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- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Anya. And today we are going to talk about the high profile murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, and the case against Luigi Mangione, the young man accused of murdering him. CONTENT WARNING this episode contains discussion of violence and murder. So this is a case that we have not really touched upon too much on the murder sheet yet. Is that fair to say? Kevin?
- [00:25]
B
That's definitely fair to say.
- [00:27]
A
This murder occurred in New York City on December 4, 2024. So it's relatively recent. It has sparked an enormous amount of media attention and it's a case that you and I have long talked about behind the scenes and been interested in covering. And today what we're going to do is just really do a primer on the case. This is just about us getting started on it. It's about sort of introducing our audience to some of the key figures, the key concepts, the key issues at play here. And we're going to be doing so in just a way that's kind of getting us started. And then we'd be really interested in hearing from all of you if there are issues with the case that you'd like to know more about, whether that's evidence or legal issues or narratives that are forming online and wanting to assess whether those are accurate or fair or inaccurate and unfair. So I think all of that stuff that interested in and this just marks kind of us starting to wade into the case. All right, let's get started. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.
- [01:33]
B
And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.
- [01:36]
A
And this is the Murder Sheet.
- [01:38]
B
We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.
- [01:46]
A
And this is the murder of Brian Thompson, the case of Luigi Mangione SA.
- [02:35]
B
Well, to make a very obvious point, would you agree this is a highly, highly politicized case?
- [02:40]
A
Yes. And I think oftentimes when we talk about politicized cases, we are we everyone comes, something comes to mind for everyone. And it's usually like I oftentimes we only say a case is politicized if we disagree with the politics being espoused around it. I think, you know, so people who are against gun control, you know, if a mass shooting happens and people say we need further gun control in the United States, they're saying you're politicizing a shooting and vice versa, you know, so like that usually it's meant as a criticism. I think it's actually a neutral thing that can happen and it's not necessarily a united, you know, in the, in the United States of America, we've been extremely polarized. Binary choice of left or right. You know, that's how it breaks down. Democrat or Republican, Democrats on the left, Republicans on the right. But to me, the politicization of a case doesn't actually necessarily need to fall within that binary paradigm. It doesn't need to mean, I guess, Republicans versus Democrats. It can be a lot more nuanced than that. And frankly, I want to say this when we're talking about politicization of cases, crime can highlight salient issues within a society, whether that's mental health treatment or lack thereof, child abuse, domestic violence, firearms access, whatever. So I don't think it's necessarily bad or good when crime gets politicized. It just happens in certain cases. Sometimes crimes are politicized by like politicians or media figures or influencers. They come in and politicize it because they want to make a point. Other times it's just the nature of the crime or the nature of what happened or the victims or the perpetrator. Right. So when we talk about politicization, I just don't think we should necessarily be critical or happy about it. Let's just talk about it like it's a neutral thing. Like, I mean, there was political violence in, in Reconstruction era United States, in the south, where you had, you know, white supremacists attacking black civilians and white northerners who came down to do things. So like, like political violence has always existed. Let's not act like this is some new thing. And in this case, I guess it's not really that surprising that it got politicized. So. And why would that be? Why would this case get politicized?
- [05:05]
B
Kevin well, this case got politicized because the murder victim was an executive at a health insurance company. And a lot of people in this country, including as we'll discuss ourselves, have had some negative experience with health insurance and they have a lot of anger towards that industry. A lot of people thought this represented justice on some level. And I want to hasten to say my, I want us to be very honest about our biases here and we're going to get more into this later. I have a very strong anti murder bias.
- [05:44]
A
Yes, that's our primary bias here on the murder sheet, despite the name, very.
- [05:49]
B
Strong anti murder bias. And we'll get into more of that later. But I wanted to say that here.
- [05:54]
A
At the outset, yeah, we're going to talk a little bit about our own experiences. I think it would be helpful for especially non Americans to understand, but also for folks who maybe haven't had to deal with some negative insurance experiences. I think it contextualizes some of the anger, but also we would just feel better putting our own experiences in here, just to be honest brokers. But we are going to get into sort of unpacking all of that shortly before we get into the case. But yes, this is a case that is politicized because the victim is who he is. Because. And because notably United Health Care is actually pretty controversial even within large insurance. Healthcare. Insurance companies. So this narrative of an extremely wealthy, powerful health insurance executive getting murdered, that has resulted in a reaction that's, that feels different than you often see, although is becoming increasingly common as true crime becomes more and more like a fandom. So we'll, we'll talk about some of that too. But it's been. The murder itself has been met with more, dare I say it, approval than you would ever expect to see. That I would ever expect to see. But yeah.
- [07:09]
B
And one small indication of this in my mind is that in social media, often when people talk about this case and talk about the person accused of this crime, they refer to him by his first name, Luigi. And to me that indicates a certain friendliness or we like this guy a little bit. The pro Richard Allen. People call him Ricky. You know, Rex Heuerman, the person accused of being the Long island serial killer. I don't see a lot of people saying, oh, let's see how Rex is doing. So just the little things like the fact that people call him by his first name indicate something to me.
