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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was indeed both cold and shocking. But many Americans reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. One comment read: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who should live or perish. That’s the job of the AI algorithm the insurance company created to maximize profits on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a graduate degree in computing, was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with prosecutors seeking the capital punishment. So what is his background? And what might have motivated the alleged crime? These are the issues John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that explores broader themes, too.

The Making of a Subject

A journalist for Esquire magazine, 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 uncover “the making” of his subject, Richardson first examines 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 “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his communications with online personalities and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These original materials, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead render him an unclear character. Richardson tries to justify this by suggesting that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.

Mangione is profoundly worried about the world around him, one where ‘everything is accelerating whether we like it or not’

Interpreting the Incident

As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson uses as a clue three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “remove”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by medical insurers to deny coverage. He examines the evidence Mangione had a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what significance there is seems to lie 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 general belief seems to be that AI is going to eventually either take control, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Missing Pieces

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but never expected access to Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the press in prior to the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits rose significantly.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his alleged crimes. More troubling, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson delivers his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain and nothing makes sense anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s defence team continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the death penalty dismissed, any mention of myths, Robin Hoods, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this handsome young man with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” facing judgment for murder.