Transcript of Mangione Episode 2: "B.T."

Hi, this is Brian Buckmire, here with another weekly episode of my new podcast from ABC Audio and 20/20, Burden of Proof: Luigi Mangione. Remember, you can also listen ad-free by subscribing to 20/20 True Crime+ on Apple Podcasts. Click the link in the description to learn more. Now, here's the next episode of Burden of Proof: Luigi Mangione. This is the way.

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It's December 10th, 2024. The country wakes up to major news in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Bryan Thompson. We're going to turn now to breaking news in the fast-moving investigation into the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealth CEO Bryan Thompson. The day before, Luigi Mangione was detained in Pennsylvania on charges of weapon possession and forgery. Overnight, New York filed its own charges. The 26-year-old was charged with murder. Murder and other charges. Including criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a forged instrument. He pleaded not guilty to all state charges. Mangione was also eventually charged by federal prosecutors and faced stalking charges in that case. He initially pleaded not guilty, but as you may have heard, on Friday, he pleaded guilty to 2 counts of stalking in connection with the killing of Bryan Thompson and admitted to shooting him. After that plea, Mangione's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss his state charges, but as of Friday afternoon, Mangione's state murder trial is still scheduled to begin in September. He is scheduled to be sentenced in the federal case this December. We'll get into any developments on all that in later episodes, but for now, we're going to keep following this story as it unfolded.

So back to December 10th, 2024, when people were first learning about this case, when Mangione was first charged by the State of New York. With this new set of charges, Mangione is formally accused of killing Brian Thompson. He's no longer a person of interest. He's suspect number one. And now, New York authorities want their suspect back ASAP. So that afternoon, Mangione has an extradition hearing. It's the beginning of the process to transfer him to New York's custody so he can be tried there. A swarm of press has made it to Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, and waits outside the Blair County Courthouse. It's a massive Gothic-style building with beautiful stonework and sculptures and a 5-story clock tower that stands tall over neighboring buildings. In a narrow alley on the less ornate backside of the courthouse, dozens of camera crews stand waiting. A white Ford Explorer with "Sheriff" on the side pulls up.

Into a kind of back entrance, sally port area.

ABC's chief investigative correspondent Aaron Katurski was there. The press, already standing only a couple feet away from the police car, inches forward. Police officers crowd near the cruiser's back door as Luigi Mangione, shackled at the ankles and wrists, steps out.

He's being brought into the Blair County Courthouse. He's in custody. He's in orange jumpsuit, surrounded by correction officers escorting him into court. And he sees all of the photographers and reporters who are gathered there to take pictures of this. And he screams out, "Hey, this is completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience." An insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience. And at that point, The officers kind of grab him a little more roughly and sort of shove him into the door.

With that, America hears from Luigi Mangione for the first time. During the hearing, Mangione's lawyer, Thomas Dickey, asks for bail, which was denied, and signals Mangione will fight the extradition to New York City. He tells the press afterwards that Mangione plans to plead not guilty. For law enforcement, the manhunt is over. The multi-state, multi-agency effort to capture a suspect has been successful, and officials are celebrating. New York City's mayor at the time, Eric Adams, FaceTimes one of the Altoona arresting officers. The video was posted to the New York City mayor's X account. You can hear the triumph in their voices.

Hey, Tyler. I can't say I was expecting it waking up this morning.

But no, it was a great experience. Well, you're going to be a— you're going to be the most popular police officer in your town. There are press conferences, news appearances, lots of backslapping up and down the Northeast. While there's all this attention on Pennsylvania, back in Brian Thompson's Minnesota home, things are quieter. In lieu of a press conference, there's just a piece of paper taped to the Thompson front door. In part, it reads, Brian was an incredibly loving, generous, talented man who truly lived life to the fullest and touched so many lives. According to local police and later the Department of Justice, threats have been directed towards his wife and children. One threat claimed, according to authorities, that Thompson was killed because he was profiting off the backs of poor Americans and that his family should suffer. At one point, police blockades went up around their neighborhood. Brian Thompson's family, including his widow and mother, attended the hearing on Friday and sat in the front as Mangione pleaded guilty in federal court. Afterwards, the family put out a statement: Today's guilty plea marks an important step towards justice for Brian and for our family. While nothing will ease the pain of losing him, we are grateful that the federal justice system has held the person responsible for this heinous act accountable.

