Alleged CEO killer Luigi Mangione's eyebrows prompted tipster to call police, ending dayslong search, court hearing reveals

The eyebrows were the giveaway.

Luigi Mangione, the Ivy League graduate charged with fatally shooting a UnitedHealthcare CEO last December on a midtown Manhattan sidewalk, was caught based on a tip from a McDonald’s manager whose customers thought they recognized him from police wanted posters.

The 911 call from an unidentified manager of the Altoona, Pennsylvania, fast food restaurant was played in court on Monday during a suppression hearing in the murder and weapons case against the Maryland man, who prosecutors say stalked and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a protest statement against the high cost of medical care.

"I have a customer here that some other customers were suspicious of — that looks like the CEO shooter in NYC and they’re just really upset and they’re coming to me. I can’t approach him," the woman told the 911 operator, according to the tape.

When asked for a description of the suspect, she said, "He has a beanie pulled down, so the only thing you can see is his eyebrows."

In addition to the recording, prosecutors played surveillance video of Mangione entering the restaurant wearing a tan beanie, light blue medical mask and black winter coat and carrying a backpack. Only his eyes and eyebrows were visible. He ordered from a kiosk and then sat in the back of the McDonald’s by the bathroom.

Authorities have not identified the tipster or the 911 caller.

The manager apologized to the operator for making the call, saying, "It’s not really an emergency."

The caller then said she tried to Google a photo of the suspect, which police had released five days earlier, to compare, but ended up calling the emergency line instead.

Within minutes, policed arrived and began to question Mangione, asking him for identification, which he appeared to hand over to the officers.

The identification, a New Jersey driver’s license under the name Mark Rosario, turned out to be a fake, giving the police more reason to believe that the tipster was correct.

The reluctant call from the fast food manager ended a six-day search for the suspect, who prosecutors believe is Mangione. He is charged with murder, illegal weapons possession and forgery.

Prosecutors said Mangione staked out Thompson, 50, ahead of the insurer’s Dec. 4, 2024, investor meeting at the Hilton hotel on Sixth Avenue and West 54th Street.

They said he used a 9 mm ghost gun with a silencer to shoot the CEO twice — once in the back and once in the leg. — before fleeing uptown on a Citi Bike. Video surveillance footage showed a masked man approaching Thompson from behind on the sidewalk and firing a gun at him. The fatal shot entered the left side of his back and pierced Thompson’s liver and heart, prosecutors said in court papers. Thompson died at the scene.

Defense lawyers hope to convince acting State Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro in Manhattan that the arrest was unlawful and violated their client’s constitutional rights.

They also want to block prosecutors from showing the jury a notebook in which Mangione appears to zero in on the target, plot the execution and lay out the justification for the shooting.

They are hoping to argue that Pennsylvania police violated their client’s rights by questioning him before informing him of his rights and searching his bag without justification.

On Monday afternoon, correction officer Matt Henry, who monitored Mangione in the state prison in Huntington, Pennsylvania, while he was awaiting extradition to New York, testified that Mangione told him that he had a 3D-printed gun and foreign currency in his bag when he was arrested.

The officer, who said he was agitated about having to testify, said Mangione believed he was being accused of being a foreign agent because of the cash.

Mangione's attorney, Marc Agnifilo, cross-examined the officer, trying to cast doubt on his account.

"He stood there and blurted out, ‘I had a 3D-printed pistol’?” the attorney asked. The officer said yes.

"You weren’t asking him any questions, right?" Agnifilo pressed. "Out of nowhere, he said, ‘I had a 3D-printed pistol.’ Is that your testimony?"

Again the officer said yes.

Laughter erupted in the courtroom.

Another Pennsylvania correction officer, Thomas Rivers, who testified he was assigned to monitor Mangione in the prison because officials "did not want an [Jeffrey] Epstein-style situation," struck up a rapport with the prisoner. The prison guard said he and the inmate spoke about a wide variety of topics, including the hallucinogenic effects of mugwort, the writer Aldous Huxley and the difference between nationalized health care and private health care.

Rivers, who is British, said that he lived in several countries with national health care, but he said he couldn't remember the details of the discussion.

In September, Mangione’s lawyers successfully argued for the judge to drop two terrorism-related charges against him in state court.

He faces life in prison if convicted of the remaining murder and weapons charges.

Mangione also faces federal stalking and murder charges in Manhattan federal court.

U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi has promised to seek the death penalty if he’s convicted in federal court.

The suppression hearings started Monday morning and are likely to stretch into next week.