(NEW YORK) — A year to the day after Luigi Mangione allegedly stalked and gunned down United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk, the 27-year-old alleged killer returns to court Thursday as a high-profile hearing in his state murder case enters its third day.
His lawyers are attempting to convince the judge overseeing his case to prohibit prosecutors from using critical evidence, including the alleged murder weapon and Mangione’s journal. They argue the evidence was unlawfully seized from his backpack without a warrant during his arrest.
The hearing has the potential to sideline what prosecutors say is some of the strongest evidence of Mangione’s guilt, and has provided the most detailed preview to date of their case against the alleged killer. As Mangione sat alongside his lawyers, the accused gunman has rewatched the video of him allegedly shooting Thompson in the back and heard from the officer who arrested him a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
“It’s him. I have been seeing all the pictures. He is nervous as hell. I ask him have you been in New York, he’s all quiet,” Altoona police officer Joseph Detwiler told the courtroom on Tuesday.
Prosecutors have so far called six witnesses to make their case that Mangione was lawfully arrested five days after allegedly killing Thompson. They presented security footage inside the McDonalds showing Mangione enter around 9 a.m., the recording of the restaurant’s manager calling 911, and body camera footage of officers approaching Mangione before his arrest.
Defense attorneys have homed in on the 20 minutes between officers confronting Mangione and arresting him. They argue that Mangione’s rights were violated because they waited too long to read his Miranda rights.
During his day-long testimony on Tuesday, Detwiler offered his account of the high-profile arrest, telling the courtroom that he was so skeptical that the McDonald’s tip was legitimate that he didn’t even turn on his sirens on the way to the restaurant. But once he asked Mangione to pull down his face mask, Detwiler said he “knew it was him immediately.”
“Were you up in New York recently?” Detwiler asked Mangione, according to body camera footage played in court.
According to Detwiler, Mangione claimed he was homeless and presented a New Jersey driver’s license with the name Mark Rosario. As Christmas music played in the McDonald’s, the video showed Detwiler attempting to make small talk with Mangione while a dozen officers arrived at the restaurant. Twenty minutes after he was first approached, Mangione was in handcuffs and under arrest for providing a fake ID to officers.
The hearing could last into next week. The coming days are expected to focus on Mangione’s backpack, which officers placed on a table out of Mangione’s reach during the arrest — a standard move, according to Detwiler, to ensure the officers’ safety.
Defense lawyers say that another officer conducted an illegal search of the bag while the arrest was underway, eventually finding a 3D-printed handgun that prosecutors say is the murder weapon. Mangione’s attorneys argue that the gun and Mangione’s writings — in which Mangione allegedly blasts the health care insurance industry and plans the assassination — were the products of an illegal search and should never be shown to a jury.
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