Luigi Mangione, who was arrested and charged with murder in the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, once belonged to a group of Ivy League players who played assassins, a member of the group told NBCNews.
In the game titled “Among Us”, some players are secretly assigned to become space assassins who complete other tasks while trying to avoid suspicion from other players.
Alejandro Romero, who attended the University of Pennsylvania with Mangione and was a member of the same Discord group, said he was shocked when news broke on social media that Mangione had been taken into custody.
“I found it extremely ironic that, you know, we’re in this game and there might actually be a real killer among us,” he said.
“As soon as his picture and name appeared on . “I haven’t spoken to anyone today who didn’t already know what happened.”
Mangione, 26, was arrested Monday morning at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after an employee spotted him.
Police found a gun, believed to have been 3D printed, and a handwritten document on Mangione “that speaks to both his motivation and his state of mind,” the New York Police Commissioner said , Jessica Tisch, during a press conference.
He also carried fake identification and a passport, authorities said.
In New York, Mangione was charged with murder, possession of a loaded firearm, possession of a forged instrument and criminal possession of a weapon, according to court documents.
Pennsylvania authorities charged Mangione with carrying firearms without a license, forgery, falsifying records or identification, possessing criminal instruments and providing false identification to police.
In a statement to X on Monday evening, a member of the Mangione family said they were “shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest.”
“We offer our prayers to Brian Thompson’s family and ask people to pray for everyone involved,” wrote Nino Mangione, a Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates.
Romero, who said he has not spoken or seen Mangione since 2020, described him as a typical student who didn’t stand out.
“He fits a mold,” Romero said. “He looked like any other normal frat guy you might see at a frat party.”
Her senior year of college was cut short when the pandemic hit. The students were forced to leave campus during their final semester and did not return to begin with.
The Discord group was a way to stay in touch, Romero said, but members began to drift apart as they found full-time jobs or took long trips.
During some of those years, Mangione left behind a digital footprint that included reviewing “Industrial Society and Its Future,” also known as Ted Kaczynski’s “Unabomber Manifesto,” on Goodreads, a publishing platform. book reviews and recommendations. This served as the ideological rationale for Kaczynski’s years-long mail bomb campaign, which killed three people and injured 23 others.
Mangione became significantly more active on X in 2021 after five years without posting or reposting content, according to a review of his account.
Asked about Mangione’s change in online personality, Romero said that question was circulating among his group of friends.
“I feel like people don’t know how to label it,” he said. “Personally, I have a hard time understanding how it all fits together.”
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