Transcript of Talking Dateline: A Killing in Midtown

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Hey everyone, I'm Andrea Canning, and we are talking Dateline. Today we are here with Lester Holt to discuss his episode called "A Killing in Midtown." If you haven't seen it, you can watch the episode on Peacock or listen to it in the Dateline podcast feed and then come right back here. Later, we'll have an extra clip from Lester's interview on the streets of Manhattan with former Detective Sergeant Sergeant John Griffin. Okay, let's talk Dateline. Hey Lester!

Hey Andrea, good to see you.

Yeah, good to see you too. Um, wow, this is a riveting episode. I mean, it was really good because we've all heard this story and we've seen pieces of this story, but this is the first time I've seen the story put all together.

Yeah, this story, uh, well, it's still unfolding even as we speak. There's a trial in September, but We went back and tried to understand that the people at the center of this, uh, Luigi Mangione— you've heard the name many times— the suspect who will face trial, and then of course the CEO himself. And Brian Thompson, of course, is center of this because he was walking across the street from his hotel, uh, to an investors conference, a big deal in his industry, that was about to take place that morning. It's early in the morning, Hard for people to understand, but Midtown Manhattan is not that crowded, actually, in the wee hours, or, you know, 6, 7 o'clock hour, uh, as this was. So he's literally ambushed on the streets of New York. And, you know, looking at the tapes, it's still hard to know whether Brian Thompson was aware that someone was following him, had literally jumped from the shadows. But it all plays out very quickly. These two lives of these two men that none of us knew suddenly collided in an incredible fashion.

Yeah. And, and, you know, you see Bryan's back to his assailant, and it seems like Bryan Thompson, as you said in the piece, is walking into a trap. And then, like out of a movie, on this surveillance video, you see this assailant lift up a gun. I mean, I froze it because I just— I just looked at it for a few seconds. The assailant just standing there with this very professional looking weapon.

Yeah.

And you look, and many of us have seen, certainly in the movies, you know, the, the bad guy puts on the silencer on the gun. We talked to a detective who in his whole career never saw a silencer used, uh, in this sort of thing. So that in itself said, wow, this is, this is professional, or someone who wants to give the impression certainly that this is, is professional.

Yeah, I was really surprised by that, that detective saying that— what was it, 20— in his 25 years, he'd never seen a silencer, which I guess we're so used to it in TV and movies, people using these these, you know, silencers that for an NYPD detective to have never had seen one.

Incredible. And of course, they later, as part of the evidence, is a gun that police say they recovered. He did apparently have in his possession a gun with a silencer.

Yeah. Well, speaking of that gun, one of the things that sent me down the rabbit hole, Lester, was like, you know, the bullets that handwritten on them was "Depose, delay, deny," which is you know, apparently the criticism of how health insurance companies handle claims. And I started looking into it because I felt like I had seen it before. And, you know, this has happened where things are written on bullets, maybe with a Sharpie, or they can even be inscribed, you know, permanently into the ammunition. And so there was the ICE field office shooting in Dallas. The shell casing said "anti-ICE." The murder of Charlie Kirk. Hunters apparently would inscribe or have inscribed inspirational messages on their casings, even back to World War II, bullets and bombs. They would, they would write things on the, on the ammunition.

Yeah, I mean, immediately, you know, made a statement. Also immediately made it very clear to investigators this was not about this victim's private life. This was something bigger than that. And with those cartridges, there were two of them that had been spent, had been fired. There's another one that had not been fired. But they immediately clued investigators in that this was likely over the health— the state of the healthcare system, right?

Um, and it really, uh, one thing that seemed to come full circle— Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, uh, apparently he used to inscribe the, the letters FC into parts of his bombs, which those letters he explained stood for Freedom Club. You learned that Luigi Mangione had an interest in Ted Kaczynski.

So well before Mangione was a suspect, or before the murder, he lived in Hawaii why he was part of a tech community. They established a book club at one point. Um, one of the books they read was the manifesto by the Unabomber. Many people subsequent to the murders have, have thought that maybe that pointed to a motive in this case, but we talked to a journalist who has been heavily covering the story who said that they were never able to make a linkage between that book club and, and the subject being Kaczynski. And his— the murder he was later charged with.

