Images of unmasked suspect emerge as police track CEO’s killer
NEW YORK — Security-camera images of a man wearing a hooded jacket and an easy smile. A fake ID. A cellphone found on a Manhattan sidewalk. Bullets marked with the words “deny” and “delay.”
Investigators chased those and other leads Thursday as the search for the person who fatally shot Brian Thompson, the CEO of the huge insurer UnitedHealthcare, stretched into a second day.
By late Thursday, the shooter’s travels before the brazen slaying were coming into focus, a senior law enforcement official said. He arrived in New York on a bus from somewhere south of the city on Nov. 24, checked into an Upper West Side hostel sometime after that, left on Nov. 29 and checked back in the next day, the official said.
As the search for the suspect continued, law enforcement authorities appeared to be focused on a gun bought in Connecticut that resembled the one used in what police say was a targeted attack.
The shooting stunned a city heading into a festive holiday season, shocked an industry that regarded the victim highly and prompted an ugly outpouring online among those who view health insurers as villains.
By Thursday, amid the schadenfreude and grief, the shock had receded as investigators pursued their quarry methodically and New Yorkers were left to wonder when the shooter would be caught.
More than 24 hours after the killing and despite an avalanche of tips, authorities were still uncertain of the man’s name, according to two law-enforcement officials familiar with the investigation.
Police were offering a $10,000 reward for information about the crime, and said they were digging into Thompson’s background and exploring social media for clues.
He had recently received several threats, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. The source and exact nature of the threats was unclear, the official said.
Thompson, 50, was shot from behind just before sunrise Wednesday as he arrived at the New York Hilton Midtown on West 54th Street for an investors’ gathering. The killing was captured on video that showed a hooded assailant with his face covered.
After firing at least three times, the shooter ran through a nearby passageway to West 55th Street, where police said he jumped on a bike and rode into Central Park.
On Thursday, police released two photos of the man who they believe to be the shooter with his mask down. The images appeared to be from the hostel, the HI New York City Hostel. It was unclear when they were taken.
The man used a fake New Jersey ID to book a room at the hostel that he shared with two strangers for at least a portion of his stay, according to a senior law enforcement official.
The hostel was a hive of activity Thursday. John Nielsen, who was visiting the city from Denmark, said he had spent the past eight days there.
Nielsen said there had been “a lot of police” at the hostel when he returned there at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. They had gone up and down the floors of the building “many times.” He questioned the suspect’s decision to stay there.
“That’s not clever, because there is recording, video all over the place,” Nielsen said. “You don’t check in in a place with so many people.”
Arturo Rodriguez, a visitor from Mexico, said he worried that he might have shared a room with the shooter. But shown the photos released by police, Rodriguez said he said he did not recognize the man.
A spokesperson for the operator, Hostelling International USA, declined to comment.
“We are fully cooperating with the NYPD and, as this is an active investigation, cannot comment at this time,” the spokesperson, Danielle Brumfitt Norris, said.
Although the killer’s motive, like the killer himself, remained elusive, the marked bullets suggested that Thompson might have been gunned down by someone simmering with murderous rage over the company’s practices. But no other evidence to support that theory had emerged by Thursday evening.
The words on casings found at the shooting site could describe tactics used by health insurance companies seeking to avoid paying patients’ claims.
The terms “delay” and “deny” are so linked to such practices that they were part of the title of the 2010 book “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.”
UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation’s largest health insurers and a main unit of the conglomerate UnitedHealth Group, has been fiercely criticized by patients, lawmakers and others for its denials of claims.
Thompson’s killing unleashed a torrent of criticism, and morbid jokes on social media and worse in real life.
About 12 hours after Thompson died, police officers in Maple Grove, Minnesota, where he lived, investigated a bomb threat apparently targeting his family.
A police report said the small suburban department had sought help from the Minneapolis bomb squad as they searched two residences fruitlessly. The report did not make clear whether the threat was linked to the killing.
Thompson became UnitedHealthcare’s CEO in April 2021 after rising through the company ranks for more than 20 years. The division reported $281 billion in revenue last year. It provides coverage to more than 50 million Americans through plans sold to individuals, employers and people under government programs like Medicare.
Thompson oversaw substantial growth in a key business: the sale of private Medicare Advantage plans under a program that is mainly for those 65 and older and receives federal funds.
A Senate committee this year investigated Medicare Advantage plans over the denial of nursing care to patients recovering from falls and strokes. The panel concluded that three major companies — UnitedHealthcare, Humana and CVS, which owns Aetna — were intentionally denying claims for this expensive care to increase profits.
UnitedHealthcare did not respond to a request for comment about its history of claim denial.
The shooting occurred as Thompson arrived early at the hotel to prepare for a UnitedHealthcare investors’ day gathering, an event where major shareholders and analysts who track the company hear from executives and pepper them with questions.
The killer, according to images released by police and security-camera footage, wore a dark hooded jacket, a gray backpack and a mask covering the bottom of his face.
Apparently knowing which door Thompson planned to enter, the shooter arrived outside the hotel several minutes before his intended target and ignored passersby as he lay in wait.
After the shooting, Jessica Tisch, the recently named police commissioner, said her department would use every resource to track down the shooter.
Detectives, dogs and drones fanned out across the city as part of the search for a gunman whom police described as “proficient” with firearms.
The weapon used in the killing was a subject of close scrutiny. Investigators were examining the purchase in Connecticut of a gun similar to the one used in the shooting and were trying to determine whether the buyer could be the suspect, according to two officials briefed on the investigation.
Also being studied for a possible link to the gunman was a cellphone found near the shooting site. The police had not gained access to the device by Thursday, said a person with knowledge of the investigation.
Another item found near the murder scene, a water bottle, proved to be a dead end. It yielded a fingerprint believed to belong to the shooter that was too smudged to be of value, according to one of the senior law enforcement officials.
One of investigators’ main goals continues to be finding an image of the suspect in which his face is entirely visible, said the official, who described the man as extremely camera-savvy. Even in the pictures released Thursday, he is wearing a hood.
Still, Mayor Eric Adams, in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” expressed confidence Thursday that investigators were on the right path and were “going to apprehend this person.”
As day became night, though, the killer was still on the loose.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2024 The New York Times Company
