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- [00:00]
Narrator
The following podcast explores an active investigation unfolding in real time. Luigi Mangione is considered innocent until proven Guilty in a court of law.
- [00:14]
Jesse Weber
When law enforcement officers closed in on Luigi Mangione in Altoona, Pennsylvania on the evening of December 9, 2024, they knew they had captured the man suspected of assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. But what they didn't know, at least not yet, was that they had also stumbled upon the key to understanding his alleged motives.
- [00:36]
Narrator
When police apprehended Luigi Mangione, they say that he was found with written admissions expressing frustration with the healthcare industry. Mangione uses United Healthcare by name.
- [00:49]
Jesse Weber
Written in sharp, deliberate strokes, it read less like a confession and more like a declaration of war to the Feds. I'll keep this short because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial. Some elementary social engineering, basic cad, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and to do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering, so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife or traumas, but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder. The US has the number one most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly 42 in life expectancy. United is the largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but has our life expectancy? No. The reality is these Mafioso have simply gotten too powerful and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space and frankly, I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed decades ago. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I'm the first to face it with such brutal honesty. His writing wasn't frantic or unhinged. It was methodical, controlled. He wanted the world to understand why he did what he allegedly did.
- [02:42]
Commentator
If you really read his manifesto, it was very much with what he perceived to be greed, capitalism, and stereotypical CEOs.
- [02:50]
Jesse Weber
The moment word got out that Luigi Mangione had allegedly left behind a manifesto, the battle lines were drawn. Would the public get to see it in full, or would the media decide what parts of it were fit for Consumption. Once authorities had the document in hand, they knew it wouldn't stay secret for long. Initially, only fragments were released to the public, quoted in news reports alongside details of his arrest. But soon, an independent journalist made a bold move. He published the full text, giving the world an unfiltered look at the mind of a man who had allegedly taken his frustrations to their most violent extreme from law and crime and twist. I'm Jesse Weber and this is Luigi. From the start, there was a clear disconnect. While a segment of the public saw Mangione as a tragic figure reportedly lashing out at a broken system, most major media outlets painted him in a singular light, A violent extremist and accused cold blooded murderer. They focused on the crime, but often left out the deeper grievances fueling his alleged actions. The corporate media machine seemed more interested in framing the event as a clear cut case of law and ordered, rather than engaging with the uncomfortable questions Mangione's manifesto raised. About healthcare, about inequality, about desperation. Nowhere was this more evident than in the handling of the manifesto itself. Most mainstream publications refused to publish it in full, opting instead for cherry picked excerpts. Some justified their decision, saying they didn't want to glorify violence. Others saw it differently.
- [04:41]
Ken Klippenstein
My name is Ken Klippenstein. I'm an independent investigative reporter. I run a newsletter on substack that covers national security issues and politics.
- [04:50]
Jesse Weber
On December 10, 2024, just one day after Mangione's arrest, Klippenstein came into possession of the 262 word declaration. Then he did what any seasoned reporter would do before publishing. Make sure this thing was actually legit. Before the real manifesto even surfaced, fake versions were already circulating. Some falsely painted Mangione as a radical extremist, others as a righteous avenger. Without fact checking, people ran with whatever version fit their worldview. Conspiracy theories took root. Some claimed the manifesto had been altered by law enforcement. Others insisted Mangione was a government patsy, part of some elaborate cover up. The facts didn't matter as much as the engagement. And in the world of social media, the most sensational version of the story always wins. But that's not how Klippenstein rolls. So when he got a hold of his copy, he quickly cross referenced it with what had already been released by corporate media.
- [05:56]
Ken Klippenstein
When I got the accurate manifesto, I compared the contents to the contents that were reported in the press because there was a very strange sort of quantum state where you supposedly weren't allowed to publish the actual document, but for some reason, you could quote from parts of it, and somehow that's not going to inspire violence. Portions of it had been quoted in the press. I compared the contents of what was given to me to that.
- [06:20]
Jesse Weber
But a few bits matching up here and there still wasn't enough. Klippenstein needed further confirmation.
