The judge presiding over the New York’s state case against Luigi Mangione, who is charged with the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare Brian Thompson, on Thursday released pictures of some of Mr. Mangione’s belongings that were seized during his arrest at a McDonalds a year ago. The court also made public an audio file of the 911 call that led to his arrest, and released new surveillance video of the shooting. 

“911 – what is the address of your emergency?” The operator can be heard asking in the recording of the 911 call that was played at Manhattan criminal court on Monday.  

“Um, it’s not really an emergency,” a female manager of the McDonald’s outside of Altoona, in Blair County Pennsylvania, said. “I have a customer here, that some other customers were suspicious of, that he looks like the CEO shooter from New York.” She can be heard giggling in disbelief. 

“Ok,” the operator is heard saying. 

In the early morning hours of December 4, 2024, Thompson was gunned down outside of midtown Manhattan’s Hilton Hotel. The hooded, masked assassin melted into midtown’s morning hubbub, triggering a nationwide manhunt.

Five days later, on December 9, the 911 operator received the call from the manager at the Altoona McDonald’s.    

“They’re just really upset,” the manager went on, referring to her customers, “and they’re like coming to me, and I was like, ‘Well, I can’t approach him, you know.’”

“Of course not,” the dispatcher cautioned, and asked if the person was “still there?” 

The McDonald’s manager confirmed that the man was still inside the restaurant. 

​​“He is wearing a black sweater jacket with a medical mask and a tanned, khaki colored-like beanie,” she told the operator. “He has his beanie pulled down, so the only thing you can see is his eyebrows,” the manager added. She said she tried to google pictures of the suspect, “to calm them (her customers) down a little bit, and I’m like, ‘Guys, it’s kind of hard to tell with his eyes and his eyebrows …’ ”  

Investigators from the New York police department had released images of the suspect. One showed the suspect in the back of a taxi cab, wearing a medical mask with his eyes (and thick eyebrows) clearly visible. In most of the pictures his face was covered by a mask, except for one, low resolution surveillance camera image where he is standing at the reception of a youth hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where he had allegedly checked in a few days before the shooting and appears to be engaged in a flirtatious conversation with the receptionist. 

The manager said one lady at the McDonald’s, “an older lady,” was kind of “frantic,” and that she didn’t know what to do. The dispatcher sent a patrol car to check on the situation. The two responding police officers, patrolman Joseph Detwiler and his partner, Officer Tyler Frye, were called to testify at the pretrial “suppression hearings” currently underway at Manhattan criminal court. 

Mr. Mangione is charged with the murder of Thompson by both the state of New York and the Southern District, where federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The defendant has pleaded not guilty to all charges. 

His attorneys, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, her husband Mark Agnifilo, and a partner of their joint firm, Agnifilo Intrater, Jacob Kaplan, requested these hearings in an attempt to suppress key evidence from the upcoming state trial. (They have also filed a similar motion in federal court, as the Sun reported in October.)                 

The defense has argued that Mr. Mangione was interrogated by the officers for almost 20 minutes before being read his Miranda warnings, and that his belongings, including the alleged murder weapon, were seized unlawfully because his backpack was searched without a warrant. 

In their effort to disprove these allegations, prosecutors have so far called seven witnesses to detail the arrest and prove their claim that legal procedures and Mr. Mangione’s due process rights were not violated. 

On Thursday, the court made public several images of the belongings Mr. Mangione had on him, when he was arrested. One of the pictures shows the cash he carried in the inside pocket of his jacket, inside a small blue purse with a white flower. 

Officers laid out the bills on a table at the Altoona police precinct. The cash amounted to $7,750. Mr. Mangione, who’d traveled in Asia, also carried on him four bank notes of foreign currency: twenty Thai baht which equal $ 0.63, one thousand Japanese yen, which equal $6.45, one hundred Thai baht which equal $3.13, and five hundred Indian rupees which equal $5.56.    

The faces on these Thai bhat bills depict King Rama X of Thailand, whose full name is Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun. The monarch has widely been seen as eccentric due to his unconventional behavior, which includes granting military titles to his pet poodle. The one thousand yen banknote shows the portrait of Hideo Noguchi, a Japanese bacteriologist. And the rupee bill honors Mahatma Gandhi. 

At first one may assume carrying foreign currency means the defendant had the intention to leave the country (he also carried his passport with him). But taking a closer look at these bills, they could also simply be souvenirs.  

The New York Times reported about a trip Mr. Mangione took to Asia, where he visited both Thailand and climbed Mount Omine in Japan, months before he allegedly fatally shot Thompson.

Another photograph of the seized evidence depicts Mr. Mangione’s black leather wallet, which held more cash, in smaller bills; another photograph shows an Apple laptop next to a black purse; and yet a third picture shows a black. 1980’s-style Casio digital watch, a Sharpie, a small flashlight, a piece of string, a medical mask and some coins.           

Prosecutors have also been showing the court video footage from surveillance cameras installed at the McDonald’s, from body cameras worn by several of the arresting police officers, and from the midtown Manhattan street cameras  near where Thompson was shot. 

The presiding judge, Gregory Carro, agreed to make public the video of the shooting, which shows that a woman was standing by the glass doors of the Hilton Hotel entrance, as the shooter approached Thompson from behind. As soon as she hears and sees the shooter firing the gun, she starts to run, holding what appears to be a cup of coffee. Thompson is seen collapsing to the ground and the shooter crosses the street and disappears.     

The hearings, which could extend into next week, will resume on Friday morning.