Mangione: The Story Behind the Story by John H Richardson – Understanding a Criminal?
On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper ran the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The report then noted that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both cold and shocking. But many Americans reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections or struggled with medical bills, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. One post read: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. That’s the job of the AI algorithm the insurance company created to maximize profits on your health.”
Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on criminal counts of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what drove the accused offense? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an inquiry that delves into wider topics, too.
Understanding the Person
A writer for a major publication, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the groups that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “cursed with realistic fears about an apocalyptic future”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first examines Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. Their subject matter covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own self-improvement, both body and mind”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on social media. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead render him an unclear character. Richardson tries to justify this by proposing that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old trickster magic”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.
Mangione is profoundly worried about the world around him, one where ‘everything is accelerating whether we like it or not’
Interpreting the Incident
As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson takes as his lead three words – “postpone”, “refuse” and “remove”, engraved on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by health insurance companies to reject claims. He examines the indication Mangione had a long-term spinal issue, which might have provided motive for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what significance there is seems to lie in Mangione’s philosophical dread about the world around him, one where “everything is accelerating whether we like it or not, moving rapidly to the edge”; a world where the general belief seems to be that AI is going to eventually either take control, or eliminate humanity, or both.
Gaps in the Narrative
Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate access to Mangione himself. And his family made it clear that they had decided against speaking to the media in advance of the trial. Another glaring gap is any detailed data about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits rose significantly.
Unclear Conclusions
By the conclusion, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his accused actions. More troubling, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been exposed to a subtle approval of an assassination. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson delivers his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the mad king, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that tale “outlaw heroes come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.”
One thing is clear: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the death penalty thrown out, any reference of myths, folk heroes, champions or villains will not be admissible as evidence in defence of this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” soon to be on trial for murder.
