US CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione was Ivy League graduate who praised Unabomber

Valedictorian at his US$37,000-a-year all-boys prep school. Founder of a gaming club and graduate at an Ivy League university. A rapidly ascending data engineer at TrueCar Inc.

Luigi Nicholas Mangione was all that. And now, he’s been charged in New York with the murder of insurance executive Brian Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two gunned down last week in Midtown Manhattan.

To some, Mangione – if he is indeed the killer – represents a folk hero acting on the collective rage of a nation against the perceived faults of the insurance industry. Others see him as the face of a country where law and order has broken down, morality has collapsed and company executives are scapegoated with deadly consequences for systemic inequities.

Mangione, 26, was arrested by the police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday after authorities were alerted to a “suspicious male” who looked like the person wanted for the shooting of the UnitedHealth Group Inc insurance division chief on December 4.

He was found with a home-made gun and a manifesto, which a person familiar with the matter described as anti-capitalist and critical of health-care companies’ profit motives. It said he acted alone and was self-funded, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential matters and declined to elaborate.