- [06:28]
Ken Klippenstein
Since I'm a national security reporter, I was able to check with my own sources in the national security community to ask them if this is what they had been briefed on.
- [06:36]
Jesse Weber
And on the hunt for solid verification, he caught wind that a lot more people had seen this coveted evidence than it reportedly seemed.
- [06:45]
Ken Klippenstein
At first I thought, okay, maybe a couple people have this. Not very well known. But, no, that's not the case. I wasn't aware of the extent to which this document had already circulated, not just through basically every major media outlet, but among law enforcement as well. So it circulated quite a bit.
- [07:00]
Jesse Weber
It appeared that they'd all been able to read the manifesto. Why not the public? Klippenstein knew then the document he had in hand was the same these other privileged groups had access to.
- [07:13]
Ken Klippenstein
That's how I was able to corroborate it.
- [07:15]
Jesse Weber
And with that, he hit publish. And the manifesto took on in a life of its own. It was dissected, debated, decried. Some saw it as a deranged justification for an unforgivable crime.
- [07:30]
Commentator
It's in his manifesto. It's the classic definition of domestic terrorism. He has an ideological goal.
- [07:36]
Jesse Weber
Others saw it as the desperate plea of someone who appeared to have finally snapped under the weight of a broken system.
- [07:43]
Expert
Here is someone who is really railing against the system and this institution because he's had apparently a really terrible time.
- [07:51]
Healthcare Advocate
To get back surgery. Lumbar fusion surgery at that age is just a problem because it's almost like getting a knee replacement or a hip replacement.
- [08:00]
Expert
Mass amounts of pain will fuck you up. Like it. It'll just, like, ruin your life. And this man had so much going for him, and now he's in all this pain.
- [08:10]
Jesse Weber
Regardless of how people on social media interpreted it, one thing was certain. Mangione's words had ensured that his story would not just be about the alleged crime, but about the deeper issues brought to light, however brutally. One of those issues, A growing distrust in mainstream media. And the question, where is the line between transparency and responsibility?
- [08:38]
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- [09:15]
Ken Klippenstein
Hmm.
- [09:16]
Advertiser
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- [09:39]
Jesse Weber
To Klippenstein, the controversy over Mangione's manifesto wasn't just about a single document. It was about trust. Trust in the media to tell the whole truth, trust in the public to interpret it responsibly, and trust in the idea that knowledge, even when it's dangerous, is still something we have the right to confront.
- [10:00]
Ken Klippenstein
These media outlets didn't really articulate a.
- [10:03]
Jesse Weber
Reason for it, and when they did, the answers were inconsistent.
- [10:08]
Ken Klippenstein
On the one hand, there were people claiming that this might contribute to a copycat attack.
- [10:12]
Jesse Weber
Criminologists and law enforcement officials warn that publishing such manifestos could inspire copycats. These documents, they argued, weren't just explanations. They were often attempts at self mythologizing. By broadcasting them, the media risked turning violent actors into martyrs, overshadowing their victims in the process. We've seen this in cases of school shootings and other acts of terrorism, but.
- [10:38]
Ken Klippenstein
I think it's an unhealthy place for the news media to see itself as an arbiter of public safety. That's not our job. Our job is is something newsworthy, and if so, do you publish it? The job of public safety is these law enforcement agencies who, by the way, don't seem to have gotten a lot of criticism for failing to a stop this thing and b apprehend the individual in a timely fashion. It sounds like it just sort of fell into their lap. That is the institution responsible for public safety, and I don't think it's a good place to kind of deputize the press into that sense of responsibility.
- [11:10]
Jesse Weber
And Klippenstein found there wasn't consistency with that rationale to begin with.
- [11:15]
Ken Klippenstein
Some of these Other outlets told me that the agreement was that they had gotten this from law enforcement. And then part of the deal is, okay, we're going to give this to you, but you can't post the document. And so it's an agreement with a source. And the more I started talking to people to try to get a sense of, you know, what happened, because I just thought it was strange that so many outlets had this thing that clearly the public was extremely interested in and that they all across the board, coordinated this refusal or agreement or I don't know what you want to call it, to not publish it. The more I started asking people, I think it was that there was an agreement or some kind of arrangement with the source not to post it.
