Defence lawyer Thomas Dickey has stated that his client wants a hearing

'Like so many others, I'm captivated by murder suspect Luigi Mangione - here's why'

14 Dec 2024, 18:03 by Larissa Nolan · Irish Mirror

It's amazing how forgiving the world is when you could pass for the sixth member of The Strokes.

Just over a week ago, nobody had heard of Luigi Mangione and now he's an international anti-hero, a cult obsession, the internet's favourite character. In case you've been living under a rock, Mangione, 26, is the shooting suspect in the assassination of United Healthcare chief Brian Thompson.

Handsome, fit and stylish, highly intelligent, an heir to a fortune with a rockstar name, he's already been nicknamed "the hot assassin". He's being seen by many as a social bandit, striking out at America's biggest health insurance company in a symbolic takedown of a multi-billion dollar industry that puts profit first.

The reaction to him - while nightmarishly unfair on the family of dad-of two exec Thompson - reflects the internal rage of a nation that pays more for healthcare than any other country in the world.

I am one of those captivated by Mangione. Many of us who are, are women. His allure is being dismissed as revealing the truth about the cult of celebrity. I think it's deeper than that. He's a figure of fascination and I find his story compelling on a cultural, social and psychological level, often particular areas of female interest.

I've closely followed the case from the shooting itself, outside the Hilton hotel in midtown New York on December 4 by a killer using a ghost gun. I was glued to the five-day manhunt, the arrest and charge of Mangione in a Pennsylvania McDonalds; the spectacle of him railing on his way into court.

He shouted: "It's an insult to the American people and their lived experience." I'm conflicted about how I can compartmentalise a horrifying act of violence, while a part of me inwardly understands exactly how and why it all came to this.

(Image: AP)

As he wrote in his manifesto (because of course he had a manifesto) in what has already become his most striking quote: "Frankly, these parasites had it coming."

In another context, it's an edgy slogan that could be seen in neon writing in the bathroom of a hipster hotel.

Shell casings from the bullets used in the assassination bore the words: Deny, Depose, Defend, apparently a reference to the three Ds of health insurance, to reject payment claims.

It's similar to the title of a book that keen reader Mangione may have read called Delay, Deny, Defend that's an expose of why unethical health insurance companies don't pay. I sought the book out to order on Amazon, only to find it was sold out and topping the bestseller's list.

Thompson's fatal shooting was patently wrong. He was a man, living his life, doing the best for his kids, who rose from being a farm boy in working-class Iowa to the top of his industry.

But weirdly - simultaneously - his murder was also a sickeningly powerful act that shone a light on the injustices of a fractured system that fails, and likely kills, so many.

Rich kid Mangione is a warped genius, a radicalised loner and follower of Ted Kaczynsky, the Unabomber who killed three people in a decades' long campaign against tech advances he predicted would end human freedom. I see Mangione as more like Arthur Fleck in Joker, which is likely a part of his cult attraction.

It's too simplistic to hold him up as a flawed, frustrated social avenger, a political revolutionary forced to turn to violence.

But he represents some kind of awful playing-out of a dark fantasy that suggests a profound, simmering anger and deep frustration at the status quo.

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