Christmastime in Altoona

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bad Rap: The Case Against Diddy

Episode Title: Christmastime in Altoona
Podcast: Bad Rap: The Case Against Diddy
Host: Brian Buckmire, ABC News
Release Date: August 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

The episode "Christmastime in Altoona" serves as the dramatic premiere of a new true crime series from ABC News and 20/20. Though the podcast's wider focus is on Diddy and allegations within the hip-hop world, this episode explores a high-profile, real-world murder investigation: the assassination of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, on the streets of Manhattan in December 2024. The podcast meticulously traces the investigation from the shooting itself to the surprising break in the case—a quiet arrest in a small-town Pennsylvania McDonald’s—and explores how the case gripped America, sparking debate about vigilantism, the failures of the healthcare system, and the role of social media in shaping public opinion about crime.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Altoona McDonald’s Arrest

• Setting the Scene (00:50–05:02):
  • December 9, 2024, Altoona, PA: McDonald’s manager calls 911, alerting police to a suspicious customer “who looked like the CEO shooter of New York.”
  • Local police officers, initially skeptical, arrive and confront the masked customer.
  • The suspect hands over a fake ID, but after further questioning, his real identity is uncovered: Luigi Mangione, the man wanted for the brazen Manhattan murder of CEO Brian Thompson.

Notable Quote

“If it really turns out to be the guy wanted for murder in New York, I'll buy you a hoagie at your favorite sandwich shop.”
— Aaron Katerski on Officer Detwiler's attitude before arrival at McDonald’s (02:44)

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The Manhattan Shooting: Timeline of the Crime

• Surveillance and the Crime (07:48–11:54):
  • Early on December 4, 2024, the killer leaves a Manhattan hostel, purchases a water and granola bar at Starbucks, and waits across from the Hilton hotel.
  • At 6:44 a.m., Brian Thompson is shot three times on a public sidewalk; the killer calmly approaches, fires again, then flees.

Notable Quote

“He’s all by himself, does not seem to be aware that he’s in terrible danger.”
— Maria Kramer, The New York Times (09:11)

Notable Quote

“It was a brazen assassination style killing.”
— Aaron Katerski (10:33)

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The Investigation: Evidence and Motive

• Within Hours, Evidence Builds (15:43–19:44):
  • Police recover shell casings inscribed with "Delay, Deny, Depose"—a message referencing insurance industry criticism.
  • Investigators suspect the killer’s motive is ideological, tied to anger at the healthcare system and UnitedHealthcare.

Notable Quote

“Delay, deny, depose. Words used by insurance critics to describe how companies avoid paying claims.”
— Brian Buckmire (18:02)

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Public Reaction and Social Media

• America Reacts (22:02–23:00):
  • The suspect’s photos go viral; debates erupt online, fueled by his "handsomeness" and the anti-corporate message.
  • Some social media users express support for the killer, viewing him as a vigilante or even a hero in a broken system.

Notable Quote

“Unless you about to raise everybody's medical debt or give us universal health care, you are not finding this mother. Promise you that.”
— Social media commenter, quoted by Brian Buckmire (22:23)

Notable Quote

“You have this whole community on social media and on the Internet that’s out there saying they don’t want the suspect caught.”
— Josh Margolin (22:37)

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The Break in the Case

• The Capture (29:40–37:03):
  • At the McDonald’s, body cam footage reveals the tense but subdued arrest of Mangione. Officers find a loaded gun magazine wrapped in wet underwear, nearly $8,000 in cash, fake IDs, and a passport.
  • Mangione remains eerily calm through the ordeal, even finishing his breakfast.
  • Handwritten notes, a diary, and a letter to "the feds" are recovered—materials prosecutors link directly to the planning and motive for the assassination. Some items are later ruled inadmissible at trial.

Notable Quote

“He does seem calm. And at one point... he carries on eating his breakfast and finishes the sandwich, wipes his mouth, crumples up the paper, collects his trash, and puts it all in the bag.”
— Aaron Katerski (34:13)

Notable Quote

“The target is insurance. It checks every box.”
— Diary entry found in Mangione’s possession, quoted by Aaron Katerski (37:03)

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The Aftermath and Cultural Impact

• From Suspect to Symbol (40:05–41:15):
  • Luigi Mangione’s capture provokes national soul-searching about healthcare, class, and vigilantism.
  • Victim Brian Thompson is remembered as a dedicated executive, husband, and father, but public sympathy is complicated by resentment toward the health insurance industry.
  • Debate arises over whether crime can ever be justified as protest, and the podcast raises questions about systems, symbols, and the making of a "just murder."