We will continue to seek the justice Brian deserves. The day Mangione was arrested back in 2024, the Thompsons were quietly saying their final farewells. A local Lutheran church held the private funeral service. Even the church became the target of ire.

Last Monday, we held the funeral for Brian Thompson, who is the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

Additionally, we've also received some anonymous messages from people expressing anger that we would hold a funeral like this. Here's a church leader speaking to the congregation in the days after Bryan's service. We've acknowledged very publicly that the healthcare system needs reform and change. At the same time, acts of violence against anyone in that system or not are a violation of God's intention for humanity. God's justice is always restorative. Never retributive. Death does not get the last word. As New York works to get their suspect back, the world fixates on trying to learn everything about Luigi Mangione. Less attention is paid to Brian Thompson. Less is said about him. Who was Brian Thompson? From ABC Audio and 20/20, I'm Brian Buckmire, an attorney and ABC News legal analyst. This is Burden of Proof: Luigi Mangione, Episode 2: BT. We have reached out to many people who knew Brian Thompson. Family, friends, co-workers, former classmates, former teachers, even the mayor of his hometown. The vast majority of these people did not return our requests for comment or declined to speak with us for this series. Bryan had a public-facing role, but wasn't a household name or a talking head.

Not the kind of business leader who was often on TV or profiled in glossy magazines. You can hear him in UnitedHealthcare's earnings calls, buttoned up and prepared for questions about profit margins and growth forecasts. Here he is during a call in October 2023. I think the key point is all of our businesses in UnitedHealthcare right now are really demonstrating innovation and market success at the same time. In a video posted by the Des Moines Register after Bryan's death, you can hear Bryan giving a presentation in 2022 about how UnitedHealthcare is using data to, quote, develop innovative customer solutions. The key to enabling a better consumer experience is to bring together all of the disparate single point solutions and deliver a holistic, simpler experience in a way that ultimately improves people's health. Two days after Bryan was killed, UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, held a fireside chat for employees. Video of it was leaked to an independent journalist and posted on social media. In the leaked video, the UnitedHealth Group CEO at the time, Andrew Witty, Brian Thompson's boss, spoke a bit about Brian's personality.

Always somebody who could bring a smile to a room, somebody who had a wicked sense of humor and a sharp wit, and somebody who I am going to miss enormously.

Some of Brian's colleagues told the Wall Street Journal that they remembered him chewing gum and cursing regularly, a casual, laid-back demeanor to match his humble Midwestern roots. In the fireside chat, Witte also talked about Bryan's legacy.

And there are— there is very few people in the history of the US healthcare industry who had a bigger positive effect on American healthcare than Bryan.

A week after Bryan's death, Witte also wrote an op-ed for The New York Times. It included a peek into Bryan's early life. Long before he was CEO. Quote, "He was raised in the same Iowa farmhouse as his mom. His dad spent more than 40 years unloading trucks at grain elevators. B.T., as we knew him, worked farm jobs as a kid and fished at a gravel pit with his brother." Bryan was born and raised near Jewell, Iowa, a town that even now has just around 1,000 people. His mom was a beautician, and his dad, according to his obituary, worked at a grain storage facility. The obituary also noted that Bryan's parents were high school sweethearts. Bryan went to the same high school as his parents. During high school, he was one of Iowa's winners in a national essay contest and got a free trip to Washington, D.C. His teacher told The New York Times, "Bryan was nervous because it was his first time flying in an airplane." The essay contest was covered by the local paper, the South Hamilton Record-News. It asked students to reflect on how the United States should avoid or resolve international conflict.

