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Murder Sheet
The Murder of Brian Thompson: The Case of Luigi Mangione: The Altoona, Pennsylvania Timeline
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B
And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.
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And this is the Murder Sheet.
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We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.
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C
And this is the murder of Brian Thompson, the case of Luigi Mangione, the Altoona, Pennsylvania, time. So as a reminder, the state of New York is prosecuting, prosecuting rather Mangioni, through the District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office. And the senior trial counsel for that team is Joel J. Seidman, and he is an assistant district attorney in that office. And, you know, so he's responding to what the defense argued. Many months ago, there were hearings, a hearing that kind of lasted through, I think, December 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 16th and 18th in 2025, all about trying, having the defense try to get evidence removed from the case. And can we talk about that? Because I think sometimes we say this, the defense is trying to get evidence thrown out. And sometimes people are like, oh, that's bad. Why wouldn't, you know, they should, they should have to address that. And I understand that reaction. But can you explain why it's very prudent for the defense to, to do this?
- [05:36]
B
Well, there's a lot of reasons why it's important for the defense to do things like this. One of the factors to consider is what's best for their clients in the case in front of them. And obviously in that instance, you look at what's damaging to your own client and you try to find alternate explanations for it or to get those pieces of information thrown out for one reason or another, whether because the government has done something wrong or what have you. In the larger sense, though, it is important that defense attorneys do things like this because if the state can get away with breaking the rules and doing something wrong in Order to convict someone who's like really, really bad, then that means that maybe tomorrow, next week, next month, they will be able to use that as a precedent and break rules to, you know, convict us or convict innocent people. We want to make sure the government is playing by a rule book which respects the rights of all citizens, including citizens who are arrested of crimes.
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C
So it's very important on the micro level of individual cases and an individual's rights and it's also very important on a macro level of all of our rights. So it's not something that should upset us. It is something that we should be
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B
grateful for part of the process.
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C
That being said, that doesn't mean that every argument about omitting evidence is going to really fly. I mean it just, you know, it's all going to come down to the specific set of facts and what, what, what happened. So I think that's the context of this. Why don't we kind of revisit as this, you know, document does, Kevin, if you wouldn't mind scrolling down and reading what I've highlighted there for you just to kind of recap what, what we're talking about here centrally.
- [07:33]
B
So on the morning of December 4, 2024, the defendant crept up behind Brian Thompson, a 50 year old father of two, on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk and shot him twice at close range. One of the bullets pierced Thompson's heart and liver, killing him Almost immediately. After confirming that Thompson was dead, the defendant fled the scene and succeeded in vanishing for several days despite investigators extensive efforts to track down the perpetrator of this sensational crime. During that time, NYPD officers publicized images of defendant that they had managed to cull from surveillance footage.
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C
There you go. So that describes the murder of Brian Thompson. And now we go from that kind of general discussion to a very detailed discussion of the timeline as far as happenings in Altoona, Pennsylvania. So why are we going there? This crime happened in New York City. Well, those of you who may remember, Luigi Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania. That is where a lot of evidence in the case was seized, processed, handled by police. So this is ultimately, and questions of the law around this is, is where the defense would be able to get stuff excluded. He wasn't arrested in New York, he was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania. That is a city that is, it's in Blair County. I think it's got around like 43, 000 residents. So it's, you know, it's, it's a bit of a distance from New York City and I think it's about 250
- [09:20]
B
miles from New York City, right?
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C
Yes. And this all came down in the Altoona. I think it's, it's. Yeah, it's, it's also, I think it's, it's home to a very controversial pizza that every once in a while the Internet rediscovers and gets angry about. But, you know, this is, I mean, and you know, you and I were, you know, we're doing our true crime thing back in the day when this happened. And I'm sure a lot of you were watching the news, and I remember there was like, there was like a bit of a media frenzy around this case, a bit of a social media frenzy. People were locked in on this one because we had this high profile murder and then we had a killer on the run. So people were talking about it, I imagine, especially people in kind of those, those cities. Not, not too far away from New York City. But a central part of what we're going to talk about today is, is what happened in Altoona. And it kind of breaks down just how officers, I suppose, came to arrest Luigi Mangione specifically. And it's, it's couched in the language of a prosecutor defending the actions of those officers. Because previously at those hearings, what the defense was saying was they bungled this, they messed this up so bad that we have to throw out all this evidence. That's what they're saying, essentially, and which
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B
is what you'd expect defense attorneys to say.
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C
It's the job of defense attorneys to basically pick apart what law enforcement does. Sometimes they're going to be correct and they're going to get evidence dismissed. Sometimes they're not. It just, you know, you got to do it. But, you know, that's, that's, that's what we're going to talk about in a subsequent episode, really about the laws and the legal wranglings in this case. We're really going to just talk about what happened as described by the prosecutor or by the assistant district attorney in this case. He writes, quote, in five days after the shooting, police officers in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a small city about 250 miles from New York City, received a report that somebody who looked like the New York City assassin was at a local McDonald's. The Altoona officers had no forewarning that the perpetrator of this high profile murder would appear in their jurisdiction. And they were skeptical of the report's accuracy. But when two Altoona police officers responded, one of them immediately recognized defendant as the person depicted in the Publicized images of the New York City shooter, end quote. So that's where it starts off, the process.
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B
And naturally you'd be skeptical. If you are in Altoona, Pennsylvania and suddenly you get a phone call from someone saying, oh, this focus of a national manhunt is in town, hanging out at McDonald's. I would have been skeptical too.
- [12:04]
C
Actually. This. The officers are quoted as saying some pretty amusing things that we'll get to. But yeah, their, their reaction mirrors what I feel like. I'd be like, very skeptical. But in this case, you know. So this is what ADA Seidman is, is saying here, noting that Mangione is seeking the suppression of evidence recovered from his backpack because essentially these police officers didn't follow New York's search and seizure law when arresting him in Pennsylvania on Pennsylvania charges. And he's going to summarize now the three reasons he feels the judge should not side with the defense legally. Quote, first, the Altoona officers acted reasonably in processing defendants arrest in accordance with Pennsylvania search and seizure law without regard for what New York search and seizure law might call for. After all, the Altoona officers were unfamiliar with New York search and seizure law. Nor could they be expected to familiarize themselves with the body of law in advance of defendants arrival, which they had no way of anticipating. Nor could they be expected to know that although they were arresting defendant in Pennsylvania on Pennsylvania charges, their conduct would be assessed under New York search and seizure law. There is thus no basis to use the exclusionary rule to sanction Altoona officers for conduct that they correctly understood to be lawful in their jurisdiction. Second, the extensive hearing record demonstrates that even under New York search and seizure law, Altoona officers acted lawfully in processing defendants arrest. New York's law of exigency justified their limited search of defendants backpack at the McDonald's. And New York's law governing inventory searches justified their thorough search of defendants back backpack at the Altoona station house. Third, even assuming counterfactually some legal problem with the search at the McDonald's and the inventory search, Altoona officers obtained a search warrant for the backpack, thereby establishing an independent source of recovering the backpack's contents. Defendant also seeks suppression of various statements he made to police officers at the McDonald's and to Corrections officers during his subsequent incarceration. But all of those statements are admissible on a variety of grounds are detailed below. And then he says that the whole thing should be thrown out entirely. So what do you think about that? That opening?
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I think that's pretty strong. He's summarizing some Pretty strong arguments.
