Barney Davis
Published December 1, 2025 10:19pm
Updated December 1, 2025 10:19pm
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Luigi Mangioneappears in court (Credits: AP)
The McDonald’s manager who called police to arrest Luigi Mangione has spoken of recognising one distinctive feature as he ate breakfast.
The 27-year-old was forced to watch the shooting of Brian Thompson in court at a pre-trial hearing where his lawyers are looking to bar evidence including the gun prosecutors say matches the one used to kill the UnitedHealthcare CEO.
On Monday, Mangione pressed a finger to his lips and a thumb to his chin as he watched footage of two police officers approaching him as he ate breakfast at the McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles west of Manhattan.
Luigi Mangione removes his mask to eat a hash brown in a McDonalds where a manager recognised his eyebrows
Luigi Mangione’s lawyers are fighting to get a handgun struck from the evidence list (Credits: EPA)
He gripped a pen in his right hand, making a fist at times, as prosecutors played a 911 call from a McDonald’s manager relaying concerns from customers that Mangione looked like the suspect in Thompson’s killing.
The manager said she searched online for photos of the suspect and that as Mangione sat in the restaurant, she could only see his eyebrows because he was wearing a beanie and a medical face mask.
‘The only thing you can see is his eyebrows’, said the manager, whose name was not released.
Bodyworn footage shows Mangione being arrested
Luigi’s eyebrows were a dead giveaway (Picture: EPA)
‘He’s by the back of our lobby by the bathroom,’ the worker said on the call, which was played as part of a pre-trial evidence hearing.
Before he was flown to New York City to face murder charges, Mangione was held under constant watch in an otherwise empty special housing unit at a Pennsylvania state prison.
A correctional officer testified that the prison wanted to keep Mangione away from other inmates and staff who might leak information about him to the media.
Brian Thompson was shot dead in New York City (Picture: AP)
Luigi Mangione could face the death penalty (Picture: EPA)
The officer testified that the facility’s superintendent told him that the prison ‘did not want an Epstein-style situation,’ referring to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide at a Manhattan federal jail in 2019.
Among the evidence Mangione’s defence team wants excluded are the 9 mm handgun and a notebook in which prosecutors say he described his intent to ‘wack’ a health insurance executive.
Both were found in a backpack Mangione had with him when arrested.
Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges. The state charges carry the possibility of life in prison, while federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
After getting state terrorism charges thrown out in September, Mangione’s lawyers are zeroing in on what they say was unconstitutional police conduct that threatens his right to a fair trial.
They contend that the Manhattan district attorney’s office should be prevented from showing the gun, notebook and other items to jurors because police didn’t have a search warrant.
They also want to suppress some of Mangione’s statements to police, such as when he allegedly said his name was Mark Rosario, because officers started asking questions before telling him he had a right to remain silent.
Prosecutors say Mangione gave the same name while checking into a Manhattan hostel days before the killing.
The defence is also seeking to preclude statements Mangione made to law enforcement from the day of his arrest until he was moved to New York.
The correctional officer, Tomas Rivers, testified that Mangione talked to him about his travels to Asia, including witnessing a gang fight in Thailand, and discussed differences between private and nationalised health care.
At one point, Rivers said, Mangione asked him whether the news media was focused on him as a person or the crime that was committed.
He also said Mangione told him he wanted to make a public statement.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind.
Prosecutors say ‘delay,’ ‘deny’ and ‘depose’ were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Eliminating the gun and notebook would be critical wins for Mangione’s defence and major setbacks for prosecutors, depriving them a possible murder weapon and evidence they say points to motive.
Prosecutors have quoted extensively from Mangione’s writings in court filings, including his alleged praise for the late ‘Unabomber’ Theodore Kaczynski.
Among other things, prosecutors say, Mangione mused about rebelling against ‘the deadly, greed-fueled health insurance cartel’ and wrote that killing an industry executive ‘conveys a greedy bastard that had it coming.’
An officer searching the backpack found with Mangione was heard in body camera footage saying she was checking to make sure there ‘wasn’t a bomb’ in the bag. His lawyers argue that was an excuse ‘designed to cover up an illegal warrantless search of the backpack.’
Laws concerning how police interact with potential suspects before reading them their rights or obtaining search warrants are complex and often disputed in criminal cases.
Federal prosecutors, fighting a similar defence effort in that case, have said in court filings that police were justified in searching the backpack to make sure there were no dangerous items, and that his statements to officers were voluntary and were made before he was under arrest.
Mangione was allowed to wear normal clothing to court instead of a jail uniform. He entered the courtroom in a grey suit and a button-down shirt with a checkered or tattersall pattern. Court officers removed his handcuffs to allow him to take notes.
A few dozen Mangione supporters watched the hearing from the back of the courtroom. One wore a green T-shirt that said: ‘Without a warrant, it’s not a search, it’s a violation.’
Another woman held a doll of the Luigi video game character and had a smaller figurine of him clipped to her purse.
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