The paper also ran Bryan's full essay. He wrote, "We can't put our world in jeopardy ever again by looking only inward without looking outward." Bryan's high school class had just 50 students, and he graduated as valedictorian in 1993. People who knew him say he was an exceptionally bright student. If you look at his senior spotlight in the South Hamilton Record-News, you'll see a black and white photo of Bryan. He's wearing his class ring. His light brown hair is neatly parted and his posture is perfectly straight.

Following graduation, Bryan plans to attend the University of Iowa and major in pre-law.

This is Steve Parenti. An economist at the University of Minnesota. He crossed paths with Bryan Thompson decades after his senior spotlight was published. We asked him to read the piece about Bryan.

Throughout his high school career, Bryan has been in a number of activities. The sports he has participated in include basketball, baseball, and golf. He has also been a member of swing choir, jazz band, and concert band. In addition, Brian has participated in Hamilton Holidays and the fall play. Brian has been an All-State trombonist for the past 3 years. Also, Brian was recently named a State of Iowa Scholar. Brian is currently the president of the National Honor Society and president of the senior class.

Wow.

One of the most memorable moments was being elected to be the 1992 Homecoming King. He has really enjoyed his years at South Hamilton, and he feels very fortunate to have spent The past 12 years with so many great classmates and teachers.

Wow. By the time Steve met Bryan in 2020, Bryan had graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in accounting, gotten married, become a father to two sons, and risen through the ranks of UnitedHealth Group for about 16 years, almost his entire career. Bryan's life was not perfect. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to driving while impaired and was sentenced to 2 days in jail. He paid a fine and was required to complete a 1-day DWI program. When Brian was killed, he was living in a million-dollar home in a Minneapolis suburb. For years, he had been living separately from his wife and children, according to neighbors. But Brian had, in many ways, lived out the American dream. He started on an Iowa farm with working-class parents, excelled academically and professionally, and ended up in a position of immense power and wealth.

I mean, I'd say that we were really very vital colleagues to each other, and we probably would've been really good friends.

Steve says he met Brian in 2020, about a year before he became CEO, when he was an executive in charge of UnitedHealthcare's government programs. At that time, Steve Parenti was part of the first Trump administration's Council of Economic Advisers, and he was consulting with the Department of Health and Human Services. During the COVID pandemic, Congress passed billions of dollars in relief for hospitals and physicians. Allocating that money was one thing. Getting it to where it could be used and used well was another thing. Steve says he was asked to help figure out how that money should be distributed.

That's when I met Brian Thompson. He was a really good friend of the chief of staff for the deputy secretary of HHS.

UnitedHealth Group confirmed to ABC News that Brian played a leadership role in helping distribute the emergency funding. According to Parenti, Brian said he had an idea for distributing the money. They could use an arm of UnitedHealth Group, Optum Bank. Optum Bank has health savings accounts, but also works like a real bank. With routing numbers and the ability to do wire transfers.

We'll get you a proposal by tomorrow morning, 8:00 AM. That PowerPoint was the most beautiful thing you ever saw because for once you felt after weeks of trying to make a plan work, that this was gonna happen and it was gonna happen pretty well.

UnitedHealthcare was contracted by the government for $1 million to distribute the funds. For the next 3 months, Steve says he talked to Brian nearly every day as they hashed out a plan. Hopping on the phone exhausted at 7:00 AM.

I like this whole experience to probably the closest an economist is going to have to working in a wartime situation, you know, because the intensity of what you are doing is effectively a 20-hour day and you are working with a whole variety of unknowns that you really have not anticipated. And you're working with people that you've never met before.

Through it all, Steve remembers Bryan having a calming, can-do attitude.

It's kind of like, you know, when you're flying and there's like a lot of turbulence and suddenly the pilot comes on and maybe it's just the voice or just the way they're— there's no tension there. You actually feel like this is gonna work out okay. The thing that was crazy, he was easygoing, but he was enormously competent. It was sort of like this, it was sort of the best of what you sort of think of like the ultimate Midwesterner.

OptumBank was used to give billions of dollars to hospitals across the country. And after that, Steve says his and Bryan's work together was over.

