UnitedHealthcare CEO killing latest: FBI, NYPD spoke to Mangione's mom before arrest

A task force comprised of FBI agents and NYPD detectives spoke to Luigi Mangione's mother one day before he was arrested in Pennsylvania and named a suspect in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

The conversation followed a tip the FBI received from police in San Francisco, where Mangione's mother had filed a missing persons report about her son on Nov. 18.

The tip from SFPD was based on physical appearance and Mangione's mother, in her conversation with the Joint Violent Crimes Task Force last Sunday, indicated the person in the surveillance photos circulated by the NYPD could be her son, the sources said.

The task force was still working on the information the mother and SFPD provided when Mangione was arrested Monday at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Mangione, 26, is currently in custody at a Pennsylvania state prison after a judge denied bail on Tuesday.

New attorney

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eanwhile, Mangione has hired veteran former New York City prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo to defend him against incoming murder charges, according to a statement from her law firm Agnifilo Intrater LLP.

Friedman Agnifilo served as the second-in-command in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office from 2014 to 2021 under former District Attorney Cyrus Vance. A biography on her law firm website says she played a lead role in prosecuting "high-profile violent crime cases," including those involving mental health and cold case homicides.

"Karen Friedman Agnifilo has a three-decade background in criminal justice, litigation, and trials. Her practice focuses on criminal defense in state and federal courts, leveraging her extensive experience prosecuting serious violent crimes, including complex homicide cases, from accusation to investigation to arrest and trial," her biography says.

"While serving in the Manhattan DA's office, Ms. Friedman Agnifilo was also integral to creating the office's Human Trafficking Unit, Hate Crimes Unit, Antiquities Trafficking Unit, Terrorism Unit, its Cybercrimes and Identity Theft Bureau, as well as working on the creation of Manhattan's first Mental Health Court," the biography continued.

Friedman Agnifilo is also a frequent television news guest and commentator and is a former legal analyst for CNN.

She is the co-host of a weekly podcast on the Meidas Touch Network where she discusses emerging legal issues and litigation strategy, and serves as a legal adviser for the television show "Law and Order."

Writings seized

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aw enforcement sources have told ABC News that writings seized from the suspect indicate he had been developing a fixation and increasing malice toward UnitedHealthcare and allegedly talked about harming its leader for months.

Some of the entries in the notebook seized from Mangione upon his arrest in Pennsylvania had dates on them going back to mid-2024, the sources said.

That fixation would eventually evolve into an alleged plan to shoot the chief executive, the sources said.

Some of the writings were diary-style, documenting how he felt, what he did that day, and also documented a desire to focus on his health and himself, and find his purpose, the sources said.

Then, as time went on -- as Mangione allegedly fell out of contact with friends and family and grew increasingly isolated -- some of his writings indicated a deterioration in his thinking and state of mind, illustrating a gradual build towards the alleged plan to kill UnitedHealthCare's CEO at their "annual parasitic bean-counter convention," sources said.

Mangione's writings, obtained by ABC News, claimed that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world, but ranks about No. 42 in life expectancy. He said UnitedHealthcare "has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit."

"I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done," he allegedly wrote. "Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming."

Neither Mangione nor his parents received insurance through UnitedHealthcare, according to UnitedHealth Group.