OAN Staff Cory Hawkins
1:35 PM – Monday, December 8, 2025
Accused killer Luigi Mangione fist-pumped in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, in a striking display of oddly upbeat demeanor as the lengthy evidence hearing in his murder case continues. He has pleaded not guilty.
Manigone, 27, flexed his right arm as he leaned in to listen to Karen Friedman Agnofilo, one of his attorneys. Mangione, sitting at the defense table, faces both state and federal charges in relation to the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on December 4, 2024.
The multi-day suppression hearing, now on its fifth day, where Mangione’s defense team is challenging the admissibility of evidence from his arrest, