Luigi Mangione, the man charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, spent years documenting his struggles with various health conditions and expressing growing frustration with medical providers before the fatal shooting, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In extensive social media posts reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mangione detailed his battles with chronic pain, sleep disorders, and cognitive issues, frequently seeking advice from online communities about conditions including brain fog and back pain.
Before his arrest this month, Mangione maintained an active presence on Reddit, where he discussed topics ranging from Pokémon Go to bioinformatics. By 2018, his focus shifted notably to health concerns, particularly posts about irritable bowel syndrome and visual snow, a neurological condition causing visual disturbances.
During his time at the University of Pennsylvania, Mangione frequently wrote about his deteriorating health. He attributed the onset of his cognitive issues to a period of sleep deprivation during fraternity initiation, writing, "I simply wasn't able to recover from a week of disturbed sleep. It's absolutely brutal to have such a life-halting issue."
Despite his health challenges, Mangione achieved academic success, completing both bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science at Penn in 2020 and earning induction into an academic honor society. A former classmate interviewed said he never heard Mangione mention his health struggles.
By early 2022, while living in Hawaii and working remotely as a data engineer, Mangione reported that a surfing accident had worsened his spondylolisthesis, a spinal condition. His posts detailed increasing physical symptoms, including nerve pain and muscle twitching.
Dr. Padma Gulur, a pain medicine specialist at Duke Health who was not involved in Mangione's care, explained that chronic pain can significantly impact both mental health and social connections. "It can be very disruptive," she told The Wall Street Journal.
After undergoing spinal fusion surgery in July 2023, Mangione initially reported positive results. "At day eight I was taking zero pain meds and haven't had a bad day since," he posted in October 2023.
"We live in a capitalist society," Mangione wrote on Reddit in an April post suggesting that people tell doctors they are "unable to work" to get spine surgery approval. "I've found that the medical industry responds to these keywords far more urgently than you describing unbearable pain and how it's impacting your quality of life," he wrote.
