🔗 Share this article

On December 5, 2024, a leading publication ran the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both chilling and disturbing. But numerous US citizens 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 comment stated: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. That’s the job of the artificial intelligence system the insurance company created to increase earnings on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a master’s in computer science, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on criminal counts of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So what is his background? And what drove 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 devoted considerable time to studying the groups that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, writing stories about people “plagued by genuine concerns 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 nearly three hundred titles on Goodreads”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own personal growth, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These original materials, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead render him an unclear character. Richardson tries to justify this by suggesting that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old trickster magic”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame his subject in symbolic roles.

Mangione is profoundly worried 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 takes as his lead three words – “postpone”, “deny” and “depose”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by medical insurers to reject claims. He looks at the evidence Mangione suffered from 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 lie 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

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but never expected access to Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the media in prior to the trial. Another glaring gap is any significant information about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from the early 2020s, company earnings rose significantly.

Unclear Conclusions

By the conclusion, the audience has little insight of Mangione’s character or what might have motivated his alleged crimes. More troubling, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been exposed to a veiled endorsement of an assassination. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson delivers his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the beast in the labyrinth and the emperor without clothes.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the people are suffering and nothing makes sense anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s defence team continues in its attempts have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any mention of myths, folk heroes, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this handsome young man with a “features reminiscent of classical art” facing judgment for murder.