🔗 Share this article

On the fifth of December 2024, a leading publication published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was truly cold and shocking. But many Americans reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections or struggled with medical bills, the news felt like a release. Online platforms erupted. One comment read: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who should live or perish. That’s the job of the artificial intelligence system the insurance company designed to maximize profits on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the capital punishment. So what is his background? And what drove the accused offense? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that delves into wider topics, too.

The Making of a Subject

A journalist for Esquire magazine, 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 end-times scenario”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own self-improvement, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These primary sources, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead render him an amorphous figure. Richardson tries to justify this by suggesting 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 ‘change is rapid whether we like it or not’

Interpreting the Incident

As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson uses as a clue three words – “delay”, “deny” and “depose”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He looks at the evidence Mangione had a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what significance there is seems to lie in Mangione’s existential anxiety about the world around him, one where “everything is accelerating whether we like it or not, sliding faster and faster 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

Notably missing from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but never expected time with Mangione himself. And his family made it clear that they had chosen not to talk to the press in prior to the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits increased by 33%.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the audience has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. More troubling, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him gives the reader the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the beast in the labyrinth and the naked leader.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a appealing vow … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives works to have accusations that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any reference of fables, folk heroes, heroes or villains will not be allowed in court in support for this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” soon to be on trial for murder.