- [07:48]
A
I agree. But the difference for me with the, with the Richard Allen truthers is they're like Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls. Like stop trying to make fetch happen. You know, if they call him Ricky and you know, like most people are creeped out by that cause he's just a weird little child murdering freak. Whereas with Luigi Mangione, that's mainstream. I've talked to people in my life where it's not like they're necessarily supporting murder, but they have a more affectionate tone. That's like a real thing. They have a more positive view of him. So that's all very real. And these are people I respect. These are people I think are rational. It's not, it's really more, it's permeated the mainstream significantly more than something like Richard Allen, where when people really dig into that case, they get uncomfortable with overtly supporting a child murderer. So this is different. This is actually Something where you are getting a figure at the center of the case who is more akin to a folk hero for a lot of people. And we're going to get into how we're going to cover this and what is going to go into our coverage and how the tone we'd like to set for our coverage. But before we do that, I think it's important to make some disclosures just because I would feel better. I don't know, maybe I'm being overly scrupulous. I just think it's important to kind of be like honest about stuff. So my caveat, we both have a caveat. My caveat is that I feel, I feel very obliged to disclose that I myself have had in the past had a very problematic and bad experience with UnitedHealthcare specifically. And again, if you're not an American, this might give you some insight into how things that we go through in this country with health insurance. And also for people who maybe haven't had this experience, maybe it gives some insight into the amount of anger there is around this topic in the general public. So I was on my parents insurance till I was 26 and the problem for me came when I was switching from their insurance to my employer's insurance. So as a result of basically what was essentially a misfiling, they be UnitedHealthcare began trying to charge me thousands of dollars. I did not owe them because I was covered by them. And basically they were like, well, your new insurance has to pay with it. I won't bore you with the details, but they were wrong. And I wasn't seeking handouts, I wasn't asking for special treatment. I was simply being denied the coverage that was owed me under what they were supposed to be doing. So I kept trying to call in and explain the situation and I would get help and they would understand, it would be like, okay, it's over. And then they would start over, it would, the whole process would start again. And this went on for months and months and months and months and months. And what's ironic is that this was the, this dispute, the disputed charges were over mental health care. I was, I, I was, I had sought mental health care. And, and then I, I found it very ironic because I, I, I, I tried to get help with that. And then I was essentially being driven insane by this process. And, and this was at a time when I was trying to get sober. So that really was not super welcome by me. And I experienced this firsthand. So I experienced kind of a, kind of a classic situation where there's some minor paperwork confusion or error, and you cannot get help. And they will. And what I learned firsthand is that the goal is not to help you. The goal is to grind you down until you pay. And that's not an accident. That is by design. It's purposeful. It's meant to get you so frazzled and consume so much of your time and energy that you just give up and that you just roll over. And I refused to do that because I am extremely stubborn. And then it became basically an ordeal for me. And, and here's the thing. I want to note something. I was privileged enough where I was not going to be homeless or bankrupted by, by this issue. It would have really hurt. I mean, it would have been a lot of money and it would have really hurt, but it would not have ruined my life in the same way that it would have someone in a more precarious financial situation. But I can't even imagine what this experience would have been like had I been in a situation where that would have made the difference between me being housed or non housed or me being. Being able to take care of my kids or not. Like, I can't even imagine how helpless and desperate and just horrible it would have been. I mean, I felt all those things even though the stakes weren't as high for me. And it just felt deeply unfair. And it was. I will, I will personally never forget ever how I was treated by that company at a time in my life that was difficult because of the new, the new sobriety. Like, that's something that's burned into my, into my consciousness and the callousness with which I was treated not by any individual employee. All perfectly pleasant. I don't think I ever had a. I never, I wasn't yelling at people. I would get along great with the rank and file people I was calling. And I, I, maybe I'm deluding myself, but I feel like they were sympathetic to what I was dealing with. But I just. The company as a whole, it would just. It just lasted so long. And one thing I remember, Kevin, I remember this too.
- [13:14]
B
I know what you're going to say.
- [13:15]
A
Okay. Were we outside because we were living in Brooklyn? Were we outside the Sweet and Low factory when I said this? Because I kind of vaguely remember that mural on the side of the wall.
- [13:26]
B
Yeah. Oddly enough, when we lived in Brooklyn, we lived right next door to a sugar factory.
- [13:31]
A
Yeah, that sounds about right for you.
- [13:33]
B
And I'm not making that up. This isn't me being whimsical or anything. We literally live right next door to a sugar factory.
- [13:39]
A
Yeah, it was. It was great. I mean, it was kind of cool. They had like, a mural. But I remember it was inside of our apartment. But I. Vaguely, in my memory, I. I remember we were outside, we were walking Lanny, our dog, who's passed away, and I looked at you, and I was, like, looking at the mural, and I basically said that in. In an ideal society, the leaders of health insurance companies would end up against a wall, meaning executed, obviously. Now, I really. I am not a violent person, and I'm not somebody who really wants to see anyone get shot, even if they are the leader of a health insurance company. I'm just telling you that I said that because that highlights the level of anger and helplessness and fury and kind of feeling like things are unfair that I was experiencing at that time. And I. Again, I. I wouldn't say that. That is like a characteristic thing that I say a lot. Is that fair to say, Kevin? That's fair to say, because I will tell you, like Kevin, my big bias on this show is we are both anti murder. We are anti people murdering each other. We're. We are for a society that is governed by laws and where laws are upheld and enforced in a fair and equal way, and where people, you know, don't just go off and kill each other. It's a new year. That means you need a new wardrobe, and you need one without breaking the bank.
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A
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- [16:39]
A
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- [18:48]
A
N rakuten.com so I guess I'm just trying to say, like, I got to that point with this stuff where I was making comments like this. Not something I would ever. Not something I'm particularly proud of and not something that I would ever certainly want anyone to act upon. But in a moment of frustration, that is something I said. And I, I really, I just do want to clarify though. Despite going through that experience, I, I, while I would love to see people not be able to make millions of dollars off of the pain and suffering of their fellow human beings, their fellow Americans, I also don't believe that killing people is ever an effective way of dealing with anything. Um, I really just don't. Or at least let's say, you know, you could say, well, self defense, I'd say most of the time killing people is not an effective way of dealing with things, especially big societal issues here. I don't also, I also do not believe that everyone who works in health insurance is evil. I don't believe that. I think most people are just working in their jobs and the system is. Is a problem. I think the system is a problem. Changes should be systemic, less about punishing individuals and more about trying to make things better for everybody. But I would have just felt weird covering this case if I did not share that experience because it was with this specific company.
- [20:04]
B
And I should mention I have suffered and continue to suffer from some chronic health issues. So I've had a lot of stressful encounters with health insurance over the years. In addition to that, someone I love very much has suffered very severe health issues over the years. I can't really go into it much more than that without violating that person's privacy, which I'm not going to do. But dealing with health insurance has also made that very, very stressful. Certainly much more stressful than it had to be. And I just want to echo what you were saying about how we are anti murder. And I want to add, we're going to mainly be focusing after we get through all this preamble. We're going to be Focusing on the crime, especially as it moves through the courts. This is not a healthcare reform podcast. We're not qualified for that, frankly, no. And I think we confuse ourselves and confuse you if we tried to say, well, here's how it should be. But with that said, I think one thing we should be able to agree on. No matter what your ultimate goal for healthcare policy reform in this country is, the first step isn't going to be let's kill a guy and then we'll get what we want. You're not going to have a situation where healthcare executives are sitting in their boardrooms, you know, smoking cigars and enjoying their riches, and they say, oh, wait a minute, a guy committed murder. Let's give all this money back to the people. That's not gonna happen. It's a fantasy. This murder, like so many other murders in this country, ultimately accomplished nothing.
- [22:00]
A
Right. I think that's all fair to say. And I think I do wanna. I mean, I know there's a lot of throat clearing here, but I feel like it's important when we're getting into a case like this to kind of go over some of this stuff, because I do want to go over how we would cover this, because this, again, this is a highly politicized crime. So we wanted to get all of our internal biases out of the way there so you can have that and you can assess our coverage based on what we're saying there. And so you could hold us accountable. Because if you're like, anya, I think your experience is bleeding through here, you can tell me that, because now you know, so. Because Kevin and I are humans, we are human beings. We have opinions on a lot of stuff. We have political opinions. We are not apolitical. We have some very strongly held political opinions. Some of those political opinions you may totally agree with, some you may not. You know, it just depends on your own perspective. And we have. I know in. I've let my political opinions bleed into the show in the past.