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C
Absolutely. So going back to the murder, he jumps in with a little bit more of a detailed, detail oriented version of what happened to Brian Thompson. I'll go ahead and read that quickly. At 6:44am on December 4, 2024, 50 year old Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was walking outside the Hilton Hotel at 1335 Avenue of the Americas when a man wearing all black appeared behind him, drew a pistol outfitted with a silencer and shot him in the back and the leg. As Thompson collapsed on to the ground, the shooter tried to continue firing, but his pistol appeared to malfunction. The shooter then walked up to Thompson's motionless body, apparently to confirm that Thompson was dead before fleeing the scene. At no point did the shooter appear to say anything to the victim or take anything from him. The entire episode was captured on surveillance footage. So end quote, that's the their summary kind of contextualizing it in terms of time and the specific location.
- [15:32]
B
Then I think that's footage most of us have seen time and time again online.
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It was really broadcast very heavily after this happened and there was a kind of a couple days of manhunts around. You know, when I say manhunt, it's like people are on the lookout for this guy. We stay busy with the podcast, so I like my wardrobe to stay comfortable, easy and intentional. Something that I could put on that feels great while also looking super put together when we're going out to court or to an interview.
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C
of talk about an important figure as far as the New York City Police Department's investigation into this case. That is the, you know, one of the big agencies, probably the lead agency, I would say, in terms of going forward with this case. And they identify a Lieutenant David Lenardi. And I looked him up on newspapers.com specifically Newsday, in the Daily Sentinel. And a detective with that same name was listed as sort of instrumental in a high profile case back in 2012. And that was the bust of James Coraling, a who was described in the newspapers as a notorious crack kingpin known as the Ghost. Always fun when they're given criminals these silly nicknames. But he's a, he's kind of an important figure here. So I will read sort of what he starts doing. Quote, Lieutenant David Lenardi, a supervisor at NYPD's Manhattan South Homicide squad, responded to the scene and saw that various pieces of ballistics evidence, including three live cartridges and three shell casings, had been recover. The shell casings were marked with the words deny, delay, depose, words used to criticize the tactics of health insurers. At Lt. Lenardi's direction, a team of detectives interviewed witnesses in canvas for surveillance footage. The video canvas yielded footage of the shooting as well as the footage that showed that the shooter had been inside a nearby Starbucks shortly before the shooting, had left the scene of the shooting on a bicycle and had traveled through Central park to West 86th street and Amazon Amsterdam Avenue, where he got into a taxi cab. While tracing the shooter's path, investigators recovered a backpack that contained, among other things, Monopoly money. The video canvas ultimately allowed investigators to trace the shooter back to a hostel. There, investigators were able to obtain photographs that captured the shooter's full face. They also learned that the shooter had checked into the hostel using a fake New Jersey driver's license bearing the name Mark Rosario. Remember that name, folks. That's going to be very, very important later. Now, here's a note. Police did not release this alias, the Mark Rosario alias.
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That's an important detail, is it not?
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Yes. And can you. Can. Do you have a guess about why that is important?
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I would, I would speculate that if that information got out it could somehow compromise the investigation. Police like to keep certain details private in order to assess claims made by witnesses and such.
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C
Yes. And also a note. We actually recently interviewed a different retired NYPD detective, Bob Hahn, and he was on the Manhattan South Homicide Squad. These are two Manhattan south and Manhattan north are two homicide squads that basically divide up Manhattan and the South. One is particularly interesting because in the south of Manhattan, a lot of people, it's a very transient population. It swells during the day as people are going into work, and then it kind of trickles out at night to, you know, the surrounding boroughs and beyond. So it's kind of an interesting place, I imagine, to investigate murders. But so this Mark Rosario is on the loose. They're looking, and then the next part just kind of gets in. I'll summarize this. But it gets into information. They're basically trying to get public information. So the NYPD share some footage with the deputy commissioner for public information that gets put online on social media to the traditional media. Different pictures of the shooter go up from Starbucks during the shooting, fleeing on a bicycle. And this is all posted on Facebook. And in those images, the DCPI wrote, quote, Wanted for homicide on 12424 at approximately 6:40am in front of the Hilton Hotel. And then they kind of go into what happened. They say there's a $10,000 reward. And they. This kind of goes all over online and they. They talk about how this does not appear to be, like, later on, they kind of updated it. It's not a random act of violence, premeditated, targeted. We're looking for the public's help. And, yeah, it kind of gets everywhere by December 8th is like, headlines and all this stuff. So now we go state over and several days later to December 9, 2024, and this is how it all starts out. Quote, At 9:14am on December 9, 2024, a manager at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, called 911 to report some that some customers had noticed that another customer resembled the CEO shooter from New York. She specified that the person in question was sitting by the bathroom and wearing a black jacket, tan beanie, and a blue medical mask. End quote. Okay, so now they're kind of specific. Now they're kind of going in on this McDonald's. And this is how the Altoona Police Department initially reacts. The 911 operator dispatched Altoona Police Department officers to respond to the call, which the dispatch center designated low priority.
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B
Again, understandable because you wouldn't assume that a report like this is necessarily Valid.
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C
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
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B
And I would wager that other town, other towns were probably getting calls, oh, we see him here, we see him here.
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C
They seek him here, they seek him there. Um, yeah, not to compare this to the Scarlett Pimpernel, obviously, but in this situation, though, yeah, they did. You know, and I think it's good to be skeptical and. But I also think it's good for members of the public if you think, you know, if you think you have the answers to a crime, you should call it in, but.
- [23:24]
B
Cause sometimes you do.
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C
Sometimes you do. So this is what. These are the people who get sent out. It's a police officer, Joseph Detwiler. He was in a patrol car with probationary police officer Tyler Fry. They go there, quote. Detwiler had been closely following the coverage of the shooting and had seen video of the shooting as well as photos of the shooter. He had found the incident awful and disturbing, particularly because the shooter appeared to have been lying in wait for his victim. He had seen a report that the words deny, delay and depose were inscribed on the shooter's bullets. And he had seen a report that investigators had not yet found the murder weapon, which appeared to be a black semi automatic handgun with a silencer affixed to it. Media coverage of the shooting was so intense that at one point, Detwiler felt as though he saw the shooter more than he saw his own children. Detwiler responded to dispatch, 10. Four will be on that. But he did so. But he did so in a skeptical tone of voice because he did not think that he was going to find the New York City shooter at a McDonald's in Altoona. Lt. William or Tom Hanaley, who had overheard the dispatch and shared Detwiler's skepticism about the report, sent Detwiler a text message promising him to buy him a hoagie from a local restaurant if the report turned out to be correct. So you have stuff like that where they're just like, yeah, this isn't, you know, this is nothing. So they're not like all geared up and like, oh, let's go. You know, they're just like, okay. I mean, they have to check it out, but they're probably expecting it's just going to be some guy. So, I mean, that's your take, right?
- [24:53]
B
That's my take. And their skepticism is further showed by the fact that as they were driving there, they did not even turn their sirens on. No, the obviously did not see. This is like an emergency situation. They saw this as something. Yeah, we have to check it out.
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C
But we're skeptical when it comes to this whole situation. Why do you think? I guess the Joel. Joel Seidman is emphasizing this level of kind of like, you know, okay, we didn't expect this at all,
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B
because when we listened to his summary of his arguments, he wanted to make it clear they weren't prepared for this. They didn't have time to brush up on the nuances of the differences between Indiana and Pennsylvania.
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C
Not Indiana. Freudian slip.
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B
Freudian slip. New York and Pennsylvania.
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C
Yes. So he's. He's basically making that case through sort of noting, hey, they weren't. You know, it's not like they were really expecting this. And they were sitting around being like, all right, let's. Let's bust open those New York law textbooks. You know, if they had been anticipating or if this had been some kind of planned sting, then you could say, well, maybe they should have been more cautious or whatnot. But if you're just thinking they're like, okay, this is some overhyped McDonald's manager slash customers who are seeing things that are not true, then it's a different situation.
