Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Supreme Court for a suppression hearing after he was arrested for killing UHC CEO Brian Thompson dead.
\nDecember 16 2025
\nCurtis Means for Daily Mail<\/p>\n
A New York City detective who investigated the Dec. 4, 2024 shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Tuesday described the crime scene in a Manhattan courtroom and recounted how police worked to pick up the train of the suspected gunman.<\/p>\n
NYPD Det. David Leonardi took the stand for the eighth day of an evidence suppression hearing in the murder case against Luigi Mangione, who is charged with gunning down the 50-year-old Thompson on West 54th Street outside of the New York Midtown Hilton.
\nSo far, the suppression proceedings \u2014 held intermittently over a two-week period \u2014 have focused on the Altoona, Pennsylvania police officers who arrested Mangione five days after Thompson murder.<\/p>\n
Under questioning by Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann, Leonardi recounted what he saw upon arriving at the crime scene.
\n\u201cThere was a puddle of blood that had accumulated next to the wall,\u201d the detective said. He said he also saw a \u201cpile\u201d of brass casings cast about the sidewalk, and that the casings were etched with the words \u201cdeny,\u201d \u201cdepose\u201d and third term he couldn\u2019t recall.
\nLeonardi said that police got the investigation rolling by conducting \u201cvideo canvasses\u201d in the area.<\/p>\n
In surveillance footage captured from the scene of Thompson\u2019s killing, a masked and hooded figure can be seen lying in wait near a parked car.
\nAs Thompson walks into the frame, the hooded figure emerges holding what appears to be a handgun fixed with a silencer and firing several times into Thompson\u2019s back.
\nLeonardi testified surveillance footage the NYPD retrieved from the day before the shooting captures the same shooter walking past Thompson at the hotel. But for four days after the incident, police weren\u2019t able to track down the whereabouts of their suspect. What they did find out was that he had used a New Jersey driver\u2019s license bearing the name Mark Rosario to book a room in a hostel and to purchase a bus ticket.<\/p>\n
Leonardi caught a break in the investigation on Dec. 9, after the Altoona Police Department responded to a 911 call from a local McDonald\u2019s that a man resembling the prime suspect in Thompson\u2019s killing, which had received near-saturation media coverage in the preceding days, was there having breakfast in the dining area.
\nWhen officers approached Mangione inside the McDonald\u2019s, he offered up the Rosario driver\u2019s license.
\nAfter word of the arrest was reported to the NYPD and to Leonardi, the detective called the supervising officer in Altoona and directed no one to talk to Mangione. Leonardi also advised the department to keep all of Mangione\u2019s property, as it was potential evidence in a murder case.<\/p>\n
Upon arriving in Altoona, Leonardi secured a warrant from local authorities to transfer all of Mangione\u2019s property as evidence and set up an interrogation, he said Tuesday on the witness stand.
\nThat\u2019s where Leonardi\u2019s testimony ended once defense began questioning him about the videotaped interrogation of Mangione he conducted during this trip to Pennsylvania.
\n\u201cWithout knowing what the rules were in Pennsylvania, you set up a [scenario] where Mangione is being interrogated on video?\u201d Agnifilo asked Leonardi, who said that the process was guided by the district attorney.<\/p>\n
After the prosecution objected to the questioning, Acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro called a conference and both parties abruptly cut the rest of the testimony short.
\n\u201cI understand that the DA is withdrawing these statements, so no further questions,\u201d Agnifilo said.
\nThroughout the day of hearings, defense honed in on the steps that police took after they took Mangione back to the Altoona police precinct where they say his Fourth Amendment rights were violated.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the hearing, when prosecution brought in Officer George Featherstone, the police department\u2019s evidence custodian, for questioning. Mangione\u2019s attorney Karen Agnifilo pressed him on ways in which a warrantless inventory search of his backpack violated the local department\u2019s code of procedure.
\nAgnifilo pointed out that the police department\u2019s code instructs that inventory searches \u201cshall be completed in the intake area,\u201d the room in the precinct where offices process new detainees. Days before, the arresting officer who first searched Mangione\u2019s bag testified that she took it into a hallway to search it after she found a handgun in a side pocket almost immediately after she began searching.<\/p>\n
The hearing is set to continue on Thursday, with the defense continuing to question the actions of the police department in their handling of the case.<\/p>\n
Q: Who is Luigi Mangione?
\nA: Luigi Mangione is the suspect charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
\nQ: What was the nature of the crime scene?
\nA: The crime scene included a puddle of blood and a pile of brass casings with etched words.
\nQ: How was the suspect caught?
\nA: The suspect was caught after a 911 call from a local McDonald\u2019s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he was having breakfast.
\nQ: What is the focus of the defense?
\nA: The defense is focusing on the steps taken by the police department after the suspect was taken into custody, specifically regarding the handling of his property and the interrogation process.
\nQ: What is the current status of the case?
\nA: The case is ongoing, with the hearing set to continue on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to the Case Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Supreme Court for a suppression hearing after he was arrested for killing UHC CEO Brian Thompson dead. December 16 2025 Curtis Means for Daily Mail A New York City detective who investigated the Dec. 4, 2024 shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Tuesday described […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":26629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-reports"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.amny.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/A1A08667_e243ac.jpg?quality=51&w=1200&p=q&w=1200&resize=1200,800&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26627"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26630,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26627\/revisions\/26630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}