We never met before personally, and we never met after. I wish I knew him better in person. I wish we had a drink. I wish we could have talked about a lot of stuff.

Steve says he's really proud of the work he and Bryan did together. He considers it a career highlight. But critics raised questions about UnitedHealthcare's involvement in this. Why was a private insurer getting paid to distribute public funds? Steve had ties to UnitedHealthcare through his research at the University of Minnesota and his own private consulting. Did that have something to do with why UnitedHealthcare was brought in? Steve says it did not.

Sometimes there's a perception of pay for play, but that's really not the case.

As for Bryan Thompson, after his work with Steve, he kept rising at UnitedHealthcare. About a year later, he became CEO. Steve says that was a huge accomplishment. Selling that much at such an intense place.

If you're not performing, you will not survive. There are folks that I've known at United that are very ambitious, and it's obvious that they're ambitious. Um, sometimes they don't last very long. There are others that are very competent and quiet like Bryan was, and they rise to the top.

Bryan Thompson, the calm, easygoing, gum-chewing Midwesterner, had reached the pinnacle of corporate success. But the peak he had gotten to— CEO of a huge health insurance company— eventually, at the time when Bryan was killed, Some supporters of Luigi Mangione felt that made him a villain, a stand-in for the worst parts of American healthcare.

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When Altoona police searched Luigi Mangione's backpack, one of the items they discovered, according to prosecutors, was a red spiral notebook. Which included several dated entries and a letter addressed "To the Feds." Prosecutors alleged this was all written by Luigi Mangione. According to the federal indictment, the writings in the notebook "expressed hostility towards the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular." Prosecutors released photos of what they say are the writings. The handwriting in the letter to the feds is precise and orderly. The writer even numbered the pages and included instructions for flipping the page over. Back, in parentheses, with an arrow. In the letter, the writer criticizes the state of American healthcare and compares health insurance companies to the mafia. These mafiosi have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit. The writer mentions UnitedHealth Group specifically, saying that it is one of the largest companies in the US.

So it's this massive, massive conglomerate and touches everybody in so many different ways.

This is Wendell Potter.

I am a former health insurance company executive. I was vice president of corporate communications at Cigna for several years, and that was my title when I resigned in 2008.

He resigned after managing what he says was a major PR crisis. A teenager in California needed a liver transplant, but Cigna had denied coverage for it. It became a big story in the local media, and Cigna decided to reverse the decision. But it was too late.

5 hours after Cigna said it would cover her transplant, she passed away. I was really struggling to be a spokesman for the company, defending the company's decisions. And I, I turned in my notice.

Cigna said in an email that, quote, the world, healthcare, and our company have each evolved significantly since Mr. Potter worked here nearly 2 decades ago. We are continually working to improve support for patients and their care. And we remain committed to helping build a more sustainable healthcare model for America. Wendell spent 20 years working for health insurance companies. Today, he is a critic of the industry and writes a newsletter covering it. UnitedHealth Group comes up a lot. Wendell says the company's sheer size puts it in the spotlight. It makes up 15% of the entire U.S. health insurance market.

It has by far the most people enrolled in its health plans than any other insurer. So that's another reason, it's just so big. But it has grown as big as it is over the course of several years through just one acquisition after another. It has gobbled up a lot of other health insurance companies. In more recent years, it has ventured into and made more and more acquisitions in the healthcare delivery side. Uh, it owns hundreds of physician practices and clinics across the country. It has home health operations, even hospice operations. It has an enormous pharmacy benefit manager called OptumRx.