- [23:04]
B
We usually try not to. We try to do it.
- [23:07]
A
It's not overt. I don't think I've ever. I don't think it's never. It's never been something like, well, I'm voting for this person. It's. It's more of like, I think when you talk about crime, your takes on crime can influence and reveal your takes on things like social welfare, law enforcement, mental health care, the role of government in society, what we should spend tax dollars on, Your view of women's rights, your view of race relations, Whatever. Like your view on crime can tell us a lot about that. It is very difficult to completely separate any sort of political opinion with talk of crime because it gets in there.
- [23:38]
B
But I think we're also well aware that people don't tune into the show to hear what we think about politics.
- [23:45]
A
No, nor should you, because I don't feel like that's where any sort of expertise lies. And frankly, I personally hate it when suddenly something's becoming like some. I don't like it personally, when I feel like politics are steering the wheel, you know, where, you know, it's like that scene in, in that movie where it's like, I'm the captain now. Sometimes I feel like a show will start off one way and then suddenly it's like, okay, we're just like, we're, we're, we're in the bus, in speed, racing along the highway. And politics, they're at the wheel. And I don't. Even if I agree with something, someone, I'm like, oh, shut up.
- [24:22]
B
You know, there's a comedy podcast I enjoy and over the years it's become more and more about their takes on politics. Maybe I agree with those takes, maybe I don't. That's not why I'm listening to this show.
- [24:36]
A
No.
- [24:36]
B
And we're aware you're not listening to this show to hear us vent about politics or health insurance.
- [24:42]
A
So I guess that is one reason. And the other reason to just try to be fair. We, we. Objectivity, as I, I think, I think pure objectivity is impossible. We're all humans. I think fairness is possible and should be what we're all aiming for. And that means fairness is about trying to understand other viewpoints, be open minded toward them, be curious rather than close minded. That's all what I think we're going to be trying to aim for here. I really do feel, though, that especially compared to other cases we've covered, because this is so inherently politicized, the Thompson murder, a strict approach from us is required. I don't think us adding to the politicization would be helpful. I can't even say the word. I don't even, I don't know how to talk today. I'm really just. My brain is mush. But I think us contributing to that would not be helpful. So much of what I've already seen in terms of discussion of this case has been highly political. And that's fine. Other people might enjoy that. And I'm not condemning anything. I'm just saying that when we're doing something, if we want to add some value. I think what we can do is sort of clear that away and really just focus on the facts, focus on what the legal filings mean, and avoid inputting our own anger or hopes or wishes or politics or whatever you want to call it, and just kind of come at it to it from a more sort of Spock sense of sensibility.
- [26:11]
B
Rather than a. Yeah, let's look at what the evidence the prosecution has proves, what they think it can prove. The arguments the defense has against those points, whether or not the investigation against Mr. Mangione was conducted properly, whether his rights were violated or not. Let's just look at it the way we would any other murder case.
- [26:35]
A
Well, I'm saying, like with other murder cases, we might make a snarky comment about conspiracy theories. We might be a little snide or here or there. Things might bleed through. In this case, I'd really like that to not happen. I would really like to avoid that. Again, like, when we're covering other cases, we can be a little opinionated, we can be a little sassy. Dare I say it. I just would like to set a different tone for our coverage of this case and so hold us to that.
- [27:01]
B
If you think we are slipping up and getting a snarky or political complaint.
- [27:06]
A
Again, I don't regret doing that in Delphi. At a certain point, that case got so out of control that I feel like, you know, we had to almost tell you our opinion because we were like, this is not normal folks. This is nuts.
- [27:16]
B
But we're gonna try to just be a place on this case where you can come and get the facts with minimal spin. But again, we do have a very strong bias which is going to bleed into this. And that bias is we are anti murder. That doesn't mean we're anti Luigi Mangioni in this because he's accused of this crime. Just because I don't like murder doesn't necessarily mean I believe the prosecution has enough evidence to prove is guilt or that the investigation was conducted fairly.
- [27:49]
A
Exactly. And we can talk about the political elements as far as being dispassionate and from a. From a different viewpoint of like, okay, how would the jury potentially react to this if some of them have had negative experiences with health care, you know, stuff like that. So that's all the throat clearing we're going to do. I hope that helps kind of set the tone here and now. I think it might be good to get start getting into some of the figures and entities that are sort of at the Heart of this case. Uh, do you want to get started with that?
- [28:15]
B
Do it.
- [28:16]
A
All right, so let's talk about. Before we talk about Brian Thompson and Luigi Mangione, let's talk about the United Health. UnitedHealth Group. So this is. UnitedHealthcare is the insurance arm of the company. UnitedHealth Group. We're massive company. This is a massive corporation. It insures around 49 million Americans. And in 2023, they generated $281 billion in revenue. So we're talking about huge. And Brian Thompson was not the CEO of the overall UnitedHealth group. He was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. In as in 2024, this was the largest health insurer in the United States. And just again, the scope of this cannot be understated, but also it's controversial. 1. In 2024, in October, specifically, the United States Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations did a report, and they found that United Healthcare was doing more prior authorization denials that that was spiking. And In May of 2024, there was a lawsuit against Brian Thompson and other executives for fraud and insider trading around the company.
- [29:41]
B
And, of course, Brian Thompson is the murder victim in this case. Can you tell us about him?
- [29:45]
A
Yes. So Brian Thompson is the murder victim. He was 50 years old, and he was. I'll just kind of go into the biography that I was able to find. And this is largely from the Des Moines Register. So they did a kind of a big profile on him. So these are some just facts about. Just so we can kind of get to know both him and the accused. So he was from Jewell, Iowa, and he was a sort of a star student athlete at South Hamilton High School in Iowa, Graduated from there in 1993, valedictorian, homecoming king, class president. So someone who was very successful. And then he also was a valedictorian, apparently at the University of Iowa, where he graduated with a business administration degree in 1997. He majored in accounting and, you know, was very successful academically, was widely regarded by people to this day as a very sharp, smart man, smart businessman. So after college, he moved to Minneapolis. He worked as a certified public accountant at PwC, and he was in auditing, then went into transaction Advisory services. At some point, he married a woman named Paulette Thompson, who was also from Iowa. She became Thompson when she married him. But Paulette, they had two sons, two teenage sons at this point. By the time of the murder, they were separated by accounts from people who knew him. He was very present and involved father with his Sons. He came to join UnitedHealthcare in 2004. So he's been, he was there for a long time by the time of the murder. Started out director of corporate development, became vice president, then chief financial officer of different sectors, then became the CEO of UnitedHealthcare Medicare and retirement in 2017, 2019, switched to the CEO of the kind of their government program section and then became the overall UnitedHealthcare CEO in April of 2021. So he was paid apparently $10.2 million annually for the, for this work. And his wife has claimed he was getting threats over, you know, his work. And that's been reported widely in the media. And then also people who knew him had a positive view of him, said he was a loving person, said he was good person. I was interested in that Des Moines Register article because there were a couple of different figures from different side of the aisle, different political parties who were saying good things about him. So he, you know, but obviously the, the role of UnitedHealthcare CEO a controversial one in the United States. So that's who he is. That was the murder victim. Now let's talk about the accused man.