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B
Exactly.
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C
So, all right, Back to the McDonald's. Do you want to. Do you want to.
- [26:28]
B
The officers. I'll read some of this here. The officers arrived at the McDonald's at about 9:28am as they entered, somebody said, it's him back there. Detweiler saw that a man, the defendant, was sitting alone at a table near the bathrooms and wearing a brown beanie and blue medical mask, just as the 9, when one caller had reported a backpack was sitting on the floor at the defendant's feet. The defendant was working on his laptop when Officer Detwiler approached and asked him to briefly pull his mask down. When the defendant did so, Detwiler immediately recognized him as the man who appeared in the photos of the suspect in the New York City shooting. Because of the extraordinarily calculated and violent nature of that crime, debt Wyler considered defendant to pose a high security risk.
- [27:20]
C
So let's talk about that for a minute. And this is something that's a little bit more just. I see discourse around this, and I guess I. I wanted to weigh in on it. Why not? Why not jump in? I've seen people say that when they see the surveillance footage of the individual in the hostel where, like, he puts his mask down or even footage that were, like, captured in different areas of the person believed to be the shooter of Brian Thompson, they say it's like a totally different guy than Luigi Mangione. And they see no resemblance. I'm curious, what do you agree with that assessment and what are your thoughts on it?
- [28:00]
B
To me, it's the same guy.
- [28:02]
C
Yeah, same. Okay. Like, I don't know what people are talking about at all. And I think sometimes, and I'm not accusing anyone of lying or making stuff up, I think sometimes I see people advocating for him and then saying that, and it's like, sometimes I think you just see what you want to see. You know, it becomes an emotional thing, and then you're kind of motivated to. To see that. To me, it looks like the same guy. Very much so. You know, knowing, like, you know, we've. All right, like we all take different angles. Or you might look up and see yourself on the surveillance footage at the grocery store, and you're like, oh, that's not a good angle of me. But in general, like, you know, there can be some slight differences that don't really matter. It's more of the holistic picture that does. And to me, it looks identical. Now, I wouldn't convict someone based on that. I would want. I would want more. Right. But I think that is important to note. So when people are saying, okay, I can't believe. How would they have recognized him? It doesn't even look like him. It does. I think it certainly. I personally, I think it's a subjective thing, but to me, it's. It's the same guy. So Detwiler believes he recognizes him, and he has Fry run the guy's license through a database with Department of Motor Vehicles information in every state.
- [29:23]
B
Even before that. I think it's interesting to note that they ask Mangione for his name, and he gives the name Mark Rosario.
- [29:33]
C
Oh, yeah, duh, I forgot that part. That's kind of a big deal. Thank you. So, Mark Rosario. We heard that before. I told you to remember it. And then I myself forgot. So that's good for good. Good job on good podcasting, you know. So, Margaret. Sorry. Such doofus sometimes. Remember that, everybody. I need to be reminded of it.
- [29:57]
B
Oh, man.
- [29:58]
C
Oh, sorry. Sorry to fail the audience here for a minute. So, Mark Rosario, you want to just
- [30:05]
B
go back and redo that?
- [30:05]
C
No, it's funny. I mean, I don't care.
- [30:07]
B
Okay.
- [30:08]
C
Kevin's very nicely offering to let me redo that, but. Okay, I say leave it in. I'm not perfect. Most of you long term listeners know that. But maybe now the scales can fall from everyone's eyes, I think. So. Mark Rosario. This is an alias that police believe the nypd. Pbd. Nypd has, you know, linked to the person they believe is the shooter of the CEO. And then this guy in Altoona is happening to give the same exact name. Can you. I mean, I think the significance of that is pretty obvious.
- [30:44]
B
The significance of that is obvious. It's not known to the public that that is the name given by the shooter. So this person is basically Mr. Mangione. He's basically putting himself in that hostel on the morning of the killing. He's putting himself where the killer was.
- [31:03]
C
What's the. What are the odds of you making up that name? And it's not like a name like John Smith, you know, that everyone makes up. It's. It's something very, you know, specific to this situation. It's a real problem for him. And. Yeah, and it also, you know, has a bearing on him being arrested in Pennsylvania as well. So after that, that's when Detwiler tells Fry, hey, run this. And he does so. And unfortunately, at that point, the dispatcher mishears the number that Fry gives and starts searching for the wrong license plate number. This delays things somewhat. Detwiler starts asking, kind of making small talk with. With Mangione, asking him if he's from New Jersey. And that. I. You know. So he says no, then. Yeah, no, at first he says yes. He's later says no. He says he was from New Jersey. Detwaller asks, quote, were you up in New York recently? End quote. And then Mangioni says, yes, sir. And then Mangioni just keeps, I guess, eating, taking food out of his McDonald's bag. And Detwiler asked him what he was doing in New York, and he doesn't answer. He just sort of, like, unwraps his sandwich.
- [32:23]
B
And at this point, Detwiler is aware this man is a suspect in a violent crime, and the gun used in that crime was not recovered. So he asked Mangione to stand up and be frisked. Mangione complies. There's a brief frisk, and Detwilder doesn't find a weapon.
- [32:43]
C
And at that point, Mangini just sits back down. And Fry's nearby. Detwiler goes outside. Fry keeps on trying to get the small talk going, saying, what's going on, man? And what brings you to Altoona? And Mangione says he was going to wait to see, quote, what you guys are up to. So he's wary. You know, Mangione is somewhat wary, which is, you know, fair in this situation. Two police officers come up upon him. They're asking a bunch of questions. They're trying to sort of act natural, but he's probably sensing, you know, I think if this happened to me at our local McDonald's, I would definitely be on guard. Yeah. Not that I've done anything, but. So then what happens is Fry says. Fry tries to kind of spin it. He's like, we went. We came to McDonald's. Somebody said you were suspicious, and you were hanging around and being suspicious. And Mangione is like, I'm just trying to use the WI fi. And Fry says, quote, I'm not saying you did anything wrong. I'm just saying we got called here for that. And Fry asks him if he's a college student. And Mangioni says he's not. Detweiler goes outside, right? And he calls Lieutenant Hannely, who had been the guy who was like, I'll buy you a hoagie. And he says, quote, can you start over? Why don't you read this, what he's saying?
- [34:07]
B
He says, quote, can you start over this way? Tom, it's him. It's him. It's. Yes, he's here. Tom. It's him. I'm not kidding. He's real nervous. He's not talking too much. I asked if he'd been up in New York recently, and, Tom, I'm about 100% sure it's him. Why don't you come out here, Tom? Okay. I appreciate it. Okay, bye.
- [34:28]
C
So, yeah. Wow. So not. Not the call that Lieutenant Hannelly was presumably expecting. So he knows, you know, Hannely also knows he's wanted for, like, you know, pretty brutal crime, murdering somebody. So he brings with him to McDonald's Sergeant John Burns, Corporal Garrett Trent, and Officer Samuel McCoy. So they're bringing out, like, people in force at this point. And why would you do that in this situation? It's just one guy. What. What's the point of bringing all these officers?
- [34:57]
B
Well, for one thing, this guy is wanted for a violent crime. The weapon used in that crime has not been recovered. There's also, you know, innocent bystanders around. This is an unpredictable, potentially very dangerous situation.
