← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
BOMBSHELL New Witness Reveals Luigi Mangione’s Chilling Rant Before the Manhattan CEO Murder
00:16:48
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hey, everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is drop dead serious. When it comes to the case against Luigi Mangione, it's pretty easy to think that there's not much left to figure out, right? A CEO was gunned down on a Manhattan street. There's video, there's evidence stretching all the way from New York to Pennsylvania. And then you get this suspect who says he's innocent, even though it looks like an uphill battle for Mangione against the death penalty. But some new information has just come in. I just learned it tonight from a source. And it might just mean this case could be even more of a slam dunk than we thought. Behind that polished smile, behind the Ivy League degrees and the family fortune, Luigi Mangione did something that's going to be hard to argue. Something that started a half a world away in Asia. Did a motive for murdering a healthcare CEO begin to percolate in Thailand? As it turns out, the man he's accused of executing on the streets of New York, Brian Thompson, was no stranger to Mangione, not for a long time. In fact, Luigi seemed to be obsessing over Brian Thompson along with other CEOs that he believed were, quote, unquote, greedy. And how do I know this? Witnesses told me that he told them so. Witnesses have told me that that's exactly what Luigi Mancione told them in Thailand. And these are new witnesses. New witnesses who have not yet even talked to the police, yet. American witnesses who spent quality time with Luigi Mangione together in Thailand. Did that fixation that he openly talked about in a Bangkok pub lead to murder on the streets of Manhattan nine months later? Buckle up, because in this episode, I talked to one of those Americans who befriended Mangione in that pub and listened as Luigi spewed his anti capitalist philosophies against those so called greedy CEOs. His words, not mine. With Brian Thompson specifically named. The deeper we dig into Luigi Mangione's life overseas, the more alarming his mindset seems to be. And let's not forget, Brian Thompson's name would have sort of been like white noise in that conversation. He wasn't the famous CEO who was executed at a Manhattan health conference before he even got there. No one really knew his name unless you were in the industry. So to hear it back then wouldn't have stood out. Only after his murder did it have such significance. And in the past several months, the New York Times has been tracing Luigi's footsteps across Thailand, Japan and India. Beginning in February of 2024. That is a full 10 months before the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was murdered on West 54th Street. As it turns out, Luigi crossed paths with those two Americans in Bangkok at a bar in the middle of the city's over the top party district. Christian Sacchini is an American expatriate and professional soccer player living in Thailand. He says Luigi Mangioni approached him and his friend because they were speaking English and Luigi overheard them. So the three men began hanging out and it lasted for hours and hours. They talked about everything from video games to volcanoes to. Wait for it, the high cost of health care in America. Christian even says Luigi Mangione mentioned Brian Thompson by name, the CEO that Luigi Mangione allegedly shot to death. Nine months later in New York City. I spoke with Christian Sacchini on my News Nation show, Banfield. Shout out to News Nation. I have a show weeknights, Monday to Friday, 10pm Eastern. Here's our conversation. Let me start from the beginning and what you remember about Luigi Mangione. Yeah, go ahead. I would love to hear your account of what you remember about Luigi.
- [04:55]
B
Okay. So it started. My friend from college was visiting me and I took him to, I wanted to show him around Bangkok. So I took him to a pretty busy nightlife area called Soy Cowboy. And we were walking around and I chose to sit at a pub which had had booths facing the street so you could kind of people watch. So I approached the booth and I saw Luigi, he was sitting on the corner. So I put about one or two booths of spacing and I sat next with my friend and we just started talking in English. And a couple minutes later Luigi of introduced myself and, and he asked, hey, where are you guys from? So we just had to have started having conversation. I, I said I was from the US we were both from, from Texas, but I said my parents live in, in Alexandria, Virginia. So I go back there when I'm in the US and he said he was from Maryland. So we quickly had a, a good connection. I asked him like, well, what are you doing here? How long have you been here? And he said he was just vacationing around Asia. He asked us what we were doing here in Thailand and I said I, I played here and lived in Bangkok and I play soccer professionally and my friend was just visiting me. So we started, the more we started talking, I asked him, he mentioned that he had graduated and I mentioned that I had dropped out to pursue soccer. I asked him what he graduated and he said computer science. And I immediately had a Connection, because that's what I was studying when I attended university. So I asked him what, what he would recommend I go into specifically for computer science. And he, he was very eager to say AI. And he said it would be the next big, big thing. And the way he spoke about it, he seemed very intelligent about it. So I, I absolutely took his word and believed him. So we, we started talking more.
