New York state prosecutors called a new witness on Thursday at the pretrial suppression hearings in their case against Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare Brian Thompson on a Midtown Manhattan street last year. During the testimony of the witness, one of the patrol officers who arrested Mr. Mangione outside Altoona, Pennsylvania, the court saw pictures of a flash drive necklace Mr. Mangione wore that day, and a bus and a train ticket he carried with him. 

One year ago today, on December 4, 2024, Thompson was shot first in the leg and then in the back as he was about to enter midtown Manhattan’s Hilton Hotel to attend an annual investor conference. The Twin Cities based father of two died about 30 minutes later at the hospital. The suspect fled the scene on a bicycle immediately and left New York the same day. 

After a five day manhunt, Mr. Mangione, then 26 years old, was arrested at a McDonald’s outside of Altoona, located in Blair County in central Pennsylvania, approximately two hours east of Pittsburgh and 4 hours west of Philadelphia. He now faces charges related to Thompon’s murder in three separate jurisdictions:iIn the state of Pennsylvania, in the state of New York and in the Southern District of New York, where federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Mr. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all charges. 

On Thursday, the third day of so-called suppression hearings at Manhattan Criminal Court, requested by the defense attorneys in an attempt to suppress key evidence from the upcoming trial based on their arguments that Mr. Mangione’s rights were violated when he was arrested and items from his backpack were seized unlawfully, prosecutors called their seventh witness, a 26-year-old Altoona police officer, Tyler Frye. 

An assistant district attorney, Joel Seidemann, took the morning session to go through the arrest again, as he had done with another patrol officer, Joseph Detwiler, who testified on Tuesday, as the Sun reported. Officer Frye shone light on new details and evidence, such as the flash drive necklace, a silver chain with a silver UBS stick attached to it, which officers found on Mr.Mangione when they searched him. 

Officer Frye was with Officer Detwiler, who was teaching Mr. Frye “how to run traffic stops more efficiently,” Mr. Frye said on Thursday, when the call came in that someone at the local McDonald’s thought a man looked like the suspected shooter from New York. While Officer Detwiler had been working for the Altoona police department for over 14 years, Officer Fry was a rookie cop with about six months under his belt. 

When asked for his name, Mr. Mangione told the officers his name was  “Mark,” and handed them a fake driver’s license under the name Mark Rosario. The officers called in the ID number to run the identification. 

On the body camera footage, Officer Frye can be heard asking Mr. Mangione, “What’s going on? What brings you here from New Jersey?” 

He testified that Mr. Mangione mumbled his answer, “It was something along the lines of: He didn’t want to talk to me at that time.” When asked the question again minutes later, Mr. Mangione told the officers, “I don’t know what you guys are up to, I am just gonna wait.”            

Mr. Mangione wore a gray suit on Thursday and a simple, white button down shirt. He was taking notes and at times playing with the pen between his fingers. His overall demeanor has been calm and curious. He turns around in the courtroom and looks at the reporters in the pews, and appears to also look straight at the witnesses as they testify.  

After finding out that the license was fake, and waiting for backup, the officers, in an effort to keep the situation calm, told Mr. Mangione that someone had called them because he appeared to be loitering. The Mcdonald’s, they said to him, even though that wasn’t true, had a rule that people could only stay for forty minutes. Mr. Mangione showed them his receipt, and that he had bought the food at 8:55am. It was shortly after nine, and 40 minutes had not passed yet. The officer then discussed the steak sandwich Mr. Mangione was eating for breakfast, which he remarked was good.  

It was evident from the videos that the officers were being cautious, as Mr. Detwiler testified on Tuesday, he was aware that the murder weapon had not yet been found, and he believed that Mr. Mangione was in fact the shooter. 

Defense argued in their motion that any statements made before Mr. Mangione was read his Miranda warnings, which was about 20 minutes after the officers first approached him, should be inadmissible at trial. But prosecutors are making the case that they were still investigating the situation, and also acting cautiously in respect to the fact that the suspect could be armed. 

After the back-up had arrived, and Mr. Mangione was detained and frisked, an officer found a small pocket knife on him. They also retrieved, the court later learned, the necklace with the USB drive attached to it, and two bus tickets, a Greyhound bus ticket for a trip leaving Philadelphia at 10pm and arriving in Pittsburg at 11:55pm on December 4. The name on the ticket was Sam Dawson. The other ticket was from the regional commuter rail network owned by SEPTA, which serves the Philadelphia metropolitan area. 

Prosecutors also showed body camera footage from the intake at the Altoona police station, where Mr. Mangione was placed in a holding cell and asked to remove any clothing that was more than one layer.  At one point of the interrogation there, Mr. Mangione told the officers that they had his passport, indicating that he had also been carrying his passport with him. 

During Tuesday’s testimony it was revealed that Mr. Mangione was in the possession of foreign currency when he was arrested, and now, with the addition of his passport, it appears even more likely that he was attempting to travel abroad, which, if he did in fact commit the murder, would raise more suspicion that he was trying to flee the country. 

During the extended search at the police station, the officers also found a check-list Mr. Mangione had carried with him. “Tomorrow he was supposed to get some intel and a survival kit,” Officer Frye can be heard telling another officer in the intake video.   

After the lunch break, a defense attorney, Jacob Kaplan began to cross-examine the witness. The hearing will resume on Friday, and most probably extend into next week, as prosecutors are expected to call several more witnesses.