Luigi Mangione spoke slowly and deliberately as he admitted to shooting U.S. health care executive Brian Thompson, in a stunning confession befitting a crime that has gripped the United States.
Five days later, police arrested Mangione at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania after a staff member recognised his distinctive thick eyebrows from images shared by authorities. Police found a 3D-printed gun and an apparent handwritten manifesto in his backpack. Mangione appeared attentive throughout the hearing, reading paperwork in front of him and occasionally taking notes.
He told the court other footage showed Mangione stalking Thompson around Manhattan a day before the executive was killed. Beyond his prepared statement, Mangione mostly answered “Yes” or “I do” to a long line of questions from the judge verifying his competence to plead guilty. He sat between his two high-profile lawyers, Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo, who represented Sean “Diddy” Combs in his sex trafficking trial.
But on Friday (August 14, 2026), as he pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges, he delivered an unflinching account to a court that included Thompson’s family members.
Prosecutor Dominic Gentile said that and other evidence would have been used if the case had gone to trial.
