Suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killing hopped on a bus out of NYC, cops believe
The manhunt for the meticulous assassin who gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan widened Friday — as police believe the suspect hopped on a bus out of town shortly after the cold-blooded killing.
New details in the still-unidentified suspect’s astonishing escape were revealed by NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny during a blitz of interviews Friday – more than two days after the gunman allegedly flew the coop.
Footage showed the masked gunman walk into a Port Authority bus center near 178th Street and Broadway about an hour after shooting Thompson in cold-blood in front of the Hilton hotel in Midtown, according to Kenny and sources.
“Those buses are interstate buses,” Kenny told CNN.
“That’s why we believe he may have left New York City.”
“We have video of him entering the Port Authority Bus Terminal. We don’t have any video of him exiting so we believe he may have gotten on a bus.”
Police are trying to figure which bus the suspect may have boarded.
Sources said investigators are looking to see if the gunman got on a bus headed to Atlanta, Georgia — the city where the Greyhound in which he traveled to New York City in had originated from.
Kenny also disclosed investigators’ thinking on the still-unidentified gunman’s motive during a huddle with reporters.
“Our thought on it is obviously it could possibly be a disgruntled employee or disgruntled client,” he said.
“Nothing in our investigation at this time indicates that it had anything to do with his personal life.”
He also noted investigators had “no indication of prior interaction between the shooter and the victim.”
The potential that the killer bore a grudge against UnitedHealthcare — which attracted hate and controversy even before the shocking murder for denying medical claims — and its chief executive, Thompson, casts his apparent meticulousness in planning, carrying out and escaping consequences for his shocking crime in an even darker light.
The masked gunman not only appears have carefully planned his shocking hit on Thompson, 50, outside the Midtown Hilton hotel, but also took great pains to conceal his identity, Kenny said.
The suspect said nothing to his two roommates during his days-long stay at an Upper West Side hostel, Kenny said.
“The entire time he was there, he kept his mask on,” he said.
He even kept his mask on while eating, as well as in a Starbucks he stopped at before the shooting, the chief said.
What we know about the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
- Brian Thompson, the CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down Wednesday outside a luxury Midtown hotel in a “brazen, targeted attack,” police said.
- Thompson was named CEO of UnitedHealth in April 2021. He joined the company in 2004. He was one of several senior executives at the company under investigation by the Department of Justice.
- Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said her husband had been getting threats before he was killed.
- Thompson’s shooting led to sick support online, and even spurred a tasteless lookalike competition in NYC.
- A person of interest has been nabbed by police officers inside a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa.
- The suspect has been identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, originally from Towson, Md. He’s an Ivy League graduate who hated the medical community.
Follow along with The Post’s live updates on the news surrounding Brian Thompson’s murder.
Kenny revealed fresh details about the shooter’s path through Manhattan before and after the slaying – as well as the eerie messages scrawled on the gunman’s bullets.
The suspect left the hostel around 5:30 a.m., potentially on a bicycle before arriving at the Hilton roughly 10 minutes later, Kenny said.
As an unwitting Thompson walked to the Hilton from his hotel across the street, the gunman didn’t utter a word as he opened fire, Kenny said.
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Kenny said the gun “appears to be a larger handgun,” but said they’re probing if it’s a veterinarian type of gun.
“It’s a weapon commonly used on farms and ranches,” he said.
“If an animal has to get put down, the animal can be shot without causing a loud noise.”
The killer had apparently scrawled in Sharpie one word on each bullet: “Depose,” “Delay,” “Deny,” Kenny said.
After shooting Thompson along West 56th Street, the gunman rode a bicycle up Sixth Avenue and onto Central Park’s Center Drive, police said.
Kenny said the shooter exited Central Park, still on the bike, near West 77th Street.
Video footage later showed him walking near West 86th Street and Columbus Avenue, before he hopped into a cab that took him to the bus center, according to Kenny.
The revelation the suspect may have left New York City dovetails with investigators’ increasing belief that the assassin came from out of town to murder Thompson, sources told The Post.
The masked man seen in surveillance footage from the killing — and smiling chillingly in the sole image of his face — likely had no ties to the Big Apple, explaining his apparent days-long stay at an Upper West Side hostel, sources said.
Tisch, during the CNN interview, called the image from the hostel showing the suspect’s face — which sources said only happened because he was flirting with a receptionist — the “money shot.”
“He’s been traveling and walking around the streets of New York City largely in a mask, with his face covered,” she told CNN.
“We had to go through lots of video evidence to get that one money shot with the mask down.”
A fingerprint potentially from the suspect found during the investigation has so far yielded no leads, Kenny said.
“The print is of no value, meaning that it is unusable for identification,” he said.
“It could be enhanced later on.”
Investigators believe the suspect arrived in the city Nov. 24 on a bus on an Atlanta-to-New York City route, Kenny said.
He checked into the hostel with a fake New Jersey ID and paid cash, sources have said.
Police have been checking the city’s airports and bus and train stations in the belief that the suspect fled the city, perhaps to return to the still-unknown location where he lives, the sources said.
Additional reporting by Tina Moore