- [35:12]
C
And what's more, I think at one point in the filing, it kind of talks about, like, there was, you know, no one really knew what the motive was. There seemed to be some link between sort of a political message of, like, being anti health insurance. But, like, is it just focus on health insurance, or could this be person be planning to do more things, like, nobody knows. Like, is this over? Is it part of a group? Like, who knows? So there's a lot of Unknowns. And given the public safety issue, yeah, it makes sense to send out a lot of people. So at this point, Detwiler comes back into the McDonald's and asks Mangione again if he's from New Jersey. And. And he apparently said yes. And then he said he was homeless. Detwiler gives the dispatch the license plate number, and this time, the second time it gets put in correctly, at 9:33am it comes back with no record for
- [36:11]
B
license, which is a sign. It's fake.
- [36:14]
C
Right. So Detwiler asked Mangione if he'd been to New York recently, and Mangione said no. So it's interesting because he's giving kind of conflicting answers at this point. So it's kind of like giving them a sense that, like, this is.
- [36:27]
B
That's never a good sign.
- [36:28]
C
Right. You know, and, like, I guess, why is that important? And when we're talking about, like, an interaction with law enforcement here where they think he looks like the person in the pictures associated with this murder, as well as, like, he's not really. He's like, one minute he's from New Jersey, then he's visiting New York, and then he's not.
- [36:49]
B
And that sort of thing certainly doesn't make you less suspicious of a person. Right.
- [36:56]
C
When I do that to you, you always get really suspicious. So then Detweiler tells the defendant, quote, we're just trying to confirm your identity, and then we'll get out of here. End quote. Now, here's something that's interesting. Detwiler notes that he had no intention of letting him go, but he wanted to, quote, keep things normal, make him feel like things were gonna move on, he was gonna be able to go. And in doing so, he also said, like, hey, somebody complained that you stayed too long at McDonald's, and it was, like, a violation of the time limits at the restaurant. And Mangioni looks at his receipt, and he's just. He's like, I was just there for 40 minutes, and he was just trying to get out of the rain. And they're just kind of waiting around for the driver's license confirmations. He starts eating a hash brown that he had unwrapped. And Detwiler asked him, why'd you come to Altoona from New Jersey? And Mangioni said that he had not been to New Jersey for a while. And when asked if he was from New Jersey, he said he was actually from the DMV area for non Americans. DMV is District of Columbia, Maryland, in Virginia. So again, he's kind of being inconsistent. There's some problems here, I guess, for you, Kevin. You know, when it comes to, like, this officer, sort of, he's acting like casual, but he actually, it's not casual. Is that. Is that. Is that something that police can do in terms of kind of lulling someone?
- [38:21]
B
Okay, yes, absolutely. Police are allowed to do such things. Police don't have to say, oh, I think you're. This might be connected to a very serious crime. I might arrest you, and you're never, breathe another air. Breath, breath of fresh air again. You don't have to say things like that. You don't have to say things that are going to increase the odds of a serious confrontation with a potentially armed and violent person.
- [38:43]
C
Speaking of a serious confrontation, I just want to note for everyone who can't see what's going on right now, that Nick, our dog, has hijacked Kevin's chair and is now sitting behind Kevin in a sort of improbable arrangement. So we'll see how this continues. He wants to get in on the discussion, and he's looking at me yawning. So he's, I think, signaling that we're pretty boring. Anyways, so then in kind of his attempts to continue to kind of give this vibe that everything's fine, Detweiler starts pretending to be frustrated. Like, oh, we are always called to this McDonald's. Like, we've been here six times in the past week because, you know, customers staying too long. I'm sorry to laugh. That's just such a weird. Like, you know, but like, yeah, like, you see this actually sometimes there can be, like, places that are attracting a lot of police presence and wasting local resources because there's constantly problems. But the idea that. That people in altoona, at the McDonald's, are constantly calling 911 because people are staying too long. There's something kind of funny about that. And quote, Mangione, quote, responded by pointing out that his Receipt was from 8:55 and saying, I wish they would have told me. I would have gotten up and left, end quote. So it's like, Mangioni has a point. He hasn't really been there that long either. So he eats his hash brown, and Detweiler says, come on, Blair, out loud, explaining that he was referencing to our dispatch center, which seemed to be backed up with other requests. And Mangione's eating his breakfast sandwich that had been on the table. And that while they asked, hey, is that a steak sandwich? And he says, yes. And he's like, that's my favorite. So they're just trying to, like. I just. This is almost like if it wasn't such a serious issue, it's just kind of like. It's a little bit comedic, I think, the whole kind of like, everything's fine, Everything's fine. We're just hanging out with you. Oh, we're just checking in. The McDonald's and El Tuna is overrun by people staying too long. And from there now. Now you're probably wondering, well, why is. Why, you know, why don't they hurry it up? What's going on? What's happening is that Lt. Hannely, who's on the way to the McDonald's, has tried calling the NYPD and is on the phone with an operator there, and he's trying to get access. He'll have some trouble. We'll go into that later. Meanwhile, in the McDonald's, Detwiler is kind of concerned about this backpack. He thought it was noticeably heavy and that it might have a firearm inside. And meanwhile, Sergeant Burns and the others come in, and they kind of signal to Detwiler asking if this guy was patted down. And Detwiler says yes. So Detwiler and Hanley go outside. Detwiler tells Hanley, this is 100% the person who is wanted for the shooting. Sergeant Burns and Corporal Trent join them outside, and they pull up pictures of the suspect on their phones to kind of check it out. Officer McCoy stands next to the table where Mangione is sitting, and he asks the guy, he asked Mangione, are you carrying any weapons? Mangione does not respond. Again, that's a bit concerning, right?
- [41:50]
B
Yes.
- [41:50]
C
That's something you definitely want to know about.
- [41:52]
B
That's something. If a police officer asks you a question like that, that's one you really want to give a clear, unambiguous answer to.
- [42:00]
C
McCoy talks, keeps talking to Mangione, asks if the stuff around the table and on the table, backpack, laptop, gloves, were his. And Mangione responds to that one. He says, they are. And McCoy moves them to an adjacent table. And then, this is interesting, quote, McCoy then asked the defendant whether he knew what all this nonsense was about. Defendant answered that he was going to find out. I guess when McCoy commented that defendant was soaking wet and asked whether he had walked there, defendant said, it's raining. Yeah. McCoy asked whether defendant had a car and whether he had walked there, but defendant responded that he was just going to let things play out. Defendant then joked, calling a couple more cars, this is a puffy jacket. I'm not very big. Officers McCoy, Fry, and Yeager the only officers inside the McDonald's with defendant when he made these statements to McCoy. What do you make of those statements?
- [42:53]
B
He sounds like he's enjoying himself and he sounds like he's mocking these officers.
- [42:56]
C
Yeah, there's like a. There's a bit of a, you know, a humorousness there where he's kind of like, oh, you're, you know, calling all these people. He knows something's up. It's pretty clear.
- [43:04]
B
Like he knows, he knows what's going on. He knows he's about to be arrested.
- [43:09]
C
Yeah. And I think just let play things play out.
- [43:12]
B
Yeah.
- [43:12]
C
You know, just. He's not, he's not wanting to make any statements at this point. So at this point, it's before 9:45am Hannally, Burns, Trent and Detwiler go back inside the McDonald's, and then we have some new officers show up. This is APD officers Christy Wasser and Stephen Fox. They get there around that same time. And Blair County Dispatch, 911 dispatch had not been able to find a record with the New Jersey driver's license with the name Mark Rosario. Hannah called the, quote, turnkey officer, quote, at APD headquarters and asked him to run the name himself through ncic, which is the database for that. That officer found nothing. 9:47am Hanley tells Detwiler, you know, give him some false ID warnings. And those are basically warnings about the illegality of orally providing a false name to the police. Can you talk about that? I mean, like, that's just basically what it sounds like, right?
