knew him say he never carried a “better-than-you” attitude.
Luigi Mangione was well-liked in school and actively involved in various hobbies and activities. One friend told Business Insider: “I would set my sister or friend up with him. Just knowing his personality, I would completely trust him. Even knowing what I know now, if he 100 percent did it, I would feel completely safe being alone in a room with him.”
A former classmate from Gilman shared, “Luigi was in this crew of kids that you knew were going to an Ivy League school. But Luigi was the only one you could shoot the s— with. Once you got him talking, he had all the kind of suave, cool-guy vibes.”
However, the same friend noted that Mangione was occasionally seen as an outcast. “I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I always got this feeling that he was really interested in having more of a social life than he had.”
Mangione attended the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in software engineering. After graduation, he moved to Hawaii, immersing himself in outdoor activities like hiking, stargazing, and reading.
He worked as a software engineer at TrueCar, an online car marketplace based in Santa Monica, California, but quit in 2023. He confided to a friend that while data engineering “paid super well, it was mind-numbingly boring.”
Living in Hawaii, Mangione seemed to enjoy a carefree life, until 2023, when he was diagnosed with Isthmic spondylolisthesis – a spinal condition where one vertebra slips over the one below it. The severe back pain from this condition would go on to affect him profoundly.
In December 2024, Mangione was arrested and charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was allegedly shot in the back outside a Manhattan hotel. While the motive behind the killing remains uncertain, investigators have suggested that Mangione harbored a deep resentment towards what he viewed as “parasitic” health insurance companies and a broader disdain for corporate greed.
Delving into his past, authorities uncovered troubling evidence that Mangione sympathized with Ted Kaczynski—the infamous Unabomber who killed three people and injured 23 more during a 17-year bombing campaign.
In February 2024, Mangione publicly expressed admiration for Kaczynski, describing him as an “extreme political revolutionary” while hinting at his own radical views. Mangione even referenced Kaczynski’s manifesto, claiming it raised uncomfortable but important issues that society too often ignored.
Mangione wrote, “It’s easy to quickly and thoughtlessly write this off as a manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out to be.”
