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On December 5, 2024, a leading publication published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The report then noted that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was truly chilling and disturbing. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or struggled with medical bills, the news felt like a release. Online platforms erupted. One comment read: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. That’s the job of the AI algorithm the insurance company designed to increase earnings on your health.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what might have motivated the alleged crime? These are the issues John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an inquiry that explores broader themes, too.

Understanding the Person

A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the groups that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “cursed with realistic fears about an end-times scenario”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on Goodreads”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own personal growth, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with online personalities and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These original materials, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead present him as an unclear character. Richardson attempts to explain this by suggesting that “Luigi’s mystery, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old trickster magic”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson attempts to cast his subject in symbolic roles.

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

Interpreting the Incident

As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson takes as his lead three words – “delay”, “deny” and “depose”, etched on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms sometimes used by medical insurers to reject claims. He looks at the indication Mangione had a long-term spinal issue, which might have provided motive for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what meaning there is seems to rest in Mangione’s philosophical dread 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 ultimately either take control, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Missing Pieces

Notably missing from the book are interviews with the principal actors. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the media in prior to the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits rose significantly.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the audience has little insight of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his accused actions. Worse still, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him gives the reader the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an assassination. In the book’s final lines, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the emperor without clothes.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the people are suffering and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have charges that could lead to the death penalty thrown out, any mention of fables, folk heroes, champions 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.