- [44:13]
B
Yeah.
- [44:13]
C
I can't go up and say, oh, I'm Jane Doe, because I'm not.
- [44:18]
B
You're not.
- [44:19]
C
That's. That's wrong. So Detweiler goes over to the table and says, hey, listen, man, you're under official police investigation right now. If you give a false name to us again, you're going to be arrested for false id. Okay. Is that your name? Mark Rosio, Mark Rosar, row defendant answered that it was not and that his name was in fact Luigi Mangione. His date of birth was May 6, 1998. So this is interesting. He's kind of coming clean at this point. Fox then asked the defendant why he lied about his name. And Mangioni responds, quote, clearly, I shouldn't have. Fry says, but why did you lie? Mangione says, quote, that was the ID I had in my wallet. I had a fake id. Fox said, you had a fake id And Mangioni nodded and said, yes. So at this point, he's admitting to a crime yes, right under. And this will be important, but that. That in and of itself is a crime in Pennsylvania. So 9:45am Fox gives him his Miranda warnings. Mangioni says he understands. Fox says, do you want to talk to us? Mangioni hesitates, then shakes his head. Fox says, quote, you're not in custody at this point. Gave another false ID warning and asked him why he had a fake identification. Mangione says he's going to remain silent. And at this point, Fox is kind of worried because he doesn't know himself if Mangione has been patted down. And at 9:50, he pats him down. He's. This is the second time he's being patted down because he's worried about the safety issue and him being armed. Now, in a kind of a bizarre thing when. When Mangione gets up to be patted down, he admits that he does have something on him. It's not a weapon. It's a jar of peanut butter.
- [46:10]
B
Yeah.
- [46:12]
C
And then he. And then this is even weirder. Fox is like, okay, do you have any weapons on you? And Manjuni says, I don't. And then he says he has a pocket knife. So he does. I mean, I guess. I don't know. I guess it depends on whether you classify.
- [46:27]
B
I mean, whether you would consider a pocket knife a weapon.
- [46:29]
C
I would say yes. Burns goes to Hannelly. I'm sorry? Burns gets an instruction from Hannelly that they need to handcuff this guy. He goes to Fox, they handcuff Mangioni, they get the knife, a switchblade with a 3 to 4 inch long blade from the pocket of Mangione, put it on an adjacent table with his other stuff, and then they. They say he can sit down if he wants to. Manji only declines and wants to remain standing. And he was about 5 to 6ft from the table where his backpack and other property were. And Fry stood between the backpack and the defendant. And the other officers kind of feel like this is not the ideal situation because he could still shove, run or kick. Officer Fox goes outside with Detwiler. Like it's just people going in and out of McDonald's, you know? Fox goes outside with Detweiler, says, quote, that's 100% him. The shooter checked into the hostel with a fake id. A few minutes later, the two of them go back inside. Mangioni asks, can I ask why there are so many cops here? McCoy says, they're just trying to figure it out. And they arrest him for forgery, tampering under Pennsylvania law. Hannely had been kind of thinking about what charges to go against him for the fake driver's license. He does a call at 9:53 with Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks and First Assistant DA Nicole Smith. And they talked about you could be charged with forgery and tampering. So he, that's where he's kind of coming from with those charges. They're really obviously trying to kind of detain him for the purpose of, you know, I mean, the murder is the most important thing, right?
- [48:15]
B
Yes.
- [48:16]
C
Is that bad if they're like kind of basically using that as a pretext or does it not matter?
- [48:19]
B
It doesn't matter.
- [48:21]
C
Before 9:58am they he's standing 5 to 6ft from his backpack. Hanley instructed the officers to take him into custody. At that point, Detwiler and Fry took the defendant by an arm. Wasser began to put on a pair of blue rubber gloves and Officer McCoy confirmed that they were going to take him in for 4104 or tampering and kind of put that over the radio. So he's. That at that point he's formally placed in custody. Can you talk about custody, Kevin? And like why that's an important distinction. You know, someone maybe just having a chat with a police officer at a McDonald's when they're looking into something versus being placed into custody at that McDonald's by that police officer.
- [49:02]
B
Well, for one thing, when you're not in custody you can leave and when you are in custody you can't.
- [49:09]
C
Right, yeah. That's good. Thank you for breaking that up.
- [49:14]
B
That's why I get the big.
- [49:15]
C
Yeah, this is why you went to law school. So they search his purse and they search his backpack. Now again, this is written, this is
- [49:26]
B
after he's in custody.
- [49:27]
C
This is written by ada. So it's obviously going to be more justifying actions on behalf of the police and stuff like that. But says that they did it in accordance with APD standard procedures. Each of them had received training in Pennsylvania criminal law, Pennsylvania search and seizure law, and APD General Order 1:22-C1A1 provided that, quote, upon a person's arrest, officers could search clothing worn by the person in any bags or packages they may be in possession of at the time and place of arrest, end quote. So they felt like it's called a
- [50:00]
B
search incident to arrest.
- [50:02]
C
And they say basically this is. And this is. Does this require a warrant? No, no, it doesn't. So it's a warrantless search of arrestees bags, incident to arrest. Whether or not they're handcuffed. So, and, and what Seidman writes is, quote, indeed, at least some APD officers appear to have been exceptionally well versed in the relevant decisional law. At the hearing, Officer Fox cited the decision Commonwealth v. Guzman for a proposition that, quote, no further justification other than the lawful custodial arrest is needed. Therefore, the officer does not need to fear a firearm or bomb in a vehicle or in a bag to search that bag. The lawful custodial arrest is enough, end quote. So you're kind of seeing like, kind of some of the legal arguments seep into this.
- [50:45]
B
Even the officers know it. I'm sure they have dealt with defense attorneys and stuff in their careers, so they know the case law themselves.
- [50:52]
C
Yeah, you have to. You want to ensure that you're not violating people's rights, and you also want to make sure you're not messing up a case by searching things wrong. But in most situations, law enforcement officers are going to be dealing with people local to them in a local case. You know, it's not all the time that they're going to be somehow like, okay, this is a New York situation coming in here. I mean, that does happen, obviously, but so. So that leaves Wasser and Fox. They are the ones kind of searching the backpack at this point and quote, reports that the murder weapon had not been found. Heightened concerns about the possibility that it was in the backpack and the sensational nature of the shooting with its seemingly political message. Heightened concerns that the defendant might be carrying explosives. Because of that concern, Fox wanted to move the backpack as little as possible before clearing it for explosives. Before the officers opened that backpack, Officer Fox, suspecting that there probably something else in that bag that could harm human life, asked the defendant, quote, anything in that bag that we need to know about? Wasser froze as defendant responded, I'm just going to remain silent. A response that did nothing to allay the officer's concerns. She then pulled the backpack, which was noticeably heavy, toward her, unzipped its main component, and removed a sandwich as well as a loaf of bread, end quote.
- [52:14]
B
You have no idea what's in that backpack. It could be other weapons. It could be explosives. You have no idea.
- [52:22]
C
So they, they unzip his coat, the jacket. Beneath that pockets of the various pieces of clothing, they find a zip pouch, a flashlight, piece of paper, a wallet, all in the pockets. They get his brown beanie, and then Fry and Detwiler escort him out of the McDonald's to their patrol car. Wasser and Fox keep looking through the backpack at some Point, this is kind of interesting, kind of a dispute between officers. Corporal Trent goes up to them and asks, quote, what? Why don't we go through that back at the station before adding, quote, I mean, as long as you're sure there's no bombs or anything in it. Wasser frowned and said, I don't know. That's why we want to make sure there's nothing in there that's gonna. Curling her lip and making a face as her voice trailed off. Fox noted that he would rather find any explosives at the McDonald's before transporting them to the station. And Wasser then talked about how she did not want to, quote, pull a Moser a reference to an APD officer who had infamously transported a pipe bomb back to the station house. And I just want to pause here to say for a minute, can you imagine messing up so badly that your name becomes just associated with that embarrassing work incident that may have jeopardized other people's lives to the point where they, like, still reference it years later?