Notable Quote

“What happened was that shooting really laid bare this wound in American culture.”
— Aaron Katerski (40:05)

Notable Quote

“A murder is a murder… I cannot reconcile that there is such a thing as a just murder.”
— Brian Buckmire and Aaron Katerski, sequentially (41:07–41:15)

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Major Timestamps

• 00:50–05:02: The call and arrest at the Altoona McDonald's
• 07:48–11:54: Police retrace the suspect's movements on the morning of the murder
• 15:43–19:44: Overview of evidence, especially the shell casings’ message and early theories
• 22:02–23:00: Viral suspect photos and social media reactions
• 29:40–37:03: Details of the Altoona arrest, evidence found, and insights into Mangione’s demeanor
• 40:05–41:15: Cultural impact, debate about vigilantism, and questions about the incident's meaning

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Officers’ initial skepticism: The “hoagie bet” sets a small-town tone contrasting with the seriousness to come (02:44).
• Killer’s calmness: Mangione silently eats his sandwich, even as officers close in (34:13).
• Pop culture analogies and social commentary: Social media compares Mangione to celebrities and jokes about corporate power (22:02–23:00).
• Diary and manifesto revelations: “The target is insurance. It checks every box.” (37:03)
• Bing Crosby’s “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” ironically plays as Mangione is arrested (31:36–31:52).

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Tone and Style

The episode combines procedural detail and expert legal analysis with poignant, sometimes darkly humorous social commentary. Quotes and narration maintain the cadence and authenticity of the participants, especially Brian Buckmire’s measured yet incisive delivery and the journalistic clarity from supporting correspondents. The human and societal angles are treated with gravity, but the show never shies from highlighting the nation’s contradictory responses to shocking crime.

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Conclusion

"Christmastime in Altoona" launches the podcast with a meticulously reconstructed narrative of a headline-grabbing crime, its investigation, and its broader implications for American debates about justice, the healthcare system, and internet-age mythmaking. The episode builds suspense, challenges listeners’ sympathies, and lays the foundation for future episodes by promising more in-depth explorations of Mangione’s background, legal proceedings, and the societal divides the case exposed.

Transcript

[Brian Buchmire]

Hey, before we get into this episode, it's Brian Buchmire with a quick reminder. You can get episodes of this podcast ad free by subscribing to 2020 True Crime Plus. Just click that link in the episode description to learn more. Now here's the episode.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Commercial Announcer]

of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for a 12 month plan. Required $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy.

[911 Operator / McDonald's Manager]

See terms layer number one. What is the address of your emergency?

[Brian Buchmire]

It's December 9, 2024, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a small town between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.

[911 Operator / McDonald's Manager]

It's not really an emergency. I just. I'm a manager at Plank Road McDonald's. Out here on the boulevard, a McDonald's

[Brian Buchmire]

manager says there's a guy eating a hash brown and steak McMuffin in the corner of her restaurant. He's sitting by the bathroom wearing a tan beanie and a blue medical mask.

[911 Operator / McDonald's Manager]

I have a customer here that some other customers were suspicious of, that he looked like the CEO shooter of New York.

[Brian Buchmire]

Okay, the CEO shooter from New York. The one whose face has been all over the news for five days, ever since he allegedly shot and killed an executive in midtown Manhattan. She says she's not sure it's him, but she's calling it in anyway because she says customers keep bringing it up to her.

[911 Operator / McDonald's Manager]

So they're just really upset and they're like, coming to me. And I was like, well, I can't approach them, you know? No, of course not. I could try to calm them down a little bit. And I'm like, guys, it's kind of hard to tell with his eyes and his eyebrows. I was like, I don't know what to do here, guys. No, you're fine. You're fine.

[Brian Buchmire]

Less than five minutes into the call, the operator tells the manager that police officers have been notified. Two patrolmen are on their way to the Plank Road McDonald's.

[911 Operator / McDonald's Manager]

Just keep an eye on him. If he leaves, just give us a call back and let us know. Okay? All righty. Will do. All right. Thank you. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Bye.

[Brian Buchmire]

When Patrolman Joseph Detweiler gets the call to respond to the McDonald's he's also skeptical. Someone snacking on a McDonald's sandwich in Detwiler's small town. He thinks, no way this guy is the CEO's shooter. In fact, he is so sure, he says he makes a bet with his supervisor.

[Aaron Katerski]

If it really turns out to be the guy wanted for murder in New York, I'll buy you hoagie at your favorite sandwich shop.

[Brian Buchmire]

That's my colleague, Aaron Katerski, chief investigative correspondent at ABC News. He's been following this case closely from the very beginning. In state court, he heard officers testify about the McDonald's call. Officer Detwiler, a veteran on the force, said he spent the morning driving around Altoona with rookie cop Tyler Frey. Detwiler was training Frey in traffic stops when they got the call. They arrived at the McDonald's around 9:29am it was decked out for the holidays.

[Aaron Katerski]

The Christmas tree painted on the window matched the golden arches. There was Christmas music playing in the background.