- [11:50]
Jesse Weber
Navigating the delicate balance between journalistic integrity and maintaining source relationships, Klippenstein began to uncover a broader pattern, one that suggested this wasn't just an isolated decision, but a coordinated stance across multiple newsrooms.
- [12:07]
Ken Klippenstein
I'm independent now, but I've worked in newsrooms in the past, and there can be a situation where one reporter wants to do something and then that might upset the source base or the connections or relationship that another reporter has with a certain office or an individual or whatever. And so that always exists. But to see that across the board, for every outlet that had this, I.
- [12:25]
Jesse Weber
Mean, it was pretty extraordinary what was going on here. Klippenstein got some intel of his own.
- [12:32]
Ken Klippenstein
I think it's very easy to come out and say, oh, we're just doing this out of our deep love for public safety and everything. But what they don't like to say, and which they told me in private, was that that latter concern alienating sources a.
- [12:44]
Jesse Weber
Concerning speculation, to say the least. It's hard to rationalize a media outlet's relationship with a source being more important than their obligation to provide citizens with the full story and facts. One could argue that suppressing the manifesto came with its own risks. If Mangione's alleged words were truly dangerous, then wasn't it better to confront them head on rather than let them fester in the shadows? Wasn't it better to debate these claims in public, to dissect them and dismantle them with facts rather than pretend they didn't exist? When Klippenstein published the manifesto, the response was surprising.
- [13:23]
Ken Klippenstein
I expected some flack outside of complaints from people in the press, which I think is just sour grapes. I've gotten essentially none. I don't think I've gotten a single email from somebody saying, you know, you're playing into this glorification or lionization of the killer. I have not gotten a single one of those. And that's unusual because, you know, this is not my first rodeo. I've done controversial stories in the past and gotten plenty of angry pushback from the general public. In this case, I don't. I can't think of a single example like that. So that surprised me.
- [13:51]
Jesse Weber
In his experience, people just wanted the information, not bits and pieces editorialized by reporters filling in the blanks. But why was the public so eager to read it? Plenty of alleged killers have left behind manifestos with little fanfare. What was it about this one?
- [14:10]
Ken Klippenstein
The manifesto expressed a pretty clear and, you know, candidly, I think, cogent set of political grievances that are shared by a large part of the country. The timing of it, I think, was really interesting. It came right after a presidential election in which health care was not really the top issue. And in my adult lifetime, that's the first election I could think of where health care wasn't kind of the front and center issue.
- [14:31]
Jesse Weber
It may not have been the biggest issue for the candidates on the campaign trail, but for the American people, just.
- [14:37]
Ken Klippenstein
Looking at the polling, it's one that people are not happy with. How do they have nothing to say about it? And so I think that that's a really important backdrop or, like, context to think about, because then, you know, this murder happens, and it kind of speaks into the world, this issue that people care about, that no one in positions of power had very much to say about.
- [14:55]
Jesse Weber
As frustration over inaction grew, the disconnect became even more apparent.
- [15:01]
Ken Klippenstein
Even if you're happy with the care you get, it's the equivalent of, like, rent for many people, the expense, and for them to just not have anything to say about it, like, you know, it's just, I don't have, like, particular grievances about the healthcare system. I don't have any reason to. More than anyone else, fortunately, I'm a healthy person. But if even I'm looking at this being like, what are we going to do something about this? Like, you can imagine what somebody who might have health complications or issues might feel about the silence on this.
- [15:28]
Jesse Weber
For many, it was the silence that spoke the loudest. And through Luigi Mangione, they felt heard at last. So what happens when the public's response is more complex than the mainstream media's outright condemnation? Klippenstein found himself at the heart of such a debate.