- [32:37]
B
Tell us about him.
- [32:38]
A
So Luigi Nicholas Mangioni was 26 at the time of the murders. And he was from Towson, Maryland. His parents were, so he was born into a large, successful Italian American family kind of based out of Baltimore, Maryland. And his paternal grandfather, Nicholas was a successful businessman, had 10 kids, lots of cousins, lots of big family. And you know, they were kind of a prominent, I don't know, like prominent, I don't want to overstate it, but like they were successful. Like his, one of his cousins I think was, was in the Maryland House of Delegates. So it was like, you know, it did well. And he will kind of go into some of the biographical details I was able to glean and I'll include all of our show notes. I kind of pulled from a lot of different articles. So I will kind of share those with you in the show notes if you want to kind of read on. But he, he, he was born into this family and he claims to have gotten Lyme disease when he was 13. He also attended the all boys private secondary school, the Gilman School in Baltimore. He was also a student athlete, wrestling, cross country, track, soccer. And he was also really into like coding. He taught himself how to code, loved video game development and, but also kind of had some health issues. Again, he's claimed that he had brain fog since high school. He's claimed that he had irritable Bowel syndrome and visual snow. So dealing with some health issues, but otherwise succeeding. He ultimately went to the University of Pennsylvania. For people who are not aware, that is an Ivy League school, It's a very good school. And did robotics research, internships. He was an intern at Firaxis Games. He was, you know, he was very.
- [34:31]
B
Successful, so living kind of a privileged life where he's being blessed enough to do work that sounds interesting. And that he cared about. Yeah.
- [34:40]
A
And I think like Thompson, he was also valedictorian in high school, I believe, but did a lot of interesting things. He graduated cum laude from Pennsylvania in 2020. He had a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Computer engineering, also a Master of Science in Engineering in computer and Information science with a minor in mathematics. So, you know, to my humanities graduate, you know, all of that sounds pretty intense. And then went to work remotely as a data engineer for a company called TrueCar in 2020, and, you know, went from living in the mainland in the United States to moving to Honolulu, Hawaii. So he was at a place called Surf Break for a while. This is like a co living space in 2022. Even started a book club there. But he was also dealing with some issues. So he, he basically claimed to have back issues, to have injured his back, surfing, maybe having some underlying health problems there too. And got. Said he got a spinal fusion surgery in July 2023 and that it went well. So one thing it's important to note is that he was not insured by UnitedHealthcare is interesting.
- [35:58]
B
The person he's alleged to have taken this violent action towards represented a company with whom Mr. Mangione did not have any dealings.
- [36:08]
A
Right. And you know, not to say anything about guilt or innocence because we've not had a trial yet. We've not seen all the evidence laid out in the proper way, nor have we heard what's going to be included, what's going to be excluded, and what the defense's counters are. But when we're looking at, when we're looking at that, it's not as if it's a situation where someone is accused of like, oh, I'm mad at UnitedHealthcare because they're denying my claims and they're really hurting me. It would be more of something like they're the biggest, and therefore, symbolically, that would be what you were going to. To make a point. Does that make sense?
- [36:47]
B
Yes.
- [36:49]
A
So. So at some point in 2023, he leaves Hawaii and possibly does a backpacking trip in asia, June of 2024. But you know all of this so far, it's like you're not really seeing. And again, like, this is very. We're going into the kind of the surface of this, but we can do more deep dives later on.
- [37:09]
B
But yeah, if that's what you're interested in, let us know and do it.
- [37:12]
A
I just feel like it's important to kind of get the basic facts out there and then we can kind of go back and go deeper. So he had some. So June 2024 is when, at the point of the timeline where he actually goes dark on social media In July of 2024, he stops contacting his family. They're concerned enough to report him missing. His mother specifically reports him missing on November 18, 2024, in with the San Francisco Police Department because at that point she doesn't know where he is. And that was kind of, I guess, the first place she went to.
- [37:44]
B
So that is worrisome. Where someone who's previously been communicating with family members just stops. That would certainly raise a lot of red flags and concerns for me.
- [37:56]
A
Yeah, I mean, it's. And it's scary. And at that point you might be wondering, like, is he, you know, could he, like, could something bad have happened to him? So that must have been very stressful for his family. So some information that's been gleaned from like, sort of media reports so far indicate that again, we talked about politic, you know, the, the politicizing of crimes. I think this is important to note without, without any sort of condemnation or sort of input from us. But we have some inclination of possible political leanings from Mangione. He was on Twitter. I think his handle was like Pep Mangioni. And what has been described in these media filing or these media reports is really someone who is not really categorized as left or right. He's not someone who's like, okay, he's a straight up Republican or, oh, he's a straight up Democrat. He seemingly did not like Donald Trump. He seemingly did not like Joe Biden.
- [39:01]
B
I see a lot of that today, especially among his generation, where people don't like either side and just have their. Their own beliefs are a mixture of both. I think that's one reason why we see some people voting for one side in one election and another side another election.
- [39:22]
A
Yeah, he doesn't really fit into one or another. And he seemingly kind of. His views seeming to be way all over the map, just from what has been reported so far. Very interested in artificial intelligence.
- [39:40]
B
I thought it was interesting that he posted a review of The Unabomber's manifesto.
- [39:46]
A
Yeah. Ted Kaczynski and he seemed to be kind of critical of, like, violence. So interesting, but just kind of the parallels of someone sort of possibly being accused of taking violent action in order to influence society. Yeah.
- [40:01]
B
Again, no matter what you think about Mr. Kaczynski use. No matter what you think about the Unabomber, Mr. Kaczynski's use of violence. Let me start over. No matter what you think of what he wrote in his manifesto, certainly him setting bombs off did not succeed in furthering his views or making his views more popular.
- [40:24]
A
Okay.
- [40:26]
B
Setting off bombs, killing people does not make you more popular.
- [40:32]
A
Yeah, I would. I would agree. You do not, under any circumstances. Gotta hand it to the unit bomber to. To quote the. The Twitter account drill. I. I think. Yeah. But anyways. But all of this is. If you're just looking at this in a vacuum, you're just kind of like, okay, he's just. He's a guy. He's a young guy. He's kind of doing stuff, and he's. Has no criminal record. Seems intelligent, seems successful.