[Brian Buchmire]

We reviewed body camera footage from when the officers first walk in. And if you listen closely, you can hear that Christmas music. As the officers walk inside, you can see touch screens for self checkout, garland decorating the registers and signs for $5 meal deals. The officers head past the registers and booths straight to the back corner of

[Aaron Katerski]

the restaurant, an area by the restroom where there's a lone individual with a mask against a white subway tile wall.

[Brian Buchmire]

There's a brown McDonald's bag and a napkin on the table in front of him. Detwiler asks the customer to pull down his mask. Down a bit further forward. Y appreciate it.

[911 Operator / McDonald's Manager]

Thank you.

[Brian Buchmire]

Okay, thanks. The man pulls down his mask and leaves it just under his chin. He's looking up at Detwiler from the metal restaurant chair as he fiddles with the mask loop around his ear.

[Aaron Katerski]

And he testified that almost immediately he recognized him as the individual wanted for the murder of Brian Thompson in New York City.

[Brian Buchmire]

The man tells the officers his name is Mark.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Mark what?

[Josh Margolin]

Who's.

[911 Operator / McDonald's Manager]

Sorry.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Someone called.

[Brian Buchmire]

They thought you were suspicious. Oh, okay. Do you have your ID on you?

[Aaron Katerski]

Yes, sir.

[Commercial Announcer]

Thanks.

[Brian Buchmire]

He hands him a driver's license. It says he's Mark Rosario from Maplewood, New Jersey Police. Call the ID into dispatch and establish it's a fake and this man isn't Mark Rosario from Maplewood, New Jersey. But you already knew that, didn't you? The man sitting up against that subway tile wall is identified by authorities as Luigi Mangione. The man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk just five days earlier. Police and prosecutors say Mangioni's their guy. He faces charges in both New York state and federal court. Mangione says he's innocent. People have all kinds of opinions about this alleged killer. Is he a cold blooded murderer or a hero vigilante? But we're going to start at the very beginning of this story, before there was talk of heroes or villains, before this case threw the spotlight onto America's broken healthcare industry, before most people knew the names Brian Thompson or Luigi Mancione. We're going back to when this was just about finding a gunman who vanished in the middle of Manhattan. From ABC Audio and 20 20, I'm Brian Buckmire, an attorney and ABC News legal analyst. And this is Burden of Proof. Luigi Mangione. Episode 1 Christmas Time in Altoon. It was the morning of December 4, 2024. Preparations were underway for the annual Christmas tree lighting in Rockefeller Center. Millions of tourists were streaming in from around the country and the world. Just a few blocks away, UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, which is the biggest health insurer in the country, was holding an investors conference at the Midtown Manhattan Hilton. Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was in town from Minnesota to attend. Meanwhile, police say a man at a youth hostel on the Upper west side of Manhattan was getting ready to commit murder. And by the way, what you're about to hear is based on law enforcement's sequence of events. After examining hours of surveillance footage and leapfrogging from camera to camera across New York City, they say they pieced together the whereabouts of this man on this day in 2024. Here's Aaron Katerski again.

[Aaron Katerski]

It's about 5:30 in the morning, before dawn.

[Brian Buchmire]

Surveillance footage shows that the man leaves the hostel, gets on an E bike and rides downtown. He arrives at the Hilton hotel's north entrance. Eleven minutes later, he's at West 54th street between 6th and 7th Avenue.

[Aaron Katerski]

He's seen walking, seemingly talking on a cell phone. He goes to Starbucks, where he buys a water and a granola bar, a Kind bar.

[Brian Buchmire]

Please say to be specific. The details matter here.

[Aaron Katerski]

And then eventually he circles around back toward the Hilton Hotel. And there is where police say he was lying in wait for his target.

[Brian Buchmire]

He allegedly lingers outside, masked, wearing a black hooded jacket and a distinctive gray backpack. What happens next will be captured on surveillance cameras, released to the public and played all over the news. At 6:44am, Brian Thompson comes out of the hotel where he was staying wearing a crisp blue suit. He crosses 6th Avenue toward the Hilton, where he's set to present in about an hour. Why is he leaving so early? We don't know. Maria Kramer reports on crime and the NYPD for the New York Times and covered this case from the start.

[Maria Kramer]

He's all by himself, does not seem to be aware that he's in terrible danger.

[Brian Buchmire]

Up to this point, the masked man has been ignoring everyone passing by him on the street.

[Maria Kramer]

But it's at that moment that he fixates on Brian Thompson and crosses the street, steps out from behind a car, pulls up a weapon.

