One of the police officers who arrested Luigi Mangione last year has described the moment she discovered a loaded gun magazine wrapped in wet underwear in his backpack.
At a pretrial hearing at the New York State Supreme Court on Monday, Pennsylvania police officer Christy Wasser testified that she pushed for Mangione’s bag to be searched on the spot because she was worried he may have a bomb on him.
The loaded magazine, she said, was what convinced she and her fellow officers that Mangione was indeed the person who had killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan five days earlier.
“It’s f***ing him, 100 percent,” one officer could be heard saying on a bodycam video.
Officers said they would later find a 9mm handgun, a silencer, a passport, and handwritten notes including maps and details of transport routes, which prosecutors describe as a list of “possible escape routes.”
But Mangione’s defense lawyers contend that the bag search was illegal because the officers did not yet have a warrant, and want the gun and notebook excluded as evidence — which would be a major blow for the prosecution.
They also want to suppress some of Mangione’s statements to police, such as his allegedly giving a false name, because officers started asking questions before telling him he had a right to remain silent.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to two separate state and federal murder charges. An earlier court date was delayed due to illness, but he seemed in good health on Monday’s hearing, which applies only to the state charges.
At one point, he looked directly at a photojournalist’s camera and made a fist with his right hand.
Wasser — a 19-year veteran of the Altona Police Department in Pennsylvania — described in court how officers debated whether they would need a warrant to continue their search of Mangione’s backpack.
The search happened in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s on December 9, 2024, about 230 miles west of where Thompson was killed. A patron at the restaurant had phoned 911 and described seeing someone who resembled the suspect inside.
Officers said they initially arrested Mangione for showing them a fake ID, and asked him if there was anything in the bag they should be concerned about. Mangione, now informed of his rights, invoked the Fifth Amendment to remain silent.
That response, Wasser told the court, “heightened” her fear that there was something dangerous in the bag. One police corporal, Garrett Trent, suggested taking it back to the station to “check for bombs”.
But Wasser wanted to check for bombs on the spot because she had once had a colleague who unknowingly brought a bomb back to the station.
Bodycam footage then showed her extracting from the bag a hoagie, a loaf of bread, a knife, and a cell phone, a wallet, and a passport wrapped in a Faraday bag — designed to block cell reception, GPS, and other electronic signals.
Then she said they found the gun magazine wrapped in a wet pair of grey underwear, reportedly smiling at the discovery. Satisfied that there was no bomb, she repacked the bag.
Corporal Trent then said that they would need a warrant to continue the search. But Stephen Fox, a K-9 officer, said: “We don’t need one, it’s a search incident to an arrest.” Others agreed.
Mangione’s lawyers have argued that the supposed fear of a bomb was merely a ploy by officers, “designed to cover up an illegal warrantless search of the backpack.”
Either way, Mangione’s backpack was brought back to the station for a more thorough search, whereupon Wasser said she quickly discovered the gun and the silencer.
Wasser made a surprised noise and then exclaimed: “Wooh, hoo hoo hoo!” A senior colleague said: “It’s him.” “Oh my God,” Wasser responded.
In court, Wasser testified that she also she found a hand-drawn map featuring Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Columbus, Ohio, plus the note “check Pittsburgh red eye.” Prosecutors called this a list of “possible escape routes”.