Yeah, but he did go on though to talk about Ted Kaczynski, so clearly the Unabomber was on his mind.

Yeah, and he basically concluded that the Unabomber, in this case, Ted Kaczynski, got it all wrong because he hurt innocent people. So he did later talk about that in some of his writings, which, which do become key in this case and likely in the trial. Um, so, so we know he had Kaczynski on the mind, but is that part of a motive for murder? We just don't know.

Yeah, there's such a contradiction with Luigi Mangione. You know, he's— here he is, uh, you know, he's, he's traveling, like, he's living in Hawaii, he's traveling to places like Japan, other places in Asia, Thailand, seeking spiritual enlightenment, you know. And now he's alleged to have committed this, this brutal crime You know, it just, it just feels like two different people.

Yeah, there was a lot going on. We know that he had chronic back problems, and that's important because one of the things that he did in Hawaii was seek treatment. Someone had turned him on to a yoga instructor, um, who promised that, that he could help alleviate his pain, and he apparently did just that. Uh, he, he did visit, uh, this yoga teacher. He did, you know, receive some therapy, uh, and by accounts that we've seen, uh, he was pleased with the results and had actually started to feel much better.

Yeah, it just— it's strange though when you think of someone who's spiritual and light and then is accused of a crime like this. It's like it just— it's like it doesn't add up. And then the other thing that people kept saying was that he didn't seem to express any hatred for the insurance companies, you know, on, on this journey of his. Like, he wasn't going after them or talking about them constantly. So it's like, where did it come from?

We understand that at one point while he was in Thailand, he was talking to an English speaker, and the subject apparently came up of healthcare systems, um, you know, comparing against the U.S. And it sounds like it wasn't a heated discussion, but it— but he pointed out that, um, you know, that there were issues with the American healthcare system as compared to some of the others overseas. And keep in mind, this conversation is taking place overseas. What we have is lot of strands in this story that start to, to move together. You're like, aha, here we go, here's the motive, and boom, you know, we're left wondering.

So after the break, we are going to have more of your interview with retired Detective Sergeant John Griffin about surveillance cameras in New York City.

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I loved seeing you out on the streets, you know, with, with the detective and great interviews, by the way, with these retired detectives that were able to actually talk about this because we haven't really heard anyone, you know, talk about it like this yet in depth from law enforcement. So, to see them talk about the surveillance cameras in New York City, it's— it's just so interesting how we've— we've turned into this society where every corner you turn, there's a camera watching you. And you talked about how these detectives can just sit at their desks and pull up any camera in the city. It's really remarkable. Lester, let's take a listen to more of your interview with retired Detective Sergeant John Griffin, who really painted this picture for us of, uh, just all the cameras that are in New York City.

Every single one of these buildings probably has a camera, and a lot of these— a lot of the vehicles going by have cameras on them. I mean, it's in this— I mean, we're lucky in this city. You can't— especially in Manhattan, you're covered.

Are those used primarily as traffic cameras, or just—

they're for traffic, they're for events, they're for Helping solve crimes. Yeah, they're for monitoring things going on. I mean, if you know there's something going on here, like a minor demonstration that you don't want to send people to, you can watch it from there and make sure everything's going all right. I mean, it's— they've got a ton of uses. For us in the investigations world, they're unbelievable.

First thing you ask for now, where's the video?

That's all anybody wants now. You see that little bulb under there? And that can scan this whole 360 right here.

Wow.

Yeah, it's, it's act— it's incredible. And like I said before, this— we used to laugh in, uh, in the homicide squad. We said it was a lot like, uh, Deadliest Catch. Yeah, once you leave, once you leave port, you don't come back without fish. And they would go out for 8, 10 hours at a time. Getting what they can, and then the next day do the same thing. Wow. And imagine doing that without all the help we had. You know, on a routine case, you have 1 or 2 guys doing this.

That's hard to imagine.

And then you have to go back and watch it.