[Brian Buchmire]

He aims at Brian Thompson's back as a CEO is walking away from him and fires. The gun seems to jam, but the shooter appears to clear the malfunctions. In total, he fires at his victim three times from about 10 or 12ft

[Maria Kramer]

away, striking him in the calf and striking him in the back. And Brian Thompson barely has time to whirl around to see what's happened when he collapses on the sidewalk, crumbling against a wall nearby.

[Brian Buchmire]

It's still early in the morning. There are only a few people out on the street. But in the surveillance footage you can see one woman on the sidewalk. She sees the shooting and bolts unharmed.

[Maria Kramer]

The gunman, however, just seems very calm, very composed, and he walks towards Brian Thompson, who's now dying and bleeding on the sidewalk, and appears to fire his gun again. And then he runs across the street.

[Aaron Katerski]

It was a brazen assassination style killing.

[Brian Buchmire]

And this happened on an avenue of fancy hotels and banks right in the heart of New York City. Right by Radio City Music hall and Rockefeller center, right by Broadway's glitzy theaters and Fifth Avenue's designer stores like Gucci, Coach and Chanel. Now it's a race against the clock for emergency personnel to respond to the scene, for the police to investigate, and for the shooter to not get away.

[Aaron Katerski]

As soon as the shots were fired, the killer escapes 54th street through an alleyway, a short alleyway onto West 55th street, and somewhere hops on a bicycle, an E bike stashed somewhere nearby.

[Brian Buchmire]

While the killer is fleeing, police call in the shooting over the radio. Confines of Midtown north getting unconfirmed shots fired.

[911 Operator / McDonald's Manager]

Possible person shot happened in the Americas.

[Brian Buchmire]

Police are on the scene by 6:48am Officers tend to Thompson until an ambulance arrives. Eight minutes later, they rush Thompson to a nearby hospital. At the same time, surveillance footage shows the gunman riding into Central park, just six blocks away.

[Aaron Katerski]

And from There, the trail goes cold because as many cameras as there are covering New York City streets, there are not as many in Central Park. And so his trail goes a bit cold until he's seen exiting the park on the bike and pedaling in the Upper west side of Manhattan.

[Brian Buchmire]

From there, things unfold quickly.

[Aaron Katerski]

By 7am, the suspect is seen ditching the bike, according to police. And at 7:04, he's in a cab heading uptown. And police say he was headed to the bus terminal by the George Washington Bridge.

[Brian Buchmire]

By 7:12am, Brian Thompson is pronounced dead at Mount Sinai West Hospital. In a city full of cameras and people and subways, how could someone kill a CEO in the middle of midtown Manhattan, then just disappear? Where could he have gone? By the time most people are waking up and getting ready to head to work, a national manhunt is underway. The NYPD will work with the FBI and eventually members of the small but now famous Altoona Police Department in Pennsylvania. Over the course of the search, officers will deploy drones, K9 units, and scuba divers. They'll pour over surveillance footage from across Manhattan. They'll sort through hundreds of tips from the public, all to find one man.

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[Brian Buchmire]

Brian Thompson was a 50 year old corporate executive from Minnesota. In one of the widely circulated pictures of him, he's wearing a light blue collared shirt under a quarter zip black sweater. He's got a closely trimmed beard with some specks of gray on his chin. He was a husband and a father of two. Why would someone shoot him on a midtown street? The NYPD police commissioner said from the start that, that it was a deliberate assassination. I want to be clear at this time. Every indication is that this was a premeditated, pre planned targeted attack. Thompson wasn't just any CEO. He was an executive at a health insurance company and one of the biggest companies in the United States. The police cycled through lots of potential theories on the shooter's motive. Was it a vendetta against Brian Thompson personally? Did he owe people money? Was it a drug thing, an alcohol thing?

[Josh Margolin]

The police determine there's none of that.

[Brian Buchmire]

That's chief investigative reporter Josh Margolin who was also following this investigation for ABC News.

[Josh Margolin]

It looks to them in the earliest hours that this is something having to do with UnitedHealthcare. Now they didn't know if it was going to be some sort of a grudge against the company by somebody who, you know, was an insurance customer or maybe it was somebody inside the company who had been denied a promotion or some sort of a workplace thing because that happens also. But they felt confident that this was going to be something associated with Brian Thompson for his workplace.

[Brian Buchmire]

And that's because of an early clue police say they found at the crime scene.

[Aaron Katerski]

At the scene, we recover three live 9 millimeter rounds and three discharged 9 millimeter shell casings.

[Brian Buchmire]

Bullets and shell casings. Here's Aaron Katerski again.

[Aaron Katerski]

There were words written in Sharpie on each of them. Delay, deny. The pose. One word on each shell casing that had been meticulously handwritten, and instantly police believed that was meant to send a message.

[Brian Buchmire]

Delay, deny, depose words used by insurance critics to describe how companies avoid paying claims. The words also echo the title of a book. Delay, deny why insurance companies don't pay claims and what you can do about it. Maria Kramer, the New York Times reporter, says police determine the message on these shell casings seemed like it was left there by a person with an ideology.

