Luigi Mangione pleads guilty to CEO shooting

**Oliver Conway** (0:00)
This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Saturday, the 15th of August. High profile murder suspect, Luigi Mangione admits killing a healthcare boss in New York. Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor who resigned over accusations of plagiarism is found dead. And President Trump says he will soon declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory. Also, in this podcast.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
People drive around at 150 km per hour, even though the speed limit on most roads is 90 Because it's believed that driving that fast can reduce the probability of a drone hitting your car.

**Oliver Conway** (0:42)
How the war against Ukraine is affecting daily life in Russia. And Jeff Bezos buys a steak in English football.
But first, to a case that has gripped America. Health insurance boss Brian Thompson was shot dead outside a hotel in Manhattan in December 2024
Now, the high-profile suspect, Luigi Mangione, has confessed to the killing in a New York court. The case has divided opinion in the US, highlighting the anger some Americans feel about the trillion-dollar healthcare industry. Some called Mangione a hero who took a stand. This was how his lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, defended his actions outside the court.

**Karen Friedman Agnifilo** (1:26)
As Luigi explained in court today, he endured years of severe, debilitating pain following a broken back, while struggling to navigate our healthcare and health insurance systems. Like the thousands of people who have reached out since this tragedy to share their own experiences, he believed that the system had failed him and destroyed his life.

**Oliver Conway** (1:48)
For others though, he is a criminal who stalked and murdered an innocent man. This was New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

**Jessica Tisch** (1:56)
To those who idolise Luigi Mangione, I say this, violence is not a cause, murder is not a message and a killer is certainly not a hero.

**Oliver Conway** (2:08)
Our correspondent, Neda Taufik, was in court in New York. She spoke to my colleague, Charlotte Gallagher.

**Neda Taufik** (2:14)
I was a few rows back from where Luigi Mangione was seated with a direct view of him as he entered that plea of guilty. And the judge, after asking him a series of questions about whether he understood that he was waiving his right to a trial, asking if he was competent to make this decision and whether he understood that he could be facing life in prison, after he answered all of those questions very calmly, she then asked him to describe in his own words why he was guilty. And that was some of the most dramatic moments of this hearing, because he began speaking, still seated in a tan prison uniform, saying that he had killed Brian Thompson in Manhattan and that he had planned to do it. And he said, I knew what I was doing. He described how, after enduring years of back pain and navigating, trying to navigate the insurance industry without any luck, that he began researching and planning to go to this UnitedHealthcare annual investor conference, that he used a 3D printer to make a gun, and that he had the full intent to go there and to kill Mr. Thompson, a father of two.
So, to hear Luigi Mangione set it out in that way in court with Mr. Thompson's family right there, emotional and listening to this, was quite a moment in court. The judge then made sure he understood that she would decide on December 18th during sentencing how long he would spend in prison.
We already know from prosecutors that they plan to seek life in prison. The defense are hoping that he gets less than that. But this was really, of course, a dramatic moment in this legal process because it's not just this federal case. This now impacts the state trial that was due to beginning just a few weeks on September 8th.

**Charlotte Gallagher** (4:16)
The reaction to this case has been really polarizing. With some believing Mangione is a folk hero almost, does it underline how unhappy people are in the US with corporations?

**Neda Taufik** (4:29)
Look, I think any American you speak to can share their own stories of frustrations with the health care industry. It is a very difficult system to navigate, very expensive. So nobody denies that it is a system that needs reform. And I think this does underline just how much people's sense of inequality.
You know, people talk about often how they feel corporate interests are trumping those of ordinary people in today's society. I think all of this is certainly something that plays into why there's this surprising level of public support for Luigi Mangione. And what we've seen and we heard there with the clips you played is this attempt by public officials to reiterate that that does not justify murder, that at the end of the day, Luigi Mangione, and he has pleaded guilty to that today, has taken the life of a father of two, a CEO, in a brazen killing in New York, and that he should not be justified as a modern day vigilante taking justice into his own hands.