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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report went on to state that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was indeed both chilling and disturbing. But many Americans reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or struggled with medical bills, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. One post stated: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who should live or perish. That’s the job of the artificial intelligence system the insurance company created to maximize profits on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. So what is his background? And what drove the alleged crime? These are the issues John H Richardson attempts to answer in an inquiry that delves into wider topics, too.

Understanding the Person

A journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the communities that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, writing stories about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an end-times scenario”. To uncover “the making” of his subject, Richardson first examines Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of 295 books on a reading platform”. Their content ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own personal growth, both body and mind”. Furthermore, Richardson analyzes his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many updates on social media. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead render him an unclear character. Richardson attempts to explain this by proposing that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old trickster magic”. Throughout the book, Richardson tries to frame his subject in symbolic roles.

Mangione is deeply anxious about the world around him, one where ‘everything is accelerating whether we like it or not’

Interpreting the Incident

As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson uses as a clue three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “remove”, etched on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by medical insurers to deny coverage. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what meaning there is seems to lie in Mangione’s existential anxiety about the world around him, one where “everything is accelerating whether we like it or not, moving rapidly to the edge”; a world where the consensus seems to be that AI is going to eventually either take control, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Missing Pieces

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are interviews with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but never expected time with Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the press in advance of the trial. Another glaring gap is any significant information about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from the early 2020s, UHC profits increased by 33%.

Ambiguous Findings

By book’s end, the reader has no clear understanding of Mangione’s personality or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that tale “outlaw heroes come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives works to have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence dismissed, any reference of myths, Robin Hoods, heroes or villains will not be admissible as evidence in support for this handsome young man with a “features reminiscent of classical art” facing judgment for murder.