[Maria Kramer]

The police have a sense that the person who has done this has a problem with corporate America, specifically the health care industry. This is motivated very much by who Brian Thompson was, maybe not as a person, but certainly what he represented as an industry leader.

[Brian Buchmire]

In addition to those shell casings, investigators find a cell phone, a water bottle, and a kind bar wrapper at the scene. They lift DNA and fingerprints, hoping to identify the shooter, but they don't get any hits. They also examine the shooter's demeanor and method. Could he be a hitman? Ultimately, they reject that theory.

[Josh Margolin]

First of all, they noticed how far away the shooter was from Brian Thompson. Detectives were saying to us that if this had been somebody who was really a trained assassin, he wouldn't have fired from 10 or 12ft away. He would have fired from 5 or 7ft away. He also, not to be gruesome about it, but he took off before he made sure that his victim was dead. And trained assassins would not do that. Like you see in the movies, they're gonna make sure that they put the final kill shot into the victim, and that didn't happen.

[Brian Buchmire]

Also, Josh points out, according to experts, the killer was too sloppy to be a hired hitman. There were too many things left at the scene, things that could have been traced back to him. A hired assassin wouldn't do that. Authorities also look for clues in the grainy CCTV footage of the shooting. The murder weapon looks to authorities like a really rare gun. So they look up recent sales of this type of gun and spot a sale at a Connecticut gun store. But that lead doesn't go anywhere either. As the days go on, police turn to the public to help identify the killer. The day after the shooting, they start releasing photos of the gunman from around the city. We're encouraging New Yorkers to go about their daily lives and their daily business. But to be alert. We put the picture out. You're putting the picture out. We want people to take a look if they see anything suspicious. If they hear anything suspicious.

[Aaron Katerski]

Suspicious.

[Brian Buchmire]

We asked him to call 911 to reach out to our detectives. There are two pictures from the Starbucks in Midtown taken right before the shooting. The man with his hood over his head, that distinctive gray backpack over his shoulders, and a mask across his face. There's another two pictures of the suspect getting into a cab. His distinct eyes and thick eyebrows are visible above his medical mask. And then there are two photos from the hostel where he was allegedly staying for a few days before the shooting. He's still got his hood on in these pictures, but you can see his whole face. A young face, square jaw, neutral in one, smiling in the other. This moment when he was checking into the hostel is the only time we see him unguarded, the only time he took his mask down, according to police. Some people online speculate he was smiling because he had been flirting with the clerk behind the hostel counter. Others think he was just obliging her and checking his id. When the photos are released, people on the Internet take notice. They say he's a little easy on the eyes. They compare him to Jake Gyllenhaal and Zayn Malik. Oh, my God. He's fit. He's fit. He's fit. Call everybody back in right now.

[Aaron Katerski]

He's attractive.

[Brian Buchmire]

He's attractive. He's attractive. Some people online seem to revel not just in the suspect's handsomeness, but in the murder itself. Let's see what the comments have to say.

[Commercial Announcer]

The hospital and network. Did he really need to go to the er?

[Brian Buchmire]

It's not covered.

[Commercial Announcer]

Why didn't he try urgent care? Sending prior authorization, denied claims, collections and

[911 Operator / McDonald's Manager]

prayers to his family.

[Ryan Reynolds]

My condolences are out of network.

[Brian Buchmire]

Unless you about to raise everybody's medical debt or give us universal health care, you are not finding this mother. Promise you that. Instead of helping law enforcement hunt for the shooter, some people seem to be rooting for him to get away.

[Josh Margolin]

You have this whole community on social media and on the Internet that's out there saying they don't want the suspect caught. This explosion of sarcasm they're talking about, he went that away. He went that away. There are people who are saying, I'll hide the guy. I'm him. I'm gonna, you know, help him on the run.

[Brian Buchmire]

The Altoona McDonald's eventually got swept up in all of this, it was flooded with one star Yelp reviews about employees talking too much. One person wrote, more like Narc Donald's. While things unfold online on the ground, officers continue their sprawling search for the suspect.

[Josh Margolin]

NYPD deploys an army to Manhattan. They have cops all over the crime scene, in the area around the crime scene, going door to door, talking to people, trying to get video. You have cops by the hostel where he stayed. You have cops uptown around the area where he comes out of the park and he's seen on the bike. You have scuba divers in Central park diving, looking for the bike. Maybe he ditched it into the lake. You have drones overhead trying to see what they can tell. Is there something over the park? Is there something on the street?

[Brian Buchmire]

Two days after the shooting, they find something by the Central park bandshell. A gray backpack. It looks like the one the shooter is wearing in the surveillance footage from outside the Hilton.

