Elbahrain.net The 3D-printed gun that health care CEO killing suspect Luigi Mangione had when he was arrested this week in Pennsylvania matches three shell casings found at the crime scene in Midtown Manhattan, the New York Police Department commissioner said Wednesday, as authorities continue to investigate the motive for the killing
“First, we got the gun in question back from Pennsylvania. It’s now at the NYPD crime lab,” Tisch, the commissioner, said Wednesday. “We were able to match that gun to the three shell casings that we found in Midtown at the scene of the homicide.”
“We’re also at the crime lab able to match the person of interest’s fingerprints with fingerprints that we found on both the water bottle and the KIND bar near the scene of the homicide in midtown,” she said. Authorities had been probing DNA material and a partial fingerprint from a discarded Starbucks water bottle and an energy bar wrapper surveillance images showed the suspect buying about 30 minutes before the shooting.
The fingerprints were the first positive forensic match tying Mangione directly to the scene where Thompson was gunned down just over a week ago outside a hotel, two law enforcement officials briefed on the matter told CNN earlier Wednesday.
Since his arrest Monday thanks to a tipster at a McDonald’s, the 26-year-old’s background also is starting to come into focus. The privileged scion of a well-to-do family, high school valedictorian and Ivy League graduate vanished from view of his loved ones in recent months, only to emerge as the suspect in a high-profile killing potentially fueled by his struggle with a painful back injury.
Mangione’s mother on November 18 called San Francisco police and reported him missing, saying she hadn’t spoken to him since July 1, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN. His mother told authorities she had called her son’s phone repeatedly and the voicemail was full and not taking any more messages, according to the official.
The mother said her son had been living in San Francisco and working remotely for TrueCar, a vehicle buying website, the official said, citing the missing person’s report.
Attorney denies Mangione’s involvement in killing
Mangione’s lawyer has denied his client’s involvement in the killing in New York and anticipates he will plead not guilty there to the murder charge, among other counts. Mangione also plans to plead not guilty to Pennsylvania charges related to a gun and fake ID police found when they arrested him in Altoona, attorney Thomas Dickey said.
“I haven’t seen any evidence that they have the right guy,” Dickey told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.” Dickey has not seen the evidence, including writings police said were in Mangione’s possession at the time of his arrest, the lawyer reiterated Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
In some of Mangione’s writings, he referenced pain from a back injury he got in July 2023, New York Police Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told Fox News on Tuesday. Investigators are looking into an insurance claim for the injury.
“Some of the writings that he had, he was discussing the difficulty of sustaining that injury,” Kenny said. “So, we’re looking into whether or not the insurance industry either denied a claim from him or didn’t help him out to the fullest extent.”
Mangione was denied bail at an extradition hearing Tuesday afternoon at the Blair County Courthouse in Pennsylvania.
As he entered the courthouse, shackled at the hands and feet and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit with DOC emblazoned on the back, he yelled, in part, “It’s completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people. It’s lived experience.”
