Luigi Mangione’s Pennsylvania arrest was an all-American affair that featured a hoagie offered as a reward for the high-profile capture, cops evoking the McDonald’s breakfast menu as a stalling tactic and the suspect slapped in handcuffs against the soundtrack of Bing Crosby’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
The markedly mundane scenes that capped an action-packed five-day manhunt were played for the first time publicly Tuesday during the second day of ongoing evidence suppression hearings in Mangione’s state murder case. His lawyers are fighting to bar specific evidence from making it before a jury when he goes on trial next year, charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Midtown sidewalk.
Testifying in Manhattan Supreme Court, Officer Joseph Detwiler from the Altoona, Pa., police department said he was hesitant to believe the sought-after suspect was sitting in a fast-food restaurant in the Blair County city, almost 300 miles west of Manhattan.
“‘If you get the New York City shooter, I’ll buy you a hoagie from a local restaurant,’” he quoted his supervisor as quipping after the call came in from a McDonald’s manager, who reported a customer had spotted him.
“I said, ‘Consider it done.’”
In police-worn bodycam footage that was played in court, officers are then seen approaching Mangione on Dec. 9, 2024, as he sat at a corner table, eating a hash brown, wearing a large coat, a beanie and a PPE mask.
After Mangione complied with a request to remove his mask, Detwiler said he “immediately” recognized him, having been glued to wall-to-wall coverage of the shooting on Fox News. Mangione identified himself as “Mark Rosario” and handed over a New Jersey driver’s license with the same name.
Detwiler testified that as his colleagues ran a background check on the license, Mangione finished his breakfast and the cop sought to stall him by chatting about the steak, egg and cheese sandwich on the McDonald’s breakfast menu — with Detwiler telling Mangione it was his favorite — whistling to Christmas tunes playing on the radio, and suggesting cops had approached him for hanging around for too long at the restaurant.
Detwiler is heard during the footage asking Mangione several times whether he was from New Jersey — which Mangione affirmed — why he was in Altoona, and if he’d been in New York recently. Mangione said he was homeless. During a pat-down, the cop asks Mangione why he’s acting nervous.
In footage shown of Detwiler calling his supervisor outside, who’d joked about the reward hoagie, the officer said he was “100% sure” Mangione was the suspected CEO killer.
Inside the eatery, Detwiler said he sought to distance Mangione from his backpack before the license was determined to be fake. After cops confronted him about the counterfeit ID, warning him he was under investigation, Mangione admitted to it, the footage shows.
“Eh, Luigi,” Mangione is heard saying when asked for his real name, then stating his surname and date of birth.
When asked why he lied, the Maryland man is heard saying, “Eh, I clearly shouldn’t have.”
Within 30 minutes of arriving, cops found a knife, a jar of peanut butter and lots of cash, including foreign currency, on Mangione, Detwiler said. The Maryland man was placed in handcuffs as Crosby’s classic Christmas song came on the radio, the footage shows.
As officers apprehended Mangione, a patrolwoman is seen on the footage looking through his backpack – a move that has become a central point of contention. She allegedly turned up personal writings by Mangione that expressed disgust with the U.S. health care industry and plans to kill a high-level exec, a 3D-printed ghost gun and a magazine.
Mangione’s lawyers have argued that the search was conducted without a warrant under the guise of looking for a bomb and that the items seized should be barred from the Manhattan district attorney’s case. They’ve also argued that everything he said to cops at the restaurant, long before he’d been warned of his right to stay silent, should be similarly barred from evidence.
Wearing a navy blazer and a gingham pink shirt, the 27-year-old Mangione appeared to be listening intently to the testimony Tuesday, frequently taking notes and chatting with his attorneys.
Fans of the Ivy League computer science grad, who’s received significant public support from people critical of America’s expensive health care system, started lining up in the cold hours before dawn. They packed the courtroom’s back rows, frequently gasping and giggling at various revelations elicited from witness testimony.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and related offenses stemming from the killing of Thompson, a Minnesota father of two, outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown in the early morning hours of Dec. 4, 2024. The Justice Department is also prosecuting him in a capital case expected to go on trial after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s. He’s also pleaded not guilty in that case, and his lawyers are challenging the feds’ ability to try him on a death penalty offense.
State and federal authorities allege that Mangione darted from the scene of Thompson’s shooting through Central Park on a bike before taking a taxi to a bus station and fleeing the state.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro is expected to hear from several more witnesses during the ongoing proceedings before ruling on the defense’s requests. The hearings could take all week.
This story will be updated.
