NEW YORK — A police officer from Altoona, Pennsylvania, strongly believed the man slouched at a corner table near McDonald’s restrooms was the suspect wanted in New York for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Pandemic-era face coverings were rare in town and the man, wrapped in bulky winter layers, wore a surgical mask that early December day last year.
“We don’t wear masks,” Patrolman Joseph Detwiler mused in court on Tuesday, recalling the moment. “We have antibodies.”
“As soon as he pulled the mask down for us,” Detwiler recognized the suspect, whose photo had been widely circulated by federal authorities, he testified.
A year after Thompson was gunned down from behind by a masked shooter with a 3D-printed weapon and a makeshift silencer, no trial date has been set for Luigi Mangione, the suspect Detwiler arrested. Mangione has spent much of the past year at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he is being held without the option of bail.
He faces charges in both state and federal court, with potential life in prison in the state court proceedings, which are expected to go to trial first, and a possible death penalty in the federal case.
Thompson, a father of two from Minnesota, was killed while taking a short walk to a Midtown Manhattan hotel where UnitedHealthcare was hosting an investor’s conference.
His death rattled the city, drew widespread interest and had an immediate impact on executive security at health care firms. UnitedHealthcare paid about $1.7 million for security for five executives in 2024, according to a corporate disclosure. The filing included no amount for Thompson, suggesting the company made the security payments in the final weeks of the year after his death.
In federal court, Mangione’s lawyers have accused Attorney General Pam Bondi and other Trump administration officials of using Mangione as a political pawn. They have asked a judge to take the death penalty off the table. A decision is pending. If the death penalty remains an option, pretrial litigation could delay the federal trial for years.
In state court, Mangione’s lawyers are seeking to exclude key pieces of evidence from his future trial, arguing that police acted improperly during the initial encounter at the McDonald’s on Dec. 9.
New York state Judge Gregory Carro has heard arguments over that evidence and related issues this week. The hearings, which are expected to continue into next week and involve testimony from more than two dozen witnesses, have offered the most detailed account to date of the final moments of a five-day national manhunt that led to Mangione’s arrest.
Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a lawyer for Mangione, has argued that the justice system has saddled her client with trumped-up prosecutions because of his notoriety.
“As a result of unprecedented prosecutorial one-upsmanship, Mr. Mangione now faces three simultaneous prosecutions in three jurisdictions … all for one set of facts,” Friedman Agnifilo wrote in a May 1 motion filing, referring to the two murder cases and separate Pennsylvania charges related to Mangione’s allegedly forged identification and illegal possession of a weapon.
Friedman Agnifilo argues that mistakes made by law enforcement could prejudice Mangione and violate his right to a fair trial. His backpack was illegally searched without a warrant at the McDonald’s, she argues, and he was questioned while in custody without being read his rights, she says. The backpack contained the alleged murder weapon and a written manifesto.
Carro’s decision on whether to suppress that evidence could turn on the testimony of Ditwaler and other law enforcement witnesses.
Through the hearings so far, Mangione has had frequent hushed exchanges with his counsel, taking handwritten notes and at times shifting in his seat, appearing bored and fidgety. A few dozen supporters have sat in the public seating in the back of the courtroom.
During Ditwaler’s testimony, he recounted that patrons and staff at the McDonald’s tipped off police to a suspicious figure who resembled the alleged killer and struck them as out of place during the breakfast rush.
A female manager called 911 to say customers thought the man in their midst “looks like the CEO shooter from New York,” according to a recording played in court. The concerned guests were “really upset and coming to me,” the manager added, mentioning to the dispatcher the man’s eyebrows, which are thick and distinctive.
Ditwaler and his rookie partner Tyler Frye soon arrived at the restaurant. Footage from Ditwaler’s body camera, played during the court proceedings, captured the encounter with the suspect.
“I’m 100 percent sure it’s him,” Ditwaler told a pair of supervisors during a huddle outside the McDonald’s. “He’s nervous as hell … I asked him if he’s been up to New York lately, and he went quiet.”
The suspect had given the patrolmen a bogus New Jersey license with his photo and the name “Mark Rosario.”
Ditwaler, a veteran police officer, misdirected Mangione to buy time. He told the suspect that McDonald’s reports customers who linger for more than 40 minutes. The tactic seemed to work — a haggard-looking Mangione began studying his receipt to determine his arrival time.
As he did so, Altoona police worked to confirm that the ID he had presented was fake and made urgent calls to New York investigators, Ditwaler testified.
During the roughly half hour interaction, which included lengthy pauses, the patrolmen asked why Mangione was in Altoona and if he’d recently been in New York, which Mangione denied. Mangione was pressed about his real identity and eventually disclosed it. When asked if he was visiting family in Altoona, Mangione said: “No, I’m homeless.”
After he was taken into custody, the officers searched Mangione’s backpack. Prosecutors argue that the search was proper even without a warrant because of exigent circumstances.
Ditwaler, an Air Force veteran and former military police officer, testified that he’d seen the footage of Thompson’s murder, found it particularly alarming and was concerned about the threat Mangione might pose.
“It was an awful incident, and as soon as he pulled his mask down, I knew there was a safety issue for us,” said Ditwaler, who was given an award by the New York Police Department for his work in apprehending Mangione.
Anna Cominsky, director of the criminal defense clinic at New York Law School, said Carro will have to weigh the totality of circumstances to make his rulings, weighing factors like the officers’ state of mind and whether Mangione was free to leave before he was arrested and handcuffed.
“Suppression issues are extremely fact specific, which means the judge is really able to analyze every little thing in terms of the details when making these decisions,” Cominsky said.
Mangione appeared anxious at times during long stretches of quiet as police milled around him. A half hour passed before he was removed. In that time, he finished his meal as Christmas tunes piped through the speakers.
He was handcuffed to the chorus of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
Wesley Parnell in New York and Daniel Gilbert in Washington contributed to this report.
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