- [15:47]
Ken Klippenstein
What I saw in reporting on this was people's attitudes were much more nuanced than I think what you might see on cable news where there was just this kind of moral panic over, you know, what has happened to civility and everybody's pro murder. No, when I talk to my friends, including ones that are not including involved in politics at all, what I hear is a pretty nuanced sense that, wow, I'm not actually too surprised that this happened.
- [16:08]
Jesse Weber
Klippenstein uncovered a dissonance between how mainstream media framed the event and how ordinary people discussed it. The headlines focused on moral condemnation, while public discourse, especially online, seemed to reveal something else entirely. Frustration.
- [16:27]
Ken Klippenstein
There was just complete incuriosity on the part of the major press to think, why are these kind of ordinary people, who are not particularly political, glomming onto this? There was no curiosity about it. And then you talk to them and you find out, oh, they're not pro murder, but they also are frustrated with the healthcare system. And I would have thought there'd be a lot of interesting reporting to that effect, but there wasn't really.
- [16:46]
Jesse Weber
It's a question that many journalists avoided. What drives someone to the breaking point? And why did so many people, while not condoning the act, seem to understand the anger behind it? But rather than explore the root causes of this desperation, major outlets largely dismissed it.
- [17:04]
Ken Klippenstein
I remember I saw one segment, it was particularly egregious, where they're trying to paraphrase the document. They're like, oh, it basically shows this guy is a crazy person, you know, just showed he's nuts. Obviously, killing someone is something that most people would not do for good reason. And so that makes this individual different than the rest of us. But again, there's no nuance when you just say, oh, this is just some crazy person that snapped. And people were right to be curious about what it was because they suspected that there must be some sort of political dimension to it. And there was. The political dimension was, I think he called the institution of health insurance parasitical and harmful, and no one's willing to do anything about it. And these were all sentiments that are shared by huge, huge numbers of people. And again, don't leave you with the impression that what happened was good, but it does leave you with a much more complex understanding, which is not captured by the explanation that, oh, this was just some totally random event that there's. You can really do about it.
- [17:58]
Jesse Weber
The reluctance of media outlets to release the manifesto, despite its obvious newsworthiness, raised an unsettling question. Were they protecting the public or protecting the institutions that failed the public?
- [18:13]
Ken Klippenstein
It was amazing to me that something like a dozen Outlets had this document, didn't publish it. Because I just think, when is the last time a dozen Americans agreed on anything, much less something that I'm pretty sure that if you just polled people, they would say, yeah, throw it up there, put it out there. I want to see what it says. And so they were able to, with complete consensus, come to an agreement on something that was against their economic interests. Because if you publish it, it's going to get a lot of views as it did. And in addition to that was against the popular interest, or at least the popular opinion in terms of people's willingness to look at it. That's just really extraordinary. And I don't want to say these things are monoliths, because I know many reporters in institutions that disagree with a lot of their decisions, including this one. But what it does show is that the leadership of these conglomerates were in lockstep.
- [18:57]
Jesse Weber
In other words, to Klippenstein, the decision not to release it wasn't about public safety. It was about control, control of the narrative, control over what people were allowed to see, and control over the very questions the public was asking. And what happens when people feel like the system won't change? Desperation grows. The sense of powerlessness deepens. And even when the act itself is horrifying, the frustration behind it is undeniable.
- [19:30]
Ken Klippenstein
What would cause a person to, you know, feel so hopeless that going and killing somebody who you know will just be replaced by another CEO who has to labor under the same set of incentives that the previous one did? What would cause someone to feel so hopeless that they would feel motivated to do that? Well, you know, there's any number of answers to that, but I think the most likely one is feeling like there's just no way the political system, the legitimate political system, is going to deal with these problems? Well, one way you can avoid people falling into that kind of despair is by creating a political system that actually feels like it might do something and that you can participate in, and that might actually make a difference.
- [20:03]
Jesse Weber
For Klippenstein, it all reflects a system under immense pressure. And the deeper story isn't about a single individual snapping. It's about a society that refuses to listen to until it's too late. And now, as Mangione's legal trial approaches, another conflict emerges. The battle for narrative control. The legal system will inevitably reveal the documents the press withheld. And that raises an important question. Who benefits from the delay of information?
