Mangione: The Story Behind the Story by John H Richardson – Understanding a Criminal?
On the fifth of December 2024, a leading publication ran the front-page story “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The murder in broad daylight was truly chilling and disturbing. But many Americans had a different response: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. One post stated: “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 designed to maximize profits on your health.”
Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on criminal counts of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what might have motivated the alleged crime? These are the issues John H Richardson attempts to answer in an inquiry that delves into wider topics, too.
The Making of a Subject
A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the groups that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, producing articles about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an end-times scenario”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of 295 books on Goodreads”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own personal growth, both physical and mental”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with online personalities and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead present him as an amorphous figure. Richardson attempts to explain this by proposing that “Luigi’s mystery, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Throughout the book, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.
Mangione is deeply anxious 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”, “deny” and “remove”, etched on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms sometimes used by medical insurers to deny coverage. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from 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 rest in Mangione’s existential anxiety about the world around him, one where “the pace is quickening whether we like it or not, sliding faster and faster 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 key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but never expected time with 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 significant information about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, company earnings rose significantly.
Unclear Conclusions
By the conclusion, the audience has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his accused actions. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him gives the reader the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the insane ruler, the beast in the labyrinth and the emperor without clothes.” In that tale “outlaw heroes come with a appealing vow … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the people are suffering 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 ultimate sentence dismissed, any mention of myths, Robin Hoods, champions or villains will not be allowed in court in support for this handsome young man with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” soon to be on trial for murder.