In their statement to ABC News, UnitedHealth Group said, quote, the U.S. health system remains deeply fragmented and too often leaves people to navigate disconnected benefits, care delivery, pharmacy, "and administrative processes on their own. UnitedHealth Group's capabilities are designed to help make the system work better." Like other major health insurance companies, UnitedHealth Group has faced scrutiny over the last few years. There's an ongoing Department of Justice investigation into alleged Medicare fraud, which UnitedHealth has said they are complying and cooperating with. United also told ABC News that independent audits confirm that the company's Medicare practices are among the most accurate in the industry. There's also a lawsuit alleging insider trading by executives, including by Bryan Thompson, while he was UnitedHealthcare CEO. United has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit and said in a statement that, quote, the company denies any allegations of wrongdoing and intends to defend the matter vigorously. And there's an ongoing class action lawsuit alleging that UnitedHealth Group used AI to wrongfully deny care to patients. UnitedHealth Group said, quote, the company denies any allegations of wrongdoing and that medical necessity determinations are made by qualified physicians, not AI. Claim denials appear to be at the heart of a lot of the public criticism of UnitedHealthcare.

After the shooting, UnitedHealth Group put out a statement saying it pays 90% of claims upon submission. Wendell Potter says the other 10%, the claims that are sent for further review or denied, they can make a big difference to customers.

That 10% is very, very significant.

We asked UnitedHealth Group to characterize the 10% of claims that are sent for further review or denied. They said one half of 1% are due to medical reasons. About half are because of administrative errors And the remaining majority are because of factors like someone not having insurance coverage or duplicate claim submissions. They said when a claim is sent for further review because of an administrative error, they work to resolve it with a care provider. The summer before the shooting, people protested outside the UnitedHealthcare headquarters in Minnesota over claims denials.

Activists targeted UnitedHealthcare in Minnesota with at least two protests, staging a sit-in, even carrying a mock coffin. Protesters accusing the company of greed and pointing out Brian Thompson's $10 million compensation package.

That $10 million compensation package was a combination of salary and stock options, and it made Brian one of the highest paid executives in all of UnitedHealth Group. In 2023, the last full year he was CEO, UnitedHealthcare brought in $281 billion of revenue. In response to the protests and the claims made during them, UnitedHealth Group said, quote, "We understand people's frustration with the healthcare system and take those concerns seriously." The spring after Bryan's death, UnitedHealth Group lowered its financial outlook for the year, and that May, Bryan's boss, Andrew Witty, resigned. Wendell didn't know Bryan personally.

But I would listen to their earnings reports on a regular basis, so I would hear his voice.

Wendell says he talked to people who did know Bryan, and they told him Bryan was a nice guy who cared about patients. But Wendell says, as a CEO of a major corporation, Bryan's duties would have been to his shareholders.

Every employee of one of these big corporations, you have an understanding. You have to do do your part to make sure that the company meets Wall Street's profit expectations every 3 months.

When Brian walked over to the Hilton for the investors conference, he had been CEO for just a few years. He was bringing in big profits for UnitedHealthcare and overseeing 140,000 employees. Around 50 million Americans were getting insurance through the company he ran, but most of them had no idea who he was. Until he became a part of the biggest news story in the country.

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After Bryan Thompson's murder, Vitriol against healthcare companies was at a fever pitch. According to authorities, wanted posters and hit lists with photos of other CEOs and insurance executives circulated online. In response, some companies took down photos of their leadership from their websites and scrambled to ramp up private security for executives. At the UnitedHealthcare campus in Minnesota, fencing and layers of new security were put in place. During the leaked fireside chat, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty told employees that the company was working hard to make sure they felt safe in the face of all of this. He also told them to tune out the critical noise about their employer.

It does not reflect reality. It is simply a sign of an era in which we live.

As all of this continued to unfold, Steve Parenti wrote an article about his one-time colleague, Bryan Thompson, for the Minnesota Star Tribune.

A lot of folks reached out to me from United that were personal friends, just said, "Thank you. We're happy you said this." Because I got the sense that they just felt like they just couldn't. United has had issues before. There have been protests. But nothing like this had ever happened before, where essentially the headquarters suddenly becomes this barricaded community, essentially. And I think there was a real anxiety amongst anybody there to say anything.