- [20:37]
Ken Klippenstein
It's going to come out in the trial. They're going to cite it as evidence and they always were. So to the extent that the press doesn't disclose this stuff to the public, all that does is just forestall everybody seeing it and allows the law enforcement agencies to convey and sort of control the narrative around what it says and what it means.
- [20:58]
Jesse Weber
In other words, transparency isn't optional, it's inevitable. And yet the press's silence allows law enforcement time to shut shape the public's perception, reinforcing a singular, uncontested version of events.
- [21:13]
Law Enforcement Officer
Officers recovered a firearm on his person as well as a suppressor, both consistent with the weapon used in the murder. They also recovered clothing, including a mask, consistent with those worn by our wanted individual. Also recovered was a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching the ID our suspect used to check into his New York City hostel before the shooting incident. Additionally, officers recovered a handwritten document that speaks to both his motivation and mindset.
- [21:49]
Jesse Weber
And Karen Friedman, Agnifolo, Mangione's attorney for his federal and state cases out of New York, raised these issues in a February presser.
- [21:57]
Expert
He is being publicly treated as guilty and as having the presumption of guilt as opposed to the presumption of innocence, which is what he is entitled to. And although, of course, I understand the NYPD's need for a press conference before an arrest or after an arrest, which they did here, I didn't like it, but they did it. And I understood it. What I did not understand was how shocking it was that this week on hbo, in a documentary, I see the chief of detectives and the New York City mayor, full hair and makeup done, sitting down and giving an interview for television and talking about the evidence in Luigi's case, talking about police paperwork that we don't have, talking about forensics that we have not yet received.
- [22:49]
Jesse Weber
But here's the thing. Silence, withholding documents, one dimensional coverage. The press only pushes more people toward unverified sources. The result? Even more distrust in mainstream media and even more people turning to social media as their primary news source. Flaws and all. The impact of all this may not just be cultural, it could be legal. With the Internet fueling public sympathy for Mangione, prosecutors now face a potential nightmare.
- [23:21]
Ken Klippenstein
The prosecutors are worried about jury nullification, and that's telling in itself because why would they be worried about that unless, you know, there was broad public sympathy for what happened, which is a very different picture than what was provided.
- [23:35]
Jesse Weber
If just one juror is influenced by the online portrayal of Mangione as a folk hero, they could refuse to convict no matter what evidence may come out during the trial. And that would set an entirely new precedent for how viral narratives influence real world justice. At its core, the Mangione case isn't just about crime. It's about how we process crime in the digital age, how social media colors our reality, how narratives are shaped by clicks instead of facts, and how, in a world driven by engagement, even a murder case can become just another Internet spectacle. On the next episode of Luigi Is.
- [24:19]
Commentator
This an outpouring or just a bunch of nitwits on the Internet? I'm surprised that that many people gave money to an Ivy League educated rich guy who was accused of murder.
- [24:32]
Expert
You want to talk about violence? This health care system kills thousands and thousands of people every year. Completely avoidable deaths to enrich profits of shareholders.
- [24:43]
Healthcare Advocate
We're at a sort of a nexus in the human story where things will either continue to get worse or maybe folks can band together and make things better. So we wanted to be a part of that.
- [24:56]
Jesse Weber
This has been a Law and Crime and Twist production. I'm your host Jesse Weber for Law and Crime. Our executive producer is Jessica Lowther. Our writer and senior producer is Cooper Mahl. Our editor is Anna McClain. Our bookers are Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher. Legal review by Elizabeth Vouli and Stephanie Beach. Key art designed by Sean Panzera for Twist Media. Our executive producers are Jane Latman and Haruka Wakimoto. Follow long crimes Luigi on the Wondery app, you can binge the entire series early and ad free right now on Wondery. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple Podcasts and get ad free access to even more thriller, law and crime series, including daily episodes of Sidebar with Jesse Weber. Start your free trial today.