- [41:01]
B
And I'll say this, when I look at him and what you've said at this point, there's some alarm bells because he cut off ties with his family. But he's not an unattractive guy. He seems smart, charismatic, comes from a family with resources. It seems to me that if he was interested in changing things he didn't like in the system, this was a guy that had options. He could go into politics like his relative did. He had options.
- [41:33]
A
He had a lot going for him. I think he had a lot going for him. So that's kind of who. And again, we can go more in depth to Thompson or Mangione at any time, but this is. We're just trying to get to the big high points of this.
- [41:48]
B
Tell us about the murder timeline.
- [41:50]
A
Yes. So the murder timeline. So we mentioned he goes. He essentially goes missing. And. And his family is not able to track him down. And they're. They're already concerned about this by November 18th. November 24th is when I'm going to call this person the suspect. Because again, Luigi Mangione is accused of being this person, but he's not been convicted yet. And it's possible that his attorneys will say, no, this was somebody else. So let's just call this person the suspect. Okay. The suspect who murdered Brian Thompson. So November 24, 2024, this suspect comes to New York City. They arrive via the Port Authority Bus Terminal. This is in midtown Manhattan. For anyone who's not had the pleasure of being at Port Authority, it's, you.
- [42:39]
B
Know, it's not fun.
- [42:40]
A
No. Have you ever been there?
- [42:43]
B
Yeah. It's not the. If I was traveling to Manhattan or New York, I don't think that's the way.
- [42:49]
A
Well, it's not glamorous.
- [42:51]
B
I would choose to go.
- [42:52]
A
It's. I've been there plenty. I've traveled there, you know, at different times, but I think it's not glamorous, but it kind of has also this. I mean, just coming, like, my. My parents are from New York City, and like, back in the day, it was a lot. It was considered, like, sketchy and dangerous. There's a lot of sex trafficking, runaways coming off the bus and getting immediately picked up by pimps.
- [43:13]
B
That's what I.
- [43:14]
A
It's not like. I don't think it's really like that anymore or, you know, it's certainly not to the same extent, but it's got this kind of, like, reputation. But. Yeah. So this person arrives. They. To be clear, they had come in on a Greyhound bus, and they had come from the. The grand bus had started out in Atlanta, Georgia, seven stops en route. And that day they check into a hostel on the Upper west side of Manhattan. And when he's checking in, his face is captured on a camera behind that desk. But other than that, he's very disciplined about not revealing his face. His roommates at the hostel say he only slips down his mask when he's eating. So someone concerned about not showing their face. So that day he also cases out the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel. A couple days later, November 29, he checks out of the hostel, and then he comes back the next day, November 30, checks back into the hostel. So that all kind of goes on. That's kind of the prelude to the murder, which occurs, of course, on December 4th. So at 5:31am the suspect leaves the hostel and takes an E bike to.
- [44:31]
B
Is that 5:34?
- [44:33]
A
Yeah. What did I say?
- [44:35]
B
I thought you said 531. I could be wrong.
- [44:36]
A
Oh, yeah. I just don't know how to read. No, you're right. It is 5:34. He takes the E bike to midtown, and he kind of. I think he's kind of spotted near a subway stop at one point.
- [44:50]
B
What's an E bike?
- [44:51]
A
You know, I've never actually used an E bike, but they're basically like. It's an. It's a bike with an electrical motor, is my understanding. That kind of helps them go forward and in, in New York City, you can kind of like, I think, check them out. Like, there's like almost stands where they're like, loaded and I, I never use them.
- [45:12]
B
So isn't. This isn't like a bike he had with him? This is a bike that basically anyone in the city can use if they, they rent it?
- [45:20]
A
That's my understanding.
- [45:21]
B
Okay.
- [45:22]
A
Yeah. I think there's laws about like, you know, who can use them and you can like, check them out, but I think they're just publicly accessible. If you have like, I don't know, maybe like an app or there's like some payment situation that has to happen. But I've never used them. That would scare me to bicycle around New York City. I'd be scared I would get hit by a car or something. And I'm not an experienced cyclist, so it just feels like it would be a bad idea. So at some point, at the Starbucks Cafe on Sixth Avenue, about two blocks away from the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel, he buys coffee, I think water granola bars, and ultimately throws out the coffee cup and the water bottle. And then 6:30am he is seen on surveillance footage walking and talking on the phone. At 6:39am he gets to the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel and he waits there for several minutes. And at 6:40, Brian Thompson exits the Marriott hotel that he stayed that, you know, that night and heads towards the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel. He was there for a, you know, basically there was an investors meeting, an annual investors meeting that took place for UnitedHealth Group. And, and to be clear, Thompson had arrived there a couple days earlier. He, he got there on the, on the second. So from. So we're starting to see these guys. Convergence. 6:44am Thompson is walking toward the Hilton Midtown Hotel, and this guy, the suspect, steps out and shoots him several times.
- [47:06]
B
This is captured on video, isn't it?
- [47:08]
A
It is captured on video and you even see him. He's the. The gun seems to jam. At one point he racks it. And then that, that suspect, after shooting Thompson, he. He runs down a pedestrian walkway and runs. So there's a 911 call pretty quickly. Police get there within minutes, and Thompson is found shot in his. In his leg and his back, rushed to the hospital. But he's declared dead at 7:12am in Mount Sinai Hospital. And meanwhile, the apparent suspect is seen riding a bike away from the scene, gets on, gets in a taxi, and then gets to the George Washington Bridge bus station. So this is all happening. He gets to the bus station by 7:30. So, like, this is all happening very quickly, early morning situation, and police find some really interesting evidence there. So I think next maybe we can talk about the evidence in this case.
- [48:15]
B
Sure.
- [48:17]
A
So what police find is that in the. At the scene, and this is kind of. I think when this came out, people went nuts. Like, this was like. Kind of like, almost like people realized, you know, because when you. Like when you have something like this happen, you people wonder, is this just some random thing? Where was he targeted? And this kind of showed that it was targeted. There were cartridge cases recovered at the scenes, three specifically, and those had the words delay, deny, depose written on them.
- [48:51]
B
What is the significance of those words, Ms. Kane?
- [48:55]
A
So, basically it's a play on a phrase, delay, deny, defend. And that is when, basically, what people say health insurance companies do in order to not pay out claims and rack of profits.
- [49:13]
B
So those words left behind indicate that this was not necessarily an attack on Brian Thompson, an individual, it was an attack on Brian Thompson, representative of an industry that the killer disapproved of.
