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On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper ran the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article then noted that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was truly chilling and disturbing. But many Americans had a different response: for those who faced insurance rejections or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt like a release. Online platforms erupted. One post stated: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. 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, 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 federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the capital punishment. So who is Mangione? And what drove the accused offense? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that delves into wider topics, too.

Understanding the Person

A writer for a major publication, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the communities that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, producing articles about people “cursed with realistic fears about an apocalyptic future”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first examines Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, Luigi had a list of 295 books on Goodreads”. Their content ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own personal growth, both body and mind”. Furthermore, Richardson analyzes his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These original materials, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead present him as an unclear character. Richardson tries to justify this by proposing that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old trickster magic”. Throughout the book, Richardson attempts to cast his subject in archetypal terms.

Mangione is deeply anxious about the world around him, one where ‘change is rapid whether we like it or not’

Interpreting the Incident

As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson uses as a clue three words – “postpone”, “refuse” and “depose”, engraved on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He examines the indication Mangione had a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what meaning there is seems to rest 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 consensus seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either dominate, or destroy us, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Notably missing from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but never expected time with Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had chosen not to talk 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 the early 2020s, UHC profits 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 creates the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a subtle approval of an assassination. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the emperor without clothes.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a appealing vow … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any reference of fables, Robin Hoods, heroes or villains will not be admissible as evidence in support for this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” soon to be on trial for murder.