- [53:30]
B
Yeah, that, that would be bad.
- [53:31]
C
But also, I want to know everything about that situation.
- [53:34]
B
But that also underscores part of the thinking behind allowing these types of searches, incidents to arrest. Because if you're arresting someone, if you're taking them into custody, if you're transporting them in a police car to a police station, you want to be fully aware they don't have any weapons or anything of that nature or explosives. You don't want to put the lives of anybody in danger.
- [53:55]
C
And again, I think the reason why the explosives came into this conversation was because the. There's a view of, like, the political nature of murdering a CEO of a healthcare company, and that that might be political action, violent political action. And I think there's a situation where, you know, it's like, maybe you associate that with, like, bombing as well. So I think that kind of is where that was coming in. So they talk about the get out a Faraday bag, which is designed to block cell phone signals from the backpack. Within, there was a cell phone, a passport, another wallet, and there was also in the backpack, two pieces of cardboard taped together, separated them, finds a computer equipment inside, and then an envelope from the backpack, pair of wet underwear. And within that wet underwear, a loaded magazine for a handgun. When, quote, when Officer Fox saw the clip, he explained that the defendant was indeed the New York City shooter. Corporal Trent asked, have you cleared it all? Like, let's just go back to the station. Wasa responded, we're just making sure it's not a bomb. Or anything in here before we put it in the car, end quote. You're noticing Trent's more like, maybe we should do this elsewhere. Kind of like talking about more of the side of things around being concerned. Lieutenant Hanley at this point is worried about the DNA contamination of all these items and says, let's wait till we go back to the station house to go through all of it. They repack the backpack and they kind of just kept feeling it to making sure it didn't have any bombs in it. And then at that point, they're pretty con, you know, convinced that it doesn't have bombs. And they put the defendant's laptop, bread sandwich and the Mark Rosario driver's license in a separate McDonald's bag for Fox to take back to the precinct. And McCoy asks Wasser and Fox as they're leaving the McDonald's if they happen to see a particular item in there. And Wasser and Fox responded that they had not completely searched the backpack because they, quote, just wanted to make sure there's no bombs. Trent then says, at this point, you're probably going to need to do a search warrant for it. Burns, who was Trent's boss, direct supervisor, and Fox disagree with him, saying they had the right to do a warrantless search incident to arrest for a crime he committed here. And Trent, this is like, kind of salty. In this document, quote, Trent did not drop the subject. And Corporal Brian Miller agreed that a search warrant made sense just for the severity of it. But Burns refused to engage further because he was not going to stand there and argue with Corporal Trent inside McDonald's over his opinion that we needed a search warrant because clearly we did not, end quote. So it's kind of some, kind of some tensions between the officers. What do you think of that?
- [56:50]
B
I, I, I, I think it's Officers obviously feel strongly about what the jobs they're doing. And officers have probably all been in courts where they face tough examination, warranted or otherwise. Defense attorney. So some of them may be a bit gun shy, thinking this is super, super high profile. We need to jump through extra hoops that we might ordinarily not jump through. I don't know. I'm not terribly surprised by this. What do you think of it?
- [57:19]
C
Are you Team Fox, Burns or Trent Miller?
- [57:25]
B
I, as far as who's right, they're all great. I think, I think they should have done the search there. What do you think?
- [57:33]
C
Yeah, I think the safety issue, I mean, and that, that seems to be okay under Pennsylvania law. And we'll get more into that in probably another episode. But so anyway, Wasser brings the backpack to her patrol car, brings it to the station house, talks to Officer Fox, who has the McDonald's bag. And, you know, he's going to bring that to the station house. They're going to meet at the station. And quote, at no point did Lt. Hannely, the ranking officer at the scene, suggest obtaining a search warrant because he, like Burns and Fox, understood that any search of the backpack would fall within Pennsylvania's warrant exception for search's incident to arrest, end quote. So they drive their separate cars to the station house. Hannly calls Fox, tells him to return to McDonald's instead, and then he tells Wasser to pull over so that he could hand off that bag before going back to the McDonald's. So Wasser pulls over and put, you know, takes the McDonald's bag from Fox, puts it in her car, and then heads to the station. And then meanwhile, Hannelly's still trying to call the NYPD. They're not calling him back. 11. At 10:11, Detwiler and Fry get the. Get Mangione to the station house. APD Sergeant Eric Houston and APD Officer Austin Homan assisted them. And. And they process him in, you know, accordance with their policies. So then they get into kind of some of the policies around APD and inventory. I'm just going to summarize these briefly, but they. We talked about the, you know, providing for searches of clothing worn by the person and any bags and packages they might have had at arrest. It also provides for searches, quote, as custody is passed from officer to officer or facility to the facility. I imagine this is largely in part due to safet. Yeah, you, as you're transferring the person, you want to ensure that everything's safe. So they have a general order that requires an inventory search of a detainee upon arrival at APD headquarters prior to entry within the cell block area, and explains how to properly document and store the person's property as you're processing them. And you have to have an itemized inventory of all items taken from the detainee. And that would be logged with the. On the detainee property receipt as an itemized inventory and then returned to the detainee upon release or transferred with the detainee to another secured facility. This is a way to keep track of the property that you're seizing from somebody so it's not lost in the shuffle. And so things.
- [60:04]
B
And also, you don't want to have a situation where someone is released from custody and they Say oh, Where is my $60,000 Cartier watch?
- [60:14]
C
Yes.
- [60:14]
B
You know, you want there to have an inventory of what you came in with and so that matches what you leave with.
- [60:20]
C
You don't want to be losing people's stuff and you also don't want to be accused of stealing people stuff that you didn't. It's just a lot of good reasons
- [60:27]
B
for this, but common sense.
- [60:28]
C
One thing that is exceptions, as you can imagine to this rule is like contraband evidence, illegal weapons that's going to be put into the evidence section, it's not going to be itemized, it's not going to be returned to the detainee. If you bring in a big bag of, you know, cocaine, they're not going to be like oh, here you go, thank you. They're going to be seizing that. So you know, they would escort the people arrested to the station house intake area, process the arrest. The arrestee would be shackled next to the processing table and the property would be inventory in that person's presence to minimize claims of theft or damage. Every pocket of every piece of clothing searched, every bag searched, different kinds of items removed, stored. And they would have to determine which items constituted, constituted personal property to be returned to the residue and which would be contraband evidence, things like that.
- [61:21]
B
Makes sense.
