Luigi Nicholas Mangione, the “strong person of interest” arrested in connection to the shooting slay of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is a Maryland native who graduated at the top of his high school class and went on to major in computer science at University of Pennsylvania.
Included in an online list of books 26-year-old Mangione read this year is Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski’s “Industrial Society and its Future,” which Mangione rated four out of five stars.
X / Luigi Mangione
Luigi Mangione. (X / Luigi Mangione)
Mangione graduated as valedictorian of the private all-boys Gilman School in 2016, according to the Baltimore school’s website.
A Gilman classmate, Freddie Leatherbury, told The Baltimore Sun he “almost had a heart attack” from the shock of seeing Mangione was suspected in the shooting.
“He would be the last one I would think would do something like this,” Leatherbury said to the newspaper. “He was a nice kid. He was the valedictorian.”
Leatherbury said Mangione had joined the private prep school in sixth grade.
“He was a brainy kid,” he said. “He was a big math guy” and belonged to a number of academic clubs.
In a profile of area high school valedictorians written in the Baltimore Fishbowl in 2016, Mangione said his instructors emphasized learning outside of school and “an excitement to explore academic topics outside of the classroom”.
“The teachers at Gilman influenced me especially,” Mangione said before he graduated.
In a recap of the Gilman graduation ceremony posted on the school’s site, Mangione is quoted as commending his classmates for their “inventive, pioneering mentality that accompanies a strong commitment to Gilman tradition.”
Instagram / Luigi Mangione
Luigi Mangione. (Instagram / Luigi Mangione)
During high school, Mangione learned how to code and when he got to the University of Pennsylvania he co-founded a group to develop video games, according to Penn Today, a publication of the college.
University of Pennsylvania Game Research and Development Environment (UPGRADE), then in its second year, was profiled in Penn Today in 2018, and quoted Mangione as saying he was a computer science major.
Before starting his freshman year of college, he posted in the class of 2020’s Facebook group asking if classmates wanted to start UPGRADE, he told the publication.
“I just really wanted to make games,” said Mangione.
According to a Facebook account, Mangione was a UI Programming intern at Maryland-based Firaxis Games in 2016 and 2017, which makes the popular XCOM strategy game series.
Take2 Games, which owns Firaxis, declined to speak to the Daily News about Mangione on Monday.
“As a practice, we do not comment on former employees,” said spokesman Alan Lewis.
Mangione’s cousin is Nino Mangione, a GOP lawmaker who represents a suburban Baltimore district in the state’s House of Delegates, the lawmaker’s office confirmed Monday.
In January, Mangione tweeted a post that asked for reactions to a quote from philosopher J. Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
With John Annese, Chris Sommerfeldt, Rocco Parascandola, Graham Rayman and David Goldiner
