Luigi Mangione vanished ‘MONTHS before assassination’ with family reporting him missing after latest back screw surgery
LUIGI Mangione stopped speaking to his friends and vanished months before he was charged with the murder of CEO Brian Thompson.
The 26-year-old's devastated family reported him missing back in November after losing all contact after he fled the US following an agonising back surgery.
Mangione has reportedly suffered from spinal issues for years with him telling a former housemate he had spondylolisthesis - an issue with the vertebra.
These issues are said to have intensified since he moved to Honolulu, Hawaii around two years ago.
While out surfing one day he suffered a nasty accident which left him requiring serious surgery that saw four screws placed into his back.
Former classmates of Mangione told reporters that the surgery went wrong and that this could have driven the Maryland man to the brink.
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They say he turned "absolutely crazy" due to the pain and decided to move away to Japan.
Some believe "everything changed" in his life since - leading to him becoming a murder suspect.
Mangione is said to have lived a quiet life of seclusion over in Asia.
He stopped contacting his family and friends around six months ago - around the same time he is believed to have moved to Japan.
A number of posts on X from earlier this year even show people tagging the 26-year-old and asking if he is okay.
One read: "Hey are you ok? Nobody had heard from you in months, and apparently you family is looking for you."
Appearing to reference the surfing accident, the Reddit user said: “My back and hips locked up after the accident.”
This caused “intermittent numbness” which often left him “terrified of the implications”, posts read.
Mangione was said to have been a part of the community in Hawaii who he opened up to about his back issues.
Founder of Surfbreak in Honolulu, RJ Martin, has spoken out since Mangione was named and remembered some conversations he had with the suspect.
He said, according to the New York Times: "His spine was kind of misaligned.
"He said his lower vertebrae were almost like a half-inch off, and I think it pinched a nerve.
"Sometimes he’d be doing well and other times not."
Martin, who also shared a room with the suspected masked murderer, says he had even commented on how his back stopped him from having sex.
"He knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn’t possible," he said.
Cops are still trying to determine the exact timeline of Mangione's return from Japan and his movements leading up to the December 4, attack.
The New York Police Department's latest information pinpoints Mangione as catching a bus from Atlanta to New York on November 24.
He then made his way to a hostel in the Upper West Side of Manhattan where he first checked in on the same day he travelled down.
Workers at the hostel say he officially checked out on November 29 before returning just a day later.
The suspect used a fake New Jersey driver's licence when he got a room.
When cops first quizzed him in a McDonald's after a five-day manhunt he used the same ID and fake identity.
Four days later the murder of UnitedHealthcare boss Thompson took place in Manhattan.
Mangione wasn't initially a suspect but police discovered several pieces of CCTV footage from across New York that matched up to the data engineer.
After the shooting, the killer fled on a e-bike through Central Park.
Mangione was then found over 280 miles away from the crime scene in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
He was arrested and later charged after a rookie cop inside a McDonald's caught him with a fake ID, a "ghost gun" similar to the one seen in CCTV footage of the killing and a chilling manifesto.
The manifesto reportedly said: "These parasites had it coming.
"I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done."
Officers also searched his bag and found a spiral notebook which detailed to-do lists of tasks that needed to be planned out to pull off a brazen kill, a police source told CNN.
Several chilling notes also justified these calculated plans, the source added.
Another page reportedly referenced a plot to take out the UnitedHealthcare CEO using a bomb.
One haunting passage said Thompson could be taken out using an explosive as he walked through Manhattan, the source said.
The alleged plan draws up a harrowing number of similarities to the Unabomber who Mangione reportedly praised months before the shooting.
He appeared in court for the first time shortly after for an arraignment on gun and forgery charges.
New York prosecutors later filed second-degree murder charges against Mangione for the December 4 assassination of Thompson.
He also faces two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of second-degree possession of a forged document, and one count of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon in New York.
Mangione's attorney, Thomas Dickey, has repeatedly preached his client's innocence.
He told CNN that he hasn't seen any evidence that Mangione is "the right guy".
When he was hauled back into court on Tuesday, Mangione was seen unleashing a frantic outburst at anyone within earshot.
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He had to be restrained as he shouted claims that the situation was "out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people".
He is due to stay at the State Correctional Institution Huntingdon for the time being.
Who is Luigi Mangione?
MANGIONE, 26, was regarded as a beloved, clever and wealthy man by his family, friends and all who knew him.
He was born and raised in Maryland where he was valedictorian of his high school graduating class at Gilman School in Baltimore.
He had no prior criminal history and was said to have been a model student, footballer and all-round athlete at high school.
One former student from the Gilman School told The U.S. Sun Mangione was "popular" and had a "big circle of friends."
The former student, who asked not to be identified, said: "We went to the same school but didn't really have the same friends. I'm really shocked by this whole thing.
"I think he played soccer, it was an all-boys school, so being a good athlete got you social currency for sure."
After, Mangione graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied Computer and Information Science, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He also got his masters from the Ivy League school.
Mangione was reportedly a data engineer at a car company in California before moving to Hawaii.
His cousin is also Republican Maryland House of Delegates member Nino Mangione.