- [49:29]
A
Yes, and that's a possibility. Although early on, I imagine there's also an element of, like, are they trying. Is it someone trying to make it look like that, even though it's a different motor? So, additionally, police find a phone, a candy wrapper, a water bottle around the scene. They think that's connected to the shooter. They find what they think is the shooter's backpack at Central park on December 6, a couple days later, and that has Monopoly money in it. So, again, kind of like playing on the big business side of things. And the New York City Police Department is primarily dealing with this, but also the Federal Bureau of Investigation is also on the case. And, you know, they have the image of him on the CCTV at the hostel. They think he's white, they think he's young. They think he's a little bit over six feet tall and that he's competent with firearms. Like, he knew what he was doing, he knew how to clear a jam in the video, and also savvy about, hey, I might be picked up by the cameras. So he's very. He was mostly very cautious with that. So that is. That is what happens. And. And immediately this kind of, I think, pretty quickly sets off a bit of a media firestorm. People are like, what happened? What is this? And I remember on social media there was kind of a bit of an attitude of like, I hope he gets away with it. Do you remember that?
- [51:01]
B
I definitely remember that.
- [51:03]
A
People were, like, rooting for, like, whoever this guy is people were saying, oh look in the cctv, CCTV footage. He's handsome. I hope he's like a Robin Hood. I hope he gets away with it. People were like excited about this. Not everyone, but I mean I think more so than most cases that you see. So the arrest of Mangione took place on December 9, 2024. So a couple, couple of days later and this was all the way in Altoona, Pennsylvania at a McDonald's there. And what has been put out there, you know, by media and by the, the police is what the police are saying at this point is that a McDonald's employee called the police to say that they believe they recognized the suspect from, from, you know, this, this major national news story. And police arrive and they detain Mangione and he is ultimately arrested. There's going to be some legal debate over whether or not this arrest and seizure of his possessions and detainment was handled properly. And we're not going to get into that yet. But we're just, let's put a picture flagging it. Yeah, yeah. And he's arrested and ultimately I'll go over some more of the evidence that, that they say connects, that the prosecution says connects Mingioni to the crime. And again, this is not necessarily what's going to be a trial depending on pre trial motions, things like that. But this is just what the prosecution is saying.
- [52:37]
D
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A
Smart bed.
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C
Can I make my sight softer?
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A
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B
Can we sleep cooler?
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D
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A
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D
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- [53:08]
A
So they say that Mangioni is. Fingerprints match items near the crime scene, namely a cell phone, a water bottle and a kind bar wrapper. They there, there, there have been claims from police about having DNA. There have been. There are the three 9 millimeter shell casings at the scene and when in Altoona. When police search Mangioni's backpack they find a 3D printed 9 millimeter ghost gun and a 3D printed suppressor with a loaded magazine. And they police say that the gun and the suppressor are consistent with the 9 millimeter shell casings that were obviously used with the murder weapon. So they're linking the nine millimeter, two, you know, that he had with what was found at the scene. Additionally, his backpack seized at Altoona had a red spiral notebook in it, which officers have described as a manifesto of sorts. And a separate document within that, outside of the notebook, where that get the at least partially gets into healthcare claims that maybe even said something about whacking a healthcare executive. So yeah, he also had a fake New Jersey driver's license that had a fake name on it. And that was the same name, Mark Rosario, as the man who bought a bus ticket to New York and checked into the hostel. So. Yeah.
- [54:47]
B
And so some of this evidence, correct me if I'm wrong, was found in his backpack.
- [54:52]
A
Yes.
- [54:53]
B
When he was arrested. And the defense is claiming that that search was improper.
- [55:02]
A
That's right.
- [55:03]
B
Why do they say that?
- [55:04]
A
They're saying that the officers started to search it at the McDonald's before a formal warrant was even, you know, a thing. So without a warrant. And there have been, you know, long suppression hearings that are just about this issue because obviously it's very important and.
- [55:24]
B
We can just talk about it very briefly now, if people are interested, we can do an entire episode on it. But it's important to recognize that the government has so much power in these situations. The government can take away our liberty, they can take away our life. So we really have to put checks on it. And there are certain rules or checks on how and when police officers can do searches. And if they don't follow those rules appropriately, the evidence can be tossed out and not to be, not allowed to be used at trial. And in some instances that can be frustrating because the prosecution can lose evidence that may prove a person's guilt and not be able to use it. But the thinking is if you allow materials from an illegal search to come in, basically you are encouraging illegal searches. In other cases. There needs to be some sort of penalty, the argument goes, in order to discourage illegal searches and to protect our liberties. So even though it could be very, very frustrating if it is found that the search was illegal, it's certainly possible it might be thrown out.
- [56:48]
A
Yeah. And at this point the judge is taking, has taken that under advisement and you know, there has not been a decision about that multi day suppression hearing.
- [57:00]
B
One thing, and certainly that evidence, if thrown out, would weaken the case. But it seems like they have other stuff too.
- [57:05]
A
I concur. There's a. That's not. I mean it would, it would definitely significantly weaken the case though. But there are other things I Think when it comes to this, it's a little bit complicated because there's essentially two cases. So you have the federal prosecution and then you have the state prosecution. So there's the New York state court that is trying him and then also the Southern District of New York federal court is trying him. And the prosecutors want the state to go first and the defense wants the federal prosecutors to go first because they say that that's the death penalty case, you know, because the, the federal prosecution is, has brought up the death penalty. So he's on multiple charges in Manhattan. Murder, terrorism, a lot of, a lot of different counts, weapons charges in federal court, it's just four counts murder through use of a firearm and additional firearms offenses. So you know, one thing that did happen though is the, the New York judge actually threw out two, two of the state terrorism based murder counts. So saying basically statutorily these do not meet the terrorism requirements. But ordinary murder still on the table there. A United States Attorney General Pam Bondi has basically okay to, for federal prosecutors to seek the federal death penalty on murder through use of a firearm. And the defense is obviously pushing back on that and saying that Bondi was tied to a lobbying firm that represented UnitedHealthcare and therefore has the conflict of interest here. So there's a lot of controversy with that. The fact that the death penalty could be on the table is certainly controversial. And yeah, this is. So I mentioned the suppression fight. There's, there's been a lot of accusations from the defense about the Manhattan District Attorney's office, you know, accessing Mangioni's medical records in an inappropriate way and, and all just various. I mean, it's just, it's been controversial, but there's been a lot of legal drama around it. And his defense attorney is Karen Friedman Agnifilo, and she's been kind of, kind of the big figure associated with the defense. And, and then he's being tried by the federal and the state prosecutors. So I guess we can always go back and go into like a lot of the legal ramifications back and forth in more depth at some point.
- [59:55]
B
But so it might be worth doing an entire episode on the suppression hearing when the judge makes the decision.