At the time, many comments on videos and articles about Bryan's death were unsympathetic. Some even suggested he deserved to be killed. Remember that op-ed UnitedHealth Group CEO at the time, Andrew Witty, wrote? For The New York Times memorializing Bryan Thompson and defending UnitedHealthcare's role in the medical system. It got almost 2,500 comments, mostly complaints about UnitedHealthcare and disdain for Witte's defense of the company and its former CEO. One commenter said, quote, Bryan Thompson may have been a swell guy, but that's irrelevant. This is about the malpractice of insurance companies. It's worth noting many comments like this were posted more than a year before Mangione's plea on Friday. Based on what authorities have released, Bryan Thompson is not named at all in Luigi Mangione's alleged letter to the feds or in other alleged writings from the Red Spiral notebook. But that notebook does reference a CEO, as in, quote, "What do you do?" you whack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean counter convention.

What Bryan's legacy is, is to perhaps spark a national conversation, but it didn't require his life to be taken.

After Luigi Mangione's federal guilty plea on Friday, UnitedHealthcare put out a statement: Bryan Thompson's life was cut short by an act of violence that devastated everyone who knew and loved him. We are grateful to law enforcement for bringing Bryan's murderer to justice, and our thoughts remain with Bryan's family and loved ones during this difficult time. Bryan ended up on that Midtown street heading to an investors conference because he was a top performer. He'd been a top performer his whole life, all the way from Jewell, Iowa to the C-suite of a Fortune 500 company. But as the weeks go by in December 2024, Brian Thompson fades more and more out of view. All eyes are on the man accused of killing him. Less than a week before Christmas, Luigi Mangione waives extradition. He agrees to be prosecuted in New York. So he's flown from Pennsylvania to New York City, first in a plane and then in a helicopter. The helicopter lands in downtown Manhattan by Wall Street on a dock along the East River.

It was positively cinematic.

That's ABC News' Aaron Katurski.

There's Luigi Mangione departing a helicopter that had landed in Lower Manhattan, and he is surrounded by a cordon of officers.

Over a dozen officers, some in bulletproof vests, some wearing black helmets and holding automatic rifles.

The mayor at the time, Eric Adams, the police commissioner, Jessica Tish, are seen almost like bobbleheads in the crowd of officers and officials who are around Mangione as he's escorted in handcuffs down the long wooden dock to a waiting car to drive him to court.

Mangione is clean-shaven and wearing a bright orange Department of Correction jumpsuit. He's expressionless during the entire slow, long walk down the dock. Right away, this scene, this cinema, brings even more attention to Mangione. Photos circulate of Luigi Mangione with his head bowed in the center of all the officers. A pop of orange in a sea of dark uniforms and sunglasses. On social media, some users at the time posted, "Mangione is iconic." Some compared the scene to a shot from a superhero movie. Others say they feel sympathy for him. Later, his defense attorneys described this perp walk as befitting a captured cartel chief or comic book villain and claimed Mangione was treated like an orange-clad, shackled trophy. Mangione has pleaded not guilty in his state murder case. Basically, as Luigi Mangione arrives in New York, the fascination with him only grows. He's become sort of a celebrity, a part of culture. But like Bryan Thompson, he was once just a high school valedictorian. a top performer, well-liked, and full of promise. So how did he wind up here, shackled and surrounded by police, with the eyes of the world focused on him? Burden of Proof: Luigi Mangione is a production of ABC C Audio and 2020, hosted by me, Brian Buckmire.

Produced by Vika Ahrensen and Audrey Mastic. Our lead producer is Camille Petersen. Edited by Tracy Samuelson. Music by Evan Viola. Mixing by Bob Mallory. Special thanks to Katie Dendas, Sasha Aslanian, Michelle Margolis, Tonya Simpson, Aaron Kuterski, Josh Margolin, Peter Haralambos, Jared Kofsky, Jake Lefferman, Katie Meldowney, and Sue Yoon. Josh Cohen is our director of podcast programming. Eamon McNiff is our executive producer. Mysteries unravel and stunning truths are revealed when 20/20 Investigates. Follow the clues, the evidence, the breaking new details. ABC's 20/20 means true murder mystery.

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