[Aaron Katerski]

And that backpack included a Tommy Hilfiger jacket and Monopoly money. And the play money to detectives, seemed like some kind of message the killer was trying to send, literally toying with investigators. Play money.

[Brian Buchmire]

There's no helpful evidence, nothing tying anyone to the crime, just the Monopoly money. Like something straight out of a Batman comic, with the riddler leaving a stack of play money behind. Police are also trying to figure out where the suspect might have fled. They only learn later that he did not leave from the George Washington Bridge uptown bus terminal, that he actually went back downtown on the subway to Penn Station about seven miles away.

[Maria Kramer]

Penn Station is one of the busiest places in New York. You've got trains going to Washington, D.C. boston, Philadelphia.

[Brian Buchmire]

But in the early days of the manhunt, investigators think if they can figure out where the gunman came from, they can figure out where he went. So they say they rewind surveillance footage all the way back to 10 days before the shooting. And when they do that, they see the gunman arriving in New York through the Port Authority Bus Terminal. His Greyhound bus originated in Atlanta. The first thing he did when he arrived, according to police, was go straight to the Hilton to, quote, case the joint. So law enforcement fans out all along the bus route. Starting in Atlanta, they sent police to

[Josh Margolin]

every single jurisdiction along the way. 13 stops coming up to New York. And they wanted to find out, did anybody see him? When did he get on, when did he get off? Did he say anything to anybody from that search?

[Brian Buchmire]

The police tell ABC News privately they had two possible persons of interest, but they didn't end up arresting either of those people.

[Josh Margolin]

Turns out the police really weren't any closer to catching the shooter than they had been.

[Brian Buchmire]

No arrest is made. The manhunt continues. The NYPD offers a $10,000 reward. Then the FBI joins in and offers a $50,000 reward. Hundreds of tips come in, but they're no help. One day passes, two days, three, four, five. Still no arrest over the weekend. Saturday Night Live pokes fun at the reactions to the shooting.

[Aaron Katerski]

The guy was murdered in cold blood. And the two main reactions were, yeah, well, health care stinks. And also, girl, that's shooter hot.

[Brian Buchmire]

And pokes fun at the ongoing search for the shooter. Josh Margolin says that after five or six days pass in a search like this, police fear that the hunt might not end until the suspect makes a mistake or they get a lucky break. Well, on the sixth day, they do get a lucky break. That call from the McDonald's and Altoona, Pennsylvania.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Hi, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Are you looking for a beach read this summer? May I suggest your big wireless bill? It's got suspense, mystery, a slightly flat emotional arc, and a shocking twist where you realize you've been overpaying the entire time. Fortunately, though, Mint Story is better. Every plan, $15 a month. Even unlimited. That's it. Happy ending, zero tears. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment

[Commercial Announcer]

of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan. Required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. See terms.

[Brian Buchmire]

FX presents the shards Los Angeles, 1981.

[Aaron Katerski]

We're gonna roll the school, don't we already?

[Brian Buchmire]

It was supposed to be the best year for their lives. I would stab someone for a drink right now. Until their friends started going missing.

[Josh Margolin]

There's something going on.

[Brian Buchmire]

From executive producer Ryan Murphy. And based on the bestselling thriller by Brett Easton ellis. Sounds terrifying. FX's the Shards now streaming on Hulu. The Hulu original series Furious now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus.

[Maria Kramer]

There are three victims we know of.

[Commercial Announcer]

The suspect is female, white, late twenties.

[Josh Margolin]

Female serial killers kill for power control.

[Maria Kramer]

I believe there's a deeper motivation here.

[Brian Buchmire]

You have no idea who you're dealing with and you are going to end up dead.

[Maria Kramer]

I've been waiting for you.

[Brian Buchmire]

Watch the Hulu original series Furious now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus. For month of subscribers. Terms apply. Five days after the murder, Officer Detwiler and Officer Fry are in the Altoona McDonald's they're beginning to question the customer that the manager called about. The one we now know is Luigi Mangione. To officers at the time, Mangione wasn't Mangione yet. He was just a man at a fast food restaurant eating his breakfast. A man who allegedly handed over a fake license when officers asked for his id. You heard a brief body camera recording earlier in the episode, but the rest of the hour long encounter hasn't been released to the public yet. But lucky for us, Aaron Katerski was in court for a pretrial hearing where attorneys played and replayed the body camera video in its entirety over and over and over again.

[Aaron Katerski]

Every angle from every officer that came to the McDonald's in response to this man sitting in the corner eating his breakfast.

[Brian Buchmire]

After the man handed over the Mark Rosario id, Officer Detwiler testified that something crucial happened, something that sort of sealed the deal. On the officer's suspicion, there's a question

[Aaron Katerski]

that Detweiler asks the man, which is, have you ever been in New York? And at that point, the man falls silent and doesn't really answer the question.