- [60:02]
A
Yeah, I agree because I'll be very interested. And that could really set the tone for the case about, you know, are the prosecutors losing some things? Are, you know, or are they kind of being okayed to go with it? It just, it just depends.
- [60:15]
B
It might also be interesting. We're just getting started with this case. So I'm throwing out some ideas. If you have other ideas out there you'd like to see us cover, please let it let us know. I would be interested in other cases where the death penalty has been sought. Does this seem like those or does it seem like there is some sort of political reason why it's being sought in this case? I honestly don't know the answer to that, but that might be interesting.
- [60:41]
A
Yeah, some people have accused that of being a political issue where it's like, you know, why this case and not others.
- [60:49]
B
I'm also curious because I'm curious to actually see the writings in the backpack. All we have is the prosecution's characterization of them. I believe the defense indicates that they might characterize them in a different way. But certainly if we're to believe that he killed the healthcare executive because of his feelings about health insurance and he feels that health insurance has reached such an evil point in this country that killing the executives is justified, then why is he fighting this? Why doesn't he just like, stand up and say, here's why I did it? I believe this system is so evil.
- [61:27]
A
Yes. And I think there was the, the leak of Luigi Mangioni's journal that did come out in the media so people can read those. And I think the defense's contention is that it's, it's not a manifesto. It's. It's more in, it's more innocuous than that. So, yeah, you have the defensive side being different, but I think some of the, I mean, I think at least a bunch of that has come out already. But, you know, it's going to be something where I'll be curious to see how this all plays out. I mean, it is worth noting something, though. This case has continued to be very high profile and I think, how do I say this? The kind of initial tenor of this kind of suspect being a folk hero has transferred over to Mangione. He has been the subject of a lot of Internet attention, a lot of fundraising done on his behalf. And when I look at this case, I see it as such a clear cut instance of what we talked about with Monia Ali of Fandom Exile, a great substack that you guys should check out. She talked to me a while ago about the fandomification of true crime, where you have, you know, fandoms would typically be something like, oh, I, we love this band, or we love this TV show, or we love this movie, or we love this sports team. And this is very much within that because you have an element of Luigi mangione being perceived as an attractive young man, a handsome young man. And you have a lot of kind of, how do I say this sexualization, I guess, of him as an individual, kind of people commenting on his appearance, people commenting on their own sexual or romantic feelings towards him and kind of that outpouring around that, that you really kind of more associate with like, people being really into, like, boy band they like or a K pop band or something like that where, oh, this guy's so handsome and great. But we're actually talking about a man accused of murder instead of a singer that people admire. So I think that's been really interesting to see. And it's not just, you know, comments about what he's wearing or how he's dressed or his, like, him having a certain expression in the courtroom. That's been something that has been really overt. And to be clear, I don't think that everyone who's interested in this case is interested in that at all. I, I, I don't think, I think there's different subsets of, of people who follow this case, it seems like. And that's just one of it. And you do see some, I don't, without, I don't want to say conspiracy theories because without getting more into this case, I don't want to be dismissive of any claims too early on, but you have a lot of kind of certainly skepticism towards the prosecution and the police or, and that goes from kind of the just, hey, maybe his rights were violated to like, the FBI has secret surveillance technology that was used to spy on the McDonald's and therefore identify Luigi. And the whole thing with the person calling in a tip is a ruse. So you have kind of like the one side of that that's kind of more within what you'd see every day. And then something that's like, you know, more extreme, I guess. Like, it would, I would not want to conclude that happened without seeing some pretty extensive evidence of that, I guess. But, yeah, trying to be neutral when I talk about it.
- [65:20]
B
It's using your words very, very carefully. I'm sitting here watching. I can see the strain on your face.
- [65:25]
A
You know what? I'm slowing down and I'm like, I'm trying to, like, you know, trying to ease into the curve here. The icy.
- [65:34]
B
I've, I've not been a close student of the case, so I, I'm only.
- [65:37]
A
Just getting into it.
- [65:38]
B
So some of the writings have leaked, you said?
- [65:41]
A
Yes.
- [65:41]
B
Yeah. Did you read them? Do they seem like a manifesto?
- [65:44]
A
It's, I, I Guess I would, I feel like that's such a loaded term that I think if we ever wanted to do a deep dive onto what was published.
- [66:01]
B
She's choosing her words carefully.
- [66:02]
A
Again, I, I, I would want to almost like, unpack it as its own thing rather than just kind of say, manifesto, obviously is a loaded term, because when you have a manifesto, you probably did something, you know, pretty extreme, whether it was good or bad or whatever. So it's, there's, it's interesting. I find it interesting. I find it, it's not necessarily the most overt thing in the world, but there's some things that would raise a red flag with me about someone possibly being connected to the murder of Thompson.
- [66:37]
B
And when it comes to the McDonald's employee calling him in and whether or not that's a ruse, it just occurs to me that I would expect if I was that McDonald's employee, I would not want a lot of information to come out about that incident and my role in it, because I recall there was a lot of negative feeling towards that employee because, again, a lot of people see Mr. Mangione as a, is a hero. And so they see that McDonald's employee is a villain. And so if information about that is being withheld to the extent that people are conspiracy theorizing about it, I understand that.
- [67:23]
A
Right. There's definitely been a range of reactions, and I think some are overt conspiracy theories that I don't really see evidence for or seem like largely based on conjecture. And then others are more within the realm of like, oh, are his rights being violated? Is everything going properly? Which seems more standard for me, and sort of something that's more like, okay, let's look into that. So I'll read you a portion of what, you know, he wrote, I guess, or what he's said to have written.
- [68:01]
B
And I'll react in real time.
- [68:05]
A
I can just read the whole thing. This is, this has been published in media outlets, so quote 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, lots of patience, and a lot of patients. 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 of traumas, but it had to be done, frankly. These parasites had 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. They can't read this part. Largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life. But has our life expectancy? No. The reality is these, again, can't read this. 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, eg. Rosenthal, Moore, decades ago, and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games of play. Evidently, I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty. It's not really quite coming out and saying anything, but it's certainly highly salient.
- [69:43]
B
It's certainly highly suggestive. I find it interesting in there that he indicates that he's not really qualified. Other people understand it better than him.
- [69:52]
A
I am interested, too. What most interests me about this, though, and this is kind of something that also plays into the culture around the case, at least as far as I've observed so far, is he's saying something. You know, again, there's the kind of side of things where people are like, well, maybe this was planted on him. Let's just for a moment just set that aside and say if this is something that is indeed linked to Mangione. Not even saying if it'll be allowed in trial or not. But if this. If we're talking about it outside of court in a way that's just. We're analyzing it.
- [70:25]
B
We're assuming this is authentic.