- [61:22]
C
Yes. And for the personal property there would be a receipt and inventory form and also with the arrestees pedigree information on it, personal property would be stored in a numbered locker. And, and the reason the two areas where they could depart from this one, when a search revealed a weapon, they would move outside the intake room with away from the detainee. And when the arrestees property was too voluminous to be processed in a timely manner in the intake room. Those are the two sort of exceptions. So in terms of that they would, you know, that's how they would process everybody. And in this case it talks about like they would conduct an inventory search for every arrestee was brought into the station house. Every piece of the arrestees property, whether deemed personal property or evidence, would be documented. And given the logistical issues involved in inventorying large numbers, number of items, APD officers were not required to write out inventory lists simultaneously. That's important later. You don't have to do it simultaneously, you could document it later, but it has to be done at some point. So Detwiler and Fry bring him to the station house. Detwiler places his brown beanie, which contained items recovered from his person at McDonald's on the intake desk. Fry instructs mangioni to get his shoes off, shackles his feet, and then empties the brown beanie onto the intake desk. Homan gathers defendants pedigree information. So they're kind of going through all these typical things. Fry finds in his pants. A bus ticket to Pittsburgh under the name of Sam Dawson and a SEPTA ticket. And they find like a USB drive and they think like that's more of evidence. Items of per clothing would be more like personal property to travel with him. So they're kind of separating all that. Fry confirmed that Homan had separated all the items of evidentiary value. The two officers placed the items that they consider personal property in a large Lowe's bag. And the other ones that were evidence, they felt might be evidence were given to Officer featherstone. So at 10:15am Officer Wasser arrives at the station house carrying the defendant's backpack and the McDonald's bag. Puts the backpack on a chair to begin inventorying it. In the intake room, about 4ft from defendant who was ankle cuffed to the floor with his hands free. Wasser looks through the backpack. She finds a handgun in the side compartment that she had not opened at the McDonald's. She tells Deputy Chief Derek Swope, who's in the intake area, there's a weapon. Swope then signaled to Wasser to take the backpack containing the weapon to another room away from the defendant. That's abt's standard procedure as we just discussed. Wasser takes it and the McDonald's bag to another hallway separated from the intake room by a locked door. Swope explained, quote, I just don't want him. I just don't want to clear it with him. Still there. Wasser talks about how she checked the backpack for bombs at McDonald's. Swope tells her to clear the handgun. Wasser does so, finds it was loaded. Wasser and Swope place the gun in the evidence box specifically designed to store guns. Wasser then undertakes to separate the remaining property in the backpack into the personal section or the evidence section. She had difficulty doing so because her, she didn't know much about this investigation. Like she knew what NYPD had shared with the public. But like not, she wasn't, you know, she kind of like there was some guesswork involved. And she puts the, you know, in terms of the evidence pile, loaded magazine, the silencer. She gives those to Swope and he puts them in manila evidence envelopes. And then she, you know, did like there's a disc. There were toiletries, articles of clothing. She puts that back in the backpack. They find A. She finds a journal. She says it's like a journal. And then Deputy Swope answers, bag it kind of as a question. And then Wasser says, I would. Swope again urges Wasser to make sure there's no explosives in there. So they really, like, they're definitely concerned about that. So 1026, they have, like, half a dozen maneuver manila envelopes out there in the hallway just near the evidence box. And then at 10:25am she's looked. Wasser's looked through all the things in the backpack. At this point, Lieutenant Hanley finally gets a call back from an NYPD officer. Hanley shared some of what he knew about the, you know, Mangioni with the collar. That person transfer him to a detective. Hanley repeated that information to the detective and then was transferred to the office of the Chief of detectives. At 10:40am Lieutenant Lenardi, who's, again, we mentioned, the supervisor of NYPD's Manhattan South Homicide Squad. He. He talks to Hanalee and is on his way to Altoona at that point, asks that nobody speak to Mangioni and that all of his property be held. Can you. Can you talk about why it might be important for Leonardi to say, like, I don't want anyone else talking to him yet?
- [66:33]
B
Yeah, there's a variety of reasons for that. One is you certainly want to protect the rights of the defendant. You don't want people to say, oh, one of the officers somehow inadvertently, you know, gave him information to make his story better or influenced his story. You also, as I say, you want to protect his rights. You want to. You don't want to give him an opportunity to, if he makes an incriminating statement, to then later say, oh, they talked to me when I didn't have an attorney present. So you just want to bend over backwards, essentially, to protect his rights.
- [67:09]
C
Makes sense. At 10:30 or 10:40, Sergeant Houston is in the intake area. He starts photographing items of clothing, and they at that point, decide to move the inventory process to Officer Featherstone's office, which is a locked and secured room. He continues photographing items. They find a loose sheet of paper, the zip pouch and its contents, which is a USB drive, United states currency of $7,000, and foreign currency, a loose note card with a cryptocurrency seed phrase, a Visa gift card, and Luigi Mangioni's actual Maryland driver's license, his forged New Jersey driver's license, a USB drive, a wallet with more US Currency, bus ticket, SEPTA ticket, and then just various other items of clothing. The handgun the silencer, the magazine. And he started photographing loose pieces of paper recovered from the defendant. Writings from the red notebook. He said at a hearing. He immediately decided that everything should be treated as evidence because he didn't know. He didn't know what the NYPD people knew, so might as well just say all of its evidence and let them sort it out later. And he was even photographing, like, loose pieces of paper recovered from the defendant. It. By 11:30am his office had been. Was so filled with evidence envelopes that they decided to move all of it to the station house's roll call room. So they keep on, like, running out of space for all this stuff, and they wanted to do it in a more orderly fashion. So in the roll call room, Burns is photographing every item recovered from him from Mangioni. Just all of it and each piece of paper, regardless of whether even had any writing on it. I mean, they're really trying, like, CVS receipt, the watch, his mask, a flashlight, a pen, loose change, a cell phone, a camera, batteries, toiletries. I mean, what do you make of that level of, you know, documentation here?
- [69:08]
B
Well, that is exactly what you would expect, and that's exactly what you want. You don't want someone down the road to say, oh, they didn't take a picture of this piece of paper and that had some sort of important information on it, or there was something about that piece of paper that was significant. You want to document everything.
- [69:30]
C
I have a question. You know, one thing people might be struck by, though, is like, okay, yeah, but they started in one room, then they're going into the hallway, and then they're going into this room, and they're going into the roll call room. Is that, Is that a bad. Is that a fatal mistake? Is that bad that they're doing that? Or do you see that as just like a police department that, like, was not prepared for this, but is that the ladder is doing their best?
- [69:49]
B
Yeah, yeah, I would say the latter.
- [69:51]
C
Yeah, that, that makes sense. I mean, that's kind of where I am, but I'm a layperson. They talk about there's, you know, this is where the, the warrant comes in, because there ultimately is a warrant. There wasn't a warrant in the beginning, but this is what happens. So Sergeant Houston prepares an application for a search warrant for all the items recovered from the defendant. And he unders. He believed that they had already had the authority to recover those through a search incident to defendant's arrest on the Pennsylvania charges. But it. They didn't basically have the authority to transfer those items to the nypd. So what he wanted to do was authorize that transfer through the search warrant. And so he writes an affidavit of probable cause, and he relays the information he had from NYPD Detective Oscar Diaz about the shooting markings on the shell casings, the victim's position as a health insurance CEO, and all these different things. So he, he talks about how Detwiler recognized the defendant and they had this fake New Jersey driver's license. And at 5:14pm The Blair County District Attorney's office approved the search warrant application. At 6:00pm, Judge David Consiglio of the Pennsylvania Court of Common Police signed the search warrant. So later that night, he filed a return on the warrant and listed the items seized pursuant to it. That. So it was kind of some paperwork they needed to do in order to kind of throw it back to New York. Is that kind of your read on that?
- [71:22]
B
That. That's my read on that.
- [71:24]
C
So at that point, they're, they're doing their inventory and they like. So Burns and Featherstone are, you know, kind of nearing the end of the inventory, and a bunch of NYP NYPD officers, including Lt. Leonardi, arrive at the APD station house. And APD prepares to transfer custody of all the items. Featherstone showed Leonardi each envelope and read aloud his description of the envelope's contents. Linardi confirmed he agreed with the description of each and then they signed each envelope to document the transfer of custody. And this is like an hours long process to inventory the items recovered from him. And so what, what the, what, what the ADA is saying is, quote, Officer Featherstone followed APD inventory procedures in every way but one. He did not log the evidence recovered from defendant into APD's computer system because he knew that those items were destined to be transferred to nypd and the computer system was only for items that APD was going to retain. End quote.