- [06:54]
A
I was just going to jump in there because I'm curious about how the conversation went from that very innocuous set of topics to greedy CEOs and then eventually to the name Brian Thompson. Take me to that moment.
- [07:10]
B
Yeah, so he asked me about. Because I told him I had been living there at the time for about three and a half, four years in Thailand. And he asked me about my life, how I liked it over here. And I started, I kind of went on a little rant. I said, well, I love it here. The price of rent, of food, of travel, of staying in hotels, of taxis, everything was, was incredibly cheap. And then I mentioned a story about how I had a pretty bad knee injury that happened to me during a soccer game. And I went to the hospital, I got it checked out. I got an mri, I got an X ray, I got prescribed pain medication to help with the pain. And I told him I had no insurance. I received the bill at the end of all that and it was about 180 to $200 somewhere in that range. And when I, when that happened to me, I couldn't believe it. And I told this story to Legion. He was. He couldn't believe it either. I remember telling him also, my younger brother is a nurse. And I sent him a picture of the receipt and I told my brother and he was also in shock. So it was a huge moment where he just couldn't believe how inexpensive things were without any insurance at all over here in Thailand.
- [08:27]
A
I'm gonna divert a little bit from the healthcare conversation only because I want to show that your communications and communications with your friend and Luigi continued from this night, he eventually would communicate with your friend and tell your friend about an attack, an attack by I think what he called ladyboys. Those are trans male often sex in this particular. These areas in Bangkok. But he not only told your friend about an attack, he sent a picture. Can you describe that?
- [09:02]
B
Yeah. So the picture, it sounds, maybe some articles have exaggerated a little bit, but it said he was beat up by lady boys. From the picture that I saw and I remember it was maybe a couple scratches on his arm and then a red mark on his face that was nowhere near. It wasn't a bruise or a black eye. It was just a very slightly red mark. So it wasn't anything brutal or like he got beat up. But it did see that he had suffered some kind of.
- [09:29]
A
Yeah, he did.
- [09:29]
B
Small injury.
- [09:32]
A
He had actually described this attack. And I'm not sure what led up to it, but with the photo and the description, can you surmise what it was that led to this fight?
- [09:44]
B
So I know that Luigi returned to the same exact bar the very next day and he sat at the same stool, he told my friend. But I could not tell you exactly what prompted him to or what he did to get attacked. I don't know those details.
- [10:05]
A
So, moving back to this, this conversation about greedy CEOs and the mention of Brian Thompson's name, that just. I mean, the hair stood up on my neck when I heard that, because this is what I think. March of 2024. And then, of course, the killing of Brian Thompson was in December of the same year. Have the police talked to you about your conversations in the bar that night with Luigi?
- [10:32]
B
No, no authorities have contacted me. It's only been journalism and news outlets.
- [10:41]
A
Do you find that surprising given the fact that this is extraordinary information many months prior to the actual murder?
- [10:51]
B
Yeah, I thought it was. My friend was a little bit more nervous than I was. But I think, in my opinion, there was just too much time from March to December that can go through a person's mind. A lot can change. So I wasn't very too nervous about maybe having to speak with authorities or something of that manner.
- [11:14]
A
And then just to be clear, your friend, has your friend been approached by authorities or told this story to the police investigating the murder?