- [70:27]
A
This is authentic. And it is linked to Mangione. He's very overt in saying this needs to be done. It's brutal, but it has to be done. This can continue. We're being harmed, we're being exploited. Americans are being exploited. Someone has to do something. So there's that. But of course.
- [70:47]
B
But he never explicitly says what this refers to. If you. Maybe he's talking about a protest, a literal pro. He's never saying this. He never says shooting an executive has to be done. He says this has to be done.
- [71:02]
A
Yeah, he said people had it coming. He apologizes for the trauma. He's addressing the feds directly. But Mangioni himself has pled not guilty. Yeah, in both cases in the state and federal court. So that's what's kind of interesting to me in the sense that I'm not saying this doesn't really affect my like, view on the case or, or anything as much as more like it's interesting that like, it's interesting that there's kind of a folk hero thing around this. How do I say this? You, like, if you, if you're gonna do something and make a political point, you know, owning that would what you would assume would be a big part of that. Like, if I'm gonna like do something and be like I'm doing this to prove a point, backtracking saying, no, it wasn't me or I'm not guilty is just interesting.
- [71:56]
B
It's interesting. And what I'm gonna try to do during this, maybe you've heard some of it now, is I'm, I'm going to try to bend over backwards to give Mr. Mangione every benefit of the doubt. And I do that because I think it's appropriate to make the prosecution prove things.
- [72:16]
A
Yeah, that's a really good point. I just find it interesting to kind of, you know, I don't know, like, like again, if you're trying to make a political point and then you're saying I didn't do it, you're kind of undermining the political point to a certain extent. But what I've seen, when I've seen people on the, on the side of things with this case where I feel like there's maybe some conspiratorial thinking going on, I see two things. I think. I see people who sincerely seem to believe that and think that this, like he's being framed or he's a fall guy or the FBI is hiding technology that's spying on us all in McDonald's, all sorts of things like that. So you do see that. And I'm not gonna comment whether I agree or not. That's just something I'm observing. Then you also see what I characterize as kind of almost people being a bit facetious, people being a bit wink, wink, like, oh, no, he couldn't have done it because we were on a date, like that kind of thing. And there's almost this kind of like we're gonna discard what is likely, we're going to discard what we think, what we really kind of would have to kind of like some kind of reality based thinking and kind of go with conspiracy theories because we are rooting for Luigi Mangione and we are hoping that he is not ultimately convicted of this crime. We want him to succeed. And that's where we kind of get into the fandomification, because it's like, maybe if you're a big Taylor Swift fan, you want to play her songs a lot or do things to help her songs triumph on the Billboard charts. In this case, there's like, almost an element like that, but it's about a murder case where it's like, I hope, I wish the best for him, and I'm gonna even say things or think things in a way that maybe benefits him, because I'd like him to get away with this.
- [74:17]
B
If it makes it to trial, it'll be very interesting to see what happens. I remember after the arrest, you know, we live in central Indiana. We would see people with T shirts with his face on it indicating their support. I haven't seen those in a while. And I think it's because the story has kind of receded from the front pages. But if it goes to trial, it'll be back on the front pages again. I imagine it'll be a big issue once again.
- [74:45]
A
Here's the thing that I will be curious about, because I think this is relatively rare. And I remember when we covered the Delphi case, we felt that the closing argument made by Brad Rosie in that case was essentially an attempt at jury nullification. Where can you actually. Maybe. Actually, before we go into this, maybe just say a little bit about jury nullification and sort of what that is.
- [75:09]
B
Basically, it's. Well, it's when the defense attorney says, well, maybe he did this, but circumstances are such that to make a statement, you should find him innocent anyway.
- [75:21]
A
And. And what we said at the time, and I remember even, like, leaving that session was like, that is an insane thing to pull in a case that is the murder of two children for sexual reasons. Yeah.
- [75:35]
B
Rosie's argument was, Mr. Allen was treated badly, in my view, while he was incarcerated. Therefore, you should find him not guilty of murder.
- [75:46]
A
That is not going to work in an emotionally charged case where the jury has spent days looking at brutally murdered bodies of two little girls.
- [75:55]
B
In this case, a defense attorney, in theory could say, well, any of us who have been through a bad experience with health insurance understand this. We have to make the health insurance executives understand how serious this is. Find him not guilty.
- [76:10]
A
I don't even think you need to be that explicit. I think that health insurance is so controversial in this country, is all you need is one person to hang it, or all you need is a jury that's like, you know what? No, like, we're not, you know, I think that's a possibility. It really depends on a lot of things. Depends on jury selection. It depends on what, what's going on and the performances of both the defense and the prosecution. I'm not saying that's a likely or, or, you know, I'm not saying it's likely. I'm not saying anything about the likelihood. I'm just saying I think it's certainly more in the realm of possibility than with a lot of different cases where you could have a jury say, you could have a jury hold a murder case to perhaps like a higher standard than they would a case that doesn't have such controversial and polarizing politics. Does that make sense?
- [77:08]
B
That makes sense.
- [77:08]
A
They could almost be like, well, you know, he didn't admit to it on camera while tap dancing and therefore we can't find him guilty. And that I could see that happening with, with aspects of this. Again, not necessarily. And, you know, I'm not even going to comment on the strength or weakness of the case against him at this point because it's just too early and we don't know all that's going to go in, into what the jury is hearing. But I'm also not going to, like, necessarily, like, if there's, if there's things that seem like conspiracy theories that there's evidence for, then that's certainly interesting and we'll talk about that. But without there being some evidence for some of this stuff that I've seen in the kind of like the social media discussions, like, I kind of don't even want to touch some of that because it's like, I don't know, like, let's, let's deal with what we're dealt. I would love to know from our audience, though, like, what are you interested about with this case? Has there been stuff you've seen that you're like, hey, is this true or not? Or, like, what would happen with this? Like, we'd really, like, love to get your feedback on what you would want to know, because I think this is going to be a case that's going to be interesting to follow. It raises a lot of issues about American society, but also kind of the fandomification of true crime. And, you know, it. What that, what that can look like. But yeah. Anything else from you, Kevin?
- [78:29]
B
That's it.
- [78:30]
A
I'll include a link to all my articles that I cited from this in our show notes. But I'm sure there's a, I mean, there's a ton of stuff we did not even we barely scratched the surface on this case. This was meant to just really be a primer to kind of get us into it and we can kind of be directed by you, the audience going forward. So please, either in our Facebook group or, you know, email us, just let us know what you would love to know more about or what you would love clarified or just have a discussion on different issues raised by the case. I think that would be super interesting. But we really appreciate you all listening and thank you very much.
- [79:05]
B
Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [79:26]
A
If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com/murder sheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www. Buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.
- [79:49]
B
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with.
- [80:01]
A
Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.