- [72:31]
B
Understood.
- [72:32]
C
Makes sense. So at this point, it's the early evening of December 9, 2024. Fox and Fry drive him to the Blair County Courthouse for his arraignment. At that arraignment, the Blair County District Attorney said The defendant had $7,000 on him at the time of the arrest. And Mangioni protest that he was carrying less than a hundred dollars. And then Fox escorts him after the arraignment. And Bangioni says without any prompting, apparently he looked back at the reporters and stated, quote, all these people here for a mass murderer wild. And then they keep walking. Mangioni stumbles because the shackles on his legs. Fox apologized, but the defendant replied, it's okay. I'm going to have to get used to it. End quote. What do you make of these statements?
- [73:22]
B
I think Mange Oni is suggesting their. That he recognizes he's going to be spending a lot of time in custody and in shackles.
- [73:32]
C
It's odd that he kind of refers to himself as a mass murderer because he was only accused of killing one person.
- [73:39]
B
Yes.
- [73:39]
C
I don't read that much into it, though. I mean, sort of seems like something somebody said off the cuff and certainly, I guess, like the kind of idea of someone coming out with a gun and just like shooting up a public place or shooting someone in a public place. Maybe it conjures to mind that even though it's not technically mass murder, so. Or maybe he's referring to the victim as a mass murderer. I don't know. There could be all sorts of things. So next we get to some interesting things just to conclude that we're at the end here. But I just thought this was really interesting and it may conjure to mind some memories for you, Kevin, but this, not, not that you've ever been in a Pennsylvania prison. I'm not trying to suggest that, whatever. But it's, it's like we, we just saw another case where these were issues and they're interesting to talk about. So Mangione is taken to Pennsylvania's SCI Huntington Correctional Institution, which is a nearby state prison, and quote, where he could receive greater security monitoring than at a local jail. End quote. Again, we saw this in the Delphi murders case. This was, you know, very much a controversial move within Indiana, where Richard Allen was transferred from the Carroll County Sheriff's, rather, the Carroll County Jail, White County Jail, to Indiana Department of Correction, a prison. And that was for safety as well. And I don't, I don't think it's as kind of. I mean, that was controversial there. Here it was obviously a shorter duration. Though in fairness, Manjuni was placed in the administrative custody in rear D, which was a small group of cells reserved for inmates at a risk to themselves or a risk in the general population. I think anytime you get a high profile defendant, you. You've got to worry that other people, even if it's like they're not accused of doing a heinous, heinous crime. I mean, obviously murder is heinous, but like, he's not accused of, like, doing anything to a kid.
- [75:33]
B
Right.
- [75:33]
C
Or like raping and murdering. So it's, it's not, it doesn't land in that level of where, like, prisoners might be agitated about that, but you might have someone who, like, is unwell and wanting to, like, become infamous through harming that famous, infamous figure. And you've got to be worried about that.
- [75:53]
B
Yes.
- [75:55]
C
So he was constantly monitored by corrections officers who had to fill out forms memorializing his movements seven times an hour. Does that sound familiar?
- [76:02]
B
It sounds very familiar.
- [76:04]
C
December 10, 2024. He's observed by Corrections Officer Matthew Henry, who had seen some coverage of the New York City shooting but had no interest in the case. I've found that a lot of people who work in, you know, corrections who might work in the system, they don't necessarily listen to true crime as much as everybody else. And, you know, that makes sense because it's like, it's not a. It's a job for them.
- [76:27]
B
Yeah.
- [76:27]
C
You know, I mean, I listen to less true crime now that I do this. I. I mean, like, if it's for work, I do, but, like, for pleasure. Not as much as I once did, but it's, you know, so that's understandable. Not everyone's like that, but some people are. So, you know this guy. So Mangioni tells this guy Henry that he's a software engineer. He was arrested at a McDonald's. He was carrying a backpack. The backpack had a 3D printed pistol and a magazine along with a small amount of foreign currency. People were accusing him of being a foreign agent and weird things to say. None of those statements was prompted by Henry, who, in fact said nothing to defendant because he had no interest in conversing with defendant. So this is seemingly according to the ADA at least, Mangioni talking at this guy. So Henry documents all of this, though, at 8:37, 8:44, 8:53, 902 9, 11, says defendant was, quote, standing at the door talking. Then we jump to December 16, 2024. Corrections Officer Tomas Rivers, who, you know, knew about the McDonald's arrest in Altoona and knew he was alleged to have shot the health insurance CEO. He also monitored him in Rear D. And he and the he Rivers is a more chatty guy than Henry. He and he and Mangione were more chatting. They talked about travel, and Mangioni told him about Vietnam and Thailand, and he said, talked about, quote, people in, quote, third World countries, quote, despite experiencing, quote, a level of suffering and living in poverty, seem to be happier than people in other places. And, okay, so Mangioni and Rivers then chat about private health care, public health care. And then Mangioni did not actually have any opinions on the subject that he expressed to Rivers. But they did talk about it. And near the end of the shift, defendant asked how the media was portraying him. And Rivers said the mainstream media seemed to be more focused on the crime, but social media seemed to be more focused on the wrongdoings of the health care industry. Mangione said that he had heard that he was being compared to Ted Kaczynski because somebody had seen a review he had written of one of Kaczynski's books on Goodreads or Google.
- [78:43]
B
That of course, is a Unabomber.
- [78:45]
C
Unabomber who notably, I'm very much, you know, kind of like summing it up, but went after kind of like computer scientists and experts in the belief that that was harmful to society. So, you know, it's. So he's kind of, he's saying, people are saying I'm like this, you know, and, and another quote, at another point, Defendant, he said he wanted to make a statement to the public. He did not. Defendant did not elaborate and Rivers did not ask any follow up questions because, quote, I'm not investigating the case. I don't care. The next day, Corrections Officer Rivers again monitor defendant who talked about his favorite authors and recommended the book the Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley. At some point that day, defendant brought up the subject of the standard of health for the United States citizens as compared to the standard of health for European citizens. Defendant and Rivers had a casual conversation about that subject and no pointed to correction. Corrections Officers Henry or Rivers enter defendant's cell. Nor did either of them report to their conversations with the defendant to anybody until January 2, 2025, when they were interviewed by the Manhattan District Attorney's office. So that's what he was saying in, in jail or in prison rather. And that's all of the kind of facts that were laid out in this. And I think next time when we cover this, we'll be covering the state's argument and, and sort of, kind of pushing back against arguments that the defense previously made. And then we're going to get to hear from the defense again who's pushing back against the pushback. So it'll be fun. It'll be like a different, you know,
- [80:16]
B
because what they're arguing about is whether or not what we just read, whether or not what happened in Altoona was done properly. Because if it is found to be improperly done, then there is the possibility that some of the evidence seized that day could be thrown out and not used against Mr. Mangione. So the stakes are pretty high.
- [80:40]
C
They're extremely high. And it will determine, you know, possibly aspects of the outcome of a case. You know, that oftentimes suppression can really kind of shape what the case looks like and kind of, you know, the odds of who's going to possibly prevail. Although in this case, because it is so high profile and because there's so many different factors, you know, I think this case will probably continue to be a little bit surprising at times going forward. That's my take, anyways. Thanks for listening.
- [81:07]
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.
- [81:28]
C
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- [81:51]
B
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web at Kevin TG
- [82:01]
C
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