[Brian Buchmire]

Court records say Mangione begins to shake. Watching the video in court, Aaron didn't quite see it that way. He thought Mangione was more mellow than panicked. But he does agree Mangione fell silent

[Aaron Katerski]

and that seemed to firm up the officer's suspicion that this is exactly who they're looking for.

[Brian Buchmire]

According to court documents, Detwiler asked Mangione to put his hands on his head and the officers frisk him before ordering him to sit back down. He's got a black backpack with him. Officers at this point move the backpack away from Mangione. And then at around 9:45 in the morning, about 15 minutes into the interaction, the officers establish his real identity.

[Aaron Katerski]

He says his name and at first none of the officers can quite get it. Luigi. Luigi. Luigi. How do you spell it? And then Mangioni. Mangi. What? And then it's written down by Officer Fry in a small notebook you'd keep in your back pocket.

[Brian Buchmire]

It's then that officers read Mangione his Miranda warnings. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court, etc. They place him under arrest. Handcuff and zip tie his wrist. And in an ironic twist, as Luigi

[Aaron Katerski]

Mangione is being formally placed under arrest, the speakers above are blaring Bing Crosby singing I'll be Home for Christmas. I'll be home for Christmas.

[Brian Buchmire]

You can plan.

[Aaron Katerski]

And at that point, it becomes Clear that Mangione will not be home for Christmas.

[Brian Buchmire]

Once police have a name, Luigi Mangioni, they run it through their databases, and things accelerate. Officers search him again and find nothing.

[Aaron Katerski]

And then his backpack is moved a bit farther away from him as the officers call supervisors and start to figure out how to handle this guy.

[Brian Buchmire]

At this point, it's not just Detweiler and Fry dealing with Mangione. Lots of officers show up. Aaron says they're positioned near the restroom. Eventually, they're standing around Mangione kind of filling in this whole corner where he's seated.

[Aaron Katerski]

And eventually, there are more than a dozen officers that come to the McDonald's and participate in one way or another,

[Brian Buchmire]

a substantial portion, nearly a fifth of the entire Altoona police Department. Next, body camera footage shows that they search Mangione's backpack. They search him again, too, checking his jacket and frisking him, say defense attorneys.

[Aaron Katerski]

He's wearing multiple layers of clothing. Big, puffy coat and then a thinner jacket, shirt, undershirt. He's got several pairs of pants on. And one of the officers begins to search the backpack, and as she does, she pulls out a pair of, as she described it, wet gray underwear. And wrapped in that article is a

[Brian Buchmire]

magazine, ammunition, a loaded gun magazine wrapped in wet underwear. Plus, police say they found approximately $7,800 in cash in his wallet, along with some foreign currency and a passport. They say they searched the backpack right then and there without getting a warrant to make sure there wasn't a, quote, bomb or anything in here. For a guy who's surrounded by over a dozen cops getting searched and questioned, Mangioni appears to keep a pretty calm demeanor.

[Aaron Katerski]

He does seem calm. And at one point, as the officers are checking his id, even as they're arrayed around him, he carries on eating his breakfast and finishes the sandwich, wipes his mouth, crumples up the paper, collects his trash, and puts it all in the bag.

[Brian Buchmire]

Eventually, Mangione gets transported to the Altoona police precinct and brought to an intake area. And let me tell you, as a defense attorney who's seen the intake process many, many times, in general, it's a pretty miserable scene. Your pockets get emptied. Eventually, there's some fingerprinting, photos get taken, and then you get put in a jail cell, that loud clanking, door closing behind you. But Mangione also went through another layer of search.

[Aaron Katerski]

What's done, the Altoona police said, per their protocol, is effectively a strip search. And so he is made to take off most of the layers of clothing and eventually all of it so they can do a thorough search of his person. And then they go through item by item in the backpack and place it all on a table.

[Brian Buchmire]

And what gets laid out on the table, police say, is really damning stuff.

[Aaron Katerski]

And those are the items that prosecutors now say prove the crime.

[Brian Buchmire]

A 9 millimeter handgun with a 3D printed receiver and a homemade silencer.

[Aaron Katerski]

There are other items that prosecutors are quite interested in, including scraps of paper where it appears Mangioni wrote notes to himself. Prosecutor says some of those notes indicated escape routes where there are crude maps drawn where you could get out of Pittsburgh or Columbus, Ohio, or something like that. There's also a note labeled to do list.

[Brian Buchmire]

According to court documents, the alleged to do list included notes to alter his appearance, change hat, shoes, pluck eyebrows, and bust a pen station. It also said keep momentum, break cam

[Aaron Katerski]

continuity, as if he knew there were cameras following his movements. And another telling bit of writing, especially to prosecutors, FBI slower overnight. And these were little reminders, perhaps to himself, the way prosecutors see it, to try and stay on the run and out of sight as long as possible.