Yeah, but if it's your video, it must be easier.

Our video's— it's so much easier. And the big thing about our video is that it's set up so you can see long stretches. Mm-hmm. So you don't have to pull the video from here When you lose him down there at that corner, or two corners down, now you hop down there, and that's where you pick him up.

Pick him up, yeah.

Imagine how many crimes must be solved in New York from these cameras. I'm sure the number is huge.

Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, you see them up there. I mean, we're all aware of them, kind of vaguely aware. But yeah, when you start multiplying, okay, you've got city and police cameras. Now you've got, you know, every building owner has a camera. I've been in taxis now where they've got cameras. Cameras. So there is a wealth of information, but someone still has to do the, the tedious hard work of going through it, matching it, and creating a timeline. If something happened at that particular corner, a detective sitting at his desk at police headquarters can, can go right on and, and retrieve the pictures there, and then they begin linking it to the pictures to the next place they see the suspect, and so on and so forth. What's important here, Andrea, is police say their best investigative tool in this kind of case— of course you want to pull the cameras, but you also want to pull them in a that you're basically working backwards. You want to know where the killer or the suspect has been, and that will help inform as to where he may go. Why is that important? Because that's how they uncovered the slip in this case.

They always wait for that moment the suspect drops his or her guard. In this case, he lowered that mask, exposed a little bit of his face, and boom, police suddenly had a face to go in this manhunt.

That was huge. They— and you see him smiling at one point, you also can see those eyebrows. You know, that's what everybody was talking about, the eyebrows. And he even talks about it in this— It was like a to-do list that he had to pluck his eyebrows.

Yeah, he apparently, um, you know, based on his writings, had prepared for being— having a life on the run and taking certain precautions. I mean, you know, smart guy, clearly aware that there's cameras. I mean, who doesn't know there's cameras now, I suppose.

Yeah, and— You know, going backwards is when the, you know, the assailant may be less on guard, right? Before they've committed a crime versus after, when you're going to be doing everything you can to hide your face, obviously.

You catch me a week ago and I'm thinking about doing this murder, but I'm not— yeah, my security is not up to snuff. Then you take me a day or hours before the murder, I'm now on guard now because, because I might get found out. I think that's the, the mentality that they want to work on. Off of and exploit if they can, the investigators.

Yeah, because you still can get away with something if you're wearing a mask, if you have a hood on. If— I mean, cameras, they're not x-ray cameras. They can't see through that. So you do have to keep looking and looking and looking and waiting for your suspect to slip up, which is what they say happened here. So obviously he, he has discovered, uh, Luigi Mangione in Altoona, Pennsylvania. What was happening with the McDonald's workers? Were they not— did they not want to participate yet in Dateline, or did they— were they told not to because of, you know, the trial coming up? What was the deal with that?

I can tell you, in general, this has been a very difficult story to get people to step forward. By now, I think we've established this is not a typical murder story. This is not a typical crime.

Yeah.

This was a case of rage, a kind of a simmering rage out there that we were able to tap into. About the ethics and practices of the healthcare industry. It's started more than a nationwide conversation, kind of an outpouring. And people say, you know, well, of course I'm against violence, of course I'm against murder, but— and it's that but that always kind of really changes the conversation.

Do you remember the movie John Q with Denzel Washington?

Well, I sure do.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'll just read like really quickly. It's a devoted father whose young son collapses and is diagnosed with an enlarged heart. When he discovers that the family's health maintenance organization, HMO, insurance policy will not cover the cost of a life-saving heart transplant and his own resources are exhausted, he takes drastic measures. Driven by desperation, he takes the hospital's emergency room hostage to force the medical board to put his son's name on the transplant list. And, you know, I— it's It just seemed like it— it just popped into my head, that movie, when I heard about this case, thinking that, like, Luigi Mangione has been done wrong by UnitedHealthcare somehow, like they denied his back surgery or, you know, I'm making that up. Yeah, there's like nothing there, which is so odd.

