As the past life of Luigi Mangione is being pieced together, investigators believe his history of severe back pain is a point of interest in the case.
The 26-year-old suffered a debilitating back pain that defined much of his adulthood, affecting his love life and stopping him from enjoying many things typical for someone in their twenties.
The physical suffering and personal frustration may have driven the Ivy League graduate from a wealthy family to become the prime suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Investigators believe Luigi Mangione’s longstanding back pain may have contributed to his frustrations
Image credits: PepMangione
“He knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn’t possible,” says RJ Martin. Martin owns the co-living space called Surfbreak in Hawaii that Luigi lived in for a few months in 2022, told the New York Times.
“I remember him telling me that, and my heart just breaks,” he added.
RJ said the accused gunman would be in constant pain because “his spine was kind of misaligned.”
“He said his lower vertebrae were almost like a half-inch off, and I think it pinched a nerve. Sometimes he’d be doing well and other times not,” he said.
The back pain was apparently so severe that Luigi wound up “in bed for about a week” after one surf lesson.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate is facing charges in connection with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York
“It was really traumatic and difficult, you know, when you’re in your early twenties and you can’t, you know, do some basic things,” RJ told CNN.
The Surfbreak owner remembered the youngster as a smart and accomplished engineer and didn’t recall him ever talking about guns or violence.
While the residents would sometimes have conversations about capitalism and the health care system, RJ said Luigi never appeared radicalized or extreme in his views.
“It wasn’t like he had an ax to grind or he was even upset or angry about a particular issue,” said the owner of the co-living space.
Reddit posts, believed to be uploaded by the accused gunman, spoke about the user’s experience with spondylolisthesis and undergoing spinal surgery in 2023
RJ, who lost touch with the alleged shooter, said one of the last text messages he received from him was an X-ray of his spine. Luigi said he underwent back surgery at the time.
It “looked heinous, with just giant screws going into his spine,” he said.
In the wake of his arrest, Luigi’s post about his manhood also resurfaced and went viral.
The suspect reportedly made a lewd remark about his privates in response to a message asking if anyone on the platform had a PhD.
“Pretty huge D—” he said in response to the May post.
It is also believed that Luigi may have been the man behind a now-deleted Reddit account that did not include his name but matched some of his other personal details, like his age, university, and health condition.
“He knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn’t possible,” said RJ Martin, who had met the 26-year-old suspect in Hawaii a couple of years back
The Reddit posts indicated the physical pain the user underwent since childhood due to spondylolisthesis—a condition where one of the bones in the spine (called vertebra) slips out of place.
The user said his condition worsened after a surfing incident.
“My back and hips locked up after the accident,” said a post from July 2023.
The “intermittent numbness has become constant” and “I’m terrified of the implications,” the user said at the time.
The user shared an update a few weeks later, informing his readers that he underwent spinal surgery and found some relief from his symptoms. However, there was no mention of UnitedHealthcare or details about any kind of health insurance.
After his arrest, Luigi’s manifesto branded healthcare executives as “parasites” and revealed his resentment toward corporate America
The arrested heir to a massive family fortune reportedly stopped contacting some of his friends and relatives after the surgery.
His mother, Kathleen Mangione, reported him missing to the San Francisco Police Department on November 18, just weeks before her son allegedly shot the 50-year-old healthcare executive in front of a New York City hotel on December 4.
Luigi was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania after an employee called 911 on Monday, December 9.
In his possession, officials found a gun, bullets, multiple fake IDs, cash, and a handwritten document that expressed “ill will” towards corporate America.
Luigi had stopped contacting his friends and family a few weeks before the 50-year-old CEO and father-of-two was fatally shot
Luigi branded the leaders of the healthcare industry as “mafiosa” and saw himself as a “hero” for allegedly executing one of their CEOs in a “symbolic takedown.”
“Frankly these parasites simply had it coming,” he allegedly raged in his three-page manifesto.
“I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done,” the text added.
Officials said the document mentioned a possible back injury sustained last year.
The suspect’s mother, Kathleen Mangione, part of a prominent family in Maryland, had reported him missing on November 18
New York Police Department Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said there is a “sense of relief” after Luigi was apprehended in Pennsylvania, where he faces weapons and forgery charges. He also faces murder charges in New York.
“He was posting an x-ray on his social media. Some of the writings that he had, he was discussing the difficulty of sustaining that injury,” Kenny was quoted telling Your World with Neil Cavuto.
“So we’re looking into whether or not the insurance industry either denied a claim from him or didn’t help him out to the fullest extent,” added the NYPD chief.
One netizen called him a “narcissist,” while another thought he might have had a “massive mental break”