[Brian Buchmire]

There were two other handwritten items that for police were bombshell pieces of evidence. One, the contents of a red hardcover notebook authorities say Mangioni used as his diary.

[Aaron Katerski]

The target is insurance. It checks every box was one phrase. There was another phrase he used to called the parasitic bean counter convention.

[Brian Buchmire]

The exact language was, what do you do? You whack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean counter convention. It's targeted, precise, and doesn't risk innocence. And two, a brief letter labeled to the feds. It references failures of the American health care system and says, quote, I do apologize for any strife or trauma, but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A judge has since determined that some of the items police say they found in Mangione's backpack will be inadmissible in court. Other items will be allowed. We'll get into all of that in a later episode. Back to December 2024. The Altoona Police department has got all of these items, but the murder didn't happen in their jurisdiction. They can't charge Mangione for something he allegedly did in New York. They can, however, charge him for crimes he allegedly committed in Pennsylvania. And that's exactly what they do. They charge him with forgery, carrying firearms without a license, possessing instruments of a crime, tampering with records, and false identification. To authorities, Mangioni has pled not guilty to all of those charges.

[Josh Margolin]

And they send word back to New York we think we have your persons of interest.

[Brian Buchmire]

That's ABC's Josh Margolin again.

[Josh Margolin]

The New York police, in the middle of a rainstorm, they start racing from Manhattan west on the interstate to get out to Altoona, Pennsylvania. Through the morning, we start hearing that police think it looks good, that they're optimistic that this is the person they've been looking for. The mayor and the police commissioner have a press conference midday.

[Brian Buchmire]

Good afternoon.

[Josh Margolin]

And the mayor says that this is a strong person of interest.

[Brian Buchmire]

Someone, a McDonald's employee, did something we ask every American to do. If you see something, say something. But most importantly, do something. The chief of detectives shares what police knew about their strong person of interest. A man was taken into custody today

[Aaron Katerski]

at Altuda, Pennsylvania this morning. He has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione. He's a male, 26 years old. He was born and raised in Maryland. We know he has ties to San Francisco, California, and his last known address was Honolulu, Hawaii.

[911 Operator / McDonald's Manager]

Soon.

[Brian Buchmire]

Authorities also say there is no indication that Mangione was ever a customer of UnitedHealthcare, something the company confirmed. That's all police knew about Mangione back in the very early days of this case. But quickly, Luigi Mangione became a household name and according to journalists and some people who have followed the story closely, a symbol.

[Aaron Katerski]

What happened was that shooting really laid bare this wound in American culture.

[Commercial Announcer]

They feel like this guy is standing up to a system and they're celebrating it.

[Brian Buchmire]

How did a young man who friends say was brilliant and funny become the person? Prosecutors say he is A cold blooded killer. Someone who planned and pulled off a daring public murder.

[Aaron Katerski]

This kid that I knew from high school is now the most high profile killer allegedly in the country. It's so surreal.

[Brian Buchmire]

And how did a well respected corporate executive who largely kept to himself become a victim of what police considered a targeted assassination?

[Commercial Announcer]

It is unfair that one person, this man who's been murdered, is being held responsible in the public's eyes for the failings of an entire industry and frankly, a system.

[Brian Buchmire]

A murder is a murder.

[Aaron Katerski]

I cannot reconcile that there is such a thing as a just murder.

[Brian Buchmire]

What put these two men on a collision course? What put them at the heart of a national frenzy far bigger than both of them? Burden of proof luigi mangione is a production of abc audio in 2020 hosted by me, brian buckmire. Produced by vika aronson and audrey mostek. Our lead producer is camille peterson. Edited by tracy samuelson music by evan viola mixing by bob mallory special thanks to katie dandas sasha aslanian, michelle margulis, tanya simpson, aaron katursky, josh margolin, peter harolambus, jared kofsky, jake lefferman and katie maldoni. Josh cohan is our director of podcast programming. Eamon mcniff is our executive producer.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment

[Commercial Announcer]

of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for a 12 month plan. Required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy.

[Brian Buchmire]

See terms sophistication, class, restraint, dignity. None of these words have anything to do with Super Troopers three. One, two, three, go. Barbara in the house.

[Aaron Katerski]

Hope you guys aren't too drunk already now in theaters.

[Brian Buchmire]

No new info on the guy who did it. Oh, so it couldn't have been a woman?

[Aaron Katerski]

Sexist.

[Commercial Announcer]

You ever see Ocean's 8?

[Brian Buchmire]

Enough. Super Troopers 3?

[Aaron Katerski]

Meow.

[Brian Buchmire]

Playing only in theater. Rated R. Under 17. Not admitted without parenting.