UnitedHealthcare says they never had a Luigi Mangione on their— on their insurance rolls. It's very odd because, as I said, there are so many strands of this story that keep leading you toward a conclusion. And then it just— it's like cotton candy, just kind of melts away in your mouth. Um, but, you know, obviously some of this will come out, maybe all of it will come out in trial. Um, and the question from a legal standpoint when we talk about trial, you know, will they be able to find a jury who can set aside any issues with the healthcare industry? Because, you know, it's not out of the realm of possibility the defense may make this a trial not about murder but about the healthcare industry, right?

I mean, yeah, there was so much fanfare, Lester, from the very beginning. I think, you know, all these elements, right? Like the, the chase, the, you know, searching for this, the suspect, um, the bullets, you know, then finding this, this alleged shooter in the McDonald's, and even bringing him back to New York. I mean, off of that helicopter, it— I swear it looked like El Chapo was arriving in the city, you know. It was It was intense, right? And so there's all these people now who are— who support Luigi Mangione. And you showed some of the clips, you know, from social media, Free Luigi and his beautiful eyebrows, you know, America rooting for the assassin. And then we have these ladies more recently outside of court. They call themselves the Mangionistas. And they actually were able to get press passes for court. And the— it sparked a review of press passes. Mayor Mamdani, you know, said that they, they probably shouldn't have had these passes, but didn't— also didn't say he was going to revoke them. But it's just another element to all of this.

And that's one of the things we talked about with one— with one of Mr. Thompson's friends and former colleagues who's just devastated. That there are people who, who think somehow that he may— Mr. Thompson may have deserved to be murdered. I speak in, in this hour, as you know, I speak to an activist who was part of the fundraising mechanism that created a legal defense fund for the killer. And this is before we knew that Mangione was going to be a suspect. This, this thing was started very early on. So, but so going into this, we certainly couldn't ignore that there is this, this simmering outrage out there. At the same time, we wanted to to, you know, show who Brian Thompson was. Family man, 50-year-old father of two, a Midwest guy who wanted to go back to Iowa. We wanted to tell part of his story and remind that, you know, there is a victim in this case, and, and the victim in this case is Brian Thompson. You know, even speaking to the detectives, we talked to them about how they feel about investigating a murder in which the potential killer is being, you know, cheered on.

And they take it very seriously because, as one of them pointed out, you know, as a detective, we've had to knock on a lot of doors and inform people that their loved one has died, you know, by homicide or some other horrible occurrence. And the fact that, you know, someone's life can be cheapened in such a way and gunned down in the streets because you may not like their industry, they take very, very seriously.

I tend to feel the same way with the detectives. I mean, this is what we do on Dateline. We interview families every week, you know, who have lost a loved one to murder. And that is not lost on me, and that is a fear of mine for this country, that people are glorifying murder because they don't like, as you said, the industry. I think it's wrong. Bryan Thompson has 2 children, a wife, a family, you know, and there's so many— parallels almost, I hate to say it, but between Bryan Thompson and alleged killer Luigi Mangione, that they were both valedictorians of their high school. They were both smart. You know, they both came from these, you know, one had more privilege than the other, but it seems like they came from good families. You know, so there were some similarities there.

Yeah, it's really, this is a story about how those two lives and, you know, collide in this spectacularly awful fashion.

Lester, thank you so much for bringing us this story, uh, and this really fascinating conversation.

Of course.

And of course, Lester will also bring you any updates, breaking news updates on this case on Dateline True Crime Weekly. Coming up after the break, Mike Nardi, Dateline producer who produced this episode, and senior producer Allison Orr will be here to answer your social media media questions. Welcome back everyone, and Allison and Mike, thank you for joining us for this social section.

Hey Andrea!

Hey Andrea!

Yeah, great job on the story. Thank you. So our first question is from Ashley— it's either Day or Die, I'm not sure how to pronounce her last name— on Facebook about Luigi Mangione's movements after his alleged role in Brian Thompson's murder. So Ashley wrote, he mentioned he was a lone wolf But was anyone helping him evade custody after his plan was complete and his face was on the news? Did he have a mission to do more harm? Do we know if, if there's any more intel on that?