- [11:23]
B
I don't know if he's spoken to authorities, but he has spoken to numerous, many more news outlets because he was wearing a GoPro that night. And he has footage and video, audio and all that. So he has more. Way more people have approached him than I. Than I have.
- [11:42]
A
Let me back you up on that one for a second. Did you just say that he was wearing a GoPro? And so this whole conversation with Luigi Mangione was captured on video.
- [11:51]
B
He does not have the entirety of the conversation because there were moments where he would turn it off and set it aside. But while we were walking and going from place to place, he had it on and off. So it wasn't the entire duration of us with Luigi that he added on.
- [12:07]
A
Do you know if those moments where he talked about Brian Thompson were captured on video in the pub, I believe.
- [12:14]
B
They were not, because when we were at the pub, he had set the GoPro down on the table so he would turn it on when we were walking from place to place.
- [12:25]
A
Well, that's a bummer. So let me ask you this. At the time, the name Brian Thompson wouldn't have been significant, but several months later, you heard about Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, being shot dead, execution style, by a shadowy figure on the streets of Manhattan. Did it cross your mind that it might have been Luigi Mangione?
- [12:49]
B
Oh, never, never. I actually, I did not. I really wasn't paying so much attention to the story at the time because, you know, I was in Thailand. But once I saw the picture, that's what really triggered it for me, that, wow, I met this guy. I couldn't believe it.
- [13:07]
A
That's my next question. Once you did put two and two together and you heard about Luigi Mangione and you saw his picture, were you shocked or did red flags come back about your conversations?
- [13:20]
B
I couldn't believe it. Extremely shocked.
- [13:25]
A
So when you think back about the guy you met and you know, spent a fair bit of time that evening with, and then your friend continued, you know, many conversations thereafter, was there anything that you can think of that led you to think I should have maybe thought more about that, or that suggested he had, you know, a violent tendency, or he looked like he was deranged, or it looked like he might do something about these people and the issues he was talking about?
- [13:54]
B
No, I really, it was so unexpected. I, I, the way we talked for hours and had some beers together. He, Luigi struck me as someone who's just very laid back, chill. And he seemed very intelligent, of course, and someone that, that would have a bright future ahead of them. It just would not make sense for him to do such a thing. So I could not, I would have never guessed that it would have been him or he would have been accused of this or he would be capable like this.
- [14:25]
A
Sure. And then, so when, when you heard his name and saw his picture, did you think they've got the wrong guy?
- [14:32]
B
I mean, the, the, the, the fit, his face was just spot on. I, I, maybe they could have gotten the wrong guy. Yes. I heard a lot of rumors about it's not the same person, the eyebrows are different and all that. But I mean the, it's, the more pictures I saw him, the more I could confirm that it is him from, you know, different angles or whatever, but it certainly is him. The other moment that really I knew it was him was when he was showing pictures on his phone about him in Hawaii. And this one iconic picture that's always has been very popular is of him without a shirt on top of the mountain in Hawaii. He showed me that on his phone. And that was another moment where it was just confirmation that that was him.
- [15:19]
A
Christian, based on your conversations with him that night in March, nine months before the murder, do you think he was capable of being the guy that did this to Brian Thompson? That murdered Brian Thompson?
- [15:32]
B
I did not think he would be capable of that, no.
- [15:36]
A
By the way, you should know, after the broadcast, we reached out to Christian Sacchini and said to him that both he and his friend should reach out to the police with what they told me. If what Christian Sacchini says is true, that Luigi Mangioni was trashing Brian Thompson nine months before the murder, that could be a massive piece of evidence in the trial he'll be facing. And not just one, multiple trials. If true, this is evidence. An eyewitness account of premeditation, long simmering. If police track down these two American men and if they end up as witnesses for the prosecution, it doesn't bode well for Luigi Mangione. If prosecutors can prove what happened in Asia connects directly to the gunshots that rang out in Manhattan, Luigi is certain to have an even tougher fight for his life. I'm Ashley Banfield and remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.