One thing that was interesting is that, uh, some of the video that has not been released, we've been told that it shows the suspect on a cell phone. Uh, and so there was speculation at the time that maybe he was working with someone, but there's certainly been no indication from the authorities that That's true.

And obviously, his face was all over the place. He was recognizable enough that the people in a McDonald's in Pennsylvania recognized him. And so, I'd always wondered, did his family recognize him? I have a son in his 20s. I'd recognize my son if I saw half of his face on TV. So— And we do have— There is reporting out of San Francisco that his family had filed a missing persons report. And there is reporting that the police officer who took that missing persons report recognized him. And there was contact with the family. Before his capture. And also, right, Mike, that the officers who recognized him from the missing persons report turned that information over to the FBI. Now, there's also no evidence that that information having gone to the FBI had anything to do with his capture. And in fact, we're not even sure that that information— obviously, his name was never made public. We don't even know if it made it to the NYPD, who was helping with the investigation. So, there is, you know, people did recognize him.

Yeah, those eyebrows are everything, right? Okay, this is a comment from Renee Ebert. Um, well, I was hoping to learn more about Luigi, but he clearly remains a mystery. I gave up watching the Knicks for Dateline, and I am happy I did. Very well done. His trial will be fascinating. So I didn't work on this story, but I did have a conversation with a friend last night who went to the same school as Luigi. Um, and he said it is extreme wealth at this school. And I'm not saying Luigi is extreme wealth, just there are kids at this school of extreme wealth. And my friend also told me that, you know, the family is somewhat well-known in Baltimore. And he said that people see Luigi's grandfather as having done a lot of good in the area.

Yeah, I think that certainly matches Andrea with what we learned about the Mangione family. From what we understand, that his grandfather sort of started with nothing and sort of built some businesses. And from there, the Mangione family owns a number of different businesses that they operate.

And so I think— including healthcare.

Healthcare, right. Assisted living facilities. And I think that— I think it's certainly fair that we report that the family is wealthy as business owners and they were able to send Luigi Mangione to this really prestigious school full of the wealth that you describe.

Yeah. These are among the wealthiest kids in the Baltimore area.

Yeah. And whether Luigi was among the wealthiest of among the wealthiest, we don't think so. But it is interesting questions because the crime has brought up all of this angst in society about the cost of health care. And yet you're looking at this person who's become a symbol of this, and it does not makes sense that he personally, in his personal life, would have been, you know, somebody with medical debt like so many people in America are saddled with. So it's, it's an interesting question, and maybe we'll learn more about it at trial.

What's interesting with Luigi Mangione is that he's going to have to go on trial for state court and federal court. We're starting with state court.

Yeah, so the, the state trial is gonna happen first, and this is the, the murder charge that he's facing. The federal charges are stalking, but really the focus is going to be on this state case because this This is the murder case. This is the trial for that.

And what's interesting is his defense team includes members of the same defense team that just recently defended Sean Combs in federal trial and defended Harvey Weinstein on his retrial. Both of those cases were considered defense wins. Sean Combs was only convicted of lesser charges. The Harvey Weinstein recent trial ended in a mistrial, which is seen as a victory for the defense. So we should expect something very interesting from them.

All right. Allison and Mike, thank you so much for bringing us this episode along with Lester and for coming on today to talk Dateline.

Thanks, Andrea.

Okay.

Thanks, Andrea. That's it for Talking Dateline this week. Remember, if you have any questions about our stories, you can DM us your audio or video on our socials @DatelineNBC or leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252. For a chance to be featured right here. And you can watch the video version of this Talking Dateline on Peacock or YouTube, or subscribe to the NBC News app. Plus, Keith has a brand new podcast series you don't want to miss. It's called Five Miles from Home, about a high school student's disappearance after track practice in a small Nevada casino town. The race to find her led to unlikely suspects, simmering rage, and Unimaginable Betrayal. You can listen to the first 2 episodes now wherever you get your podcasts. For early access to subsequent episodes and to listen to all Dateline podcasts ad-free, subscribe to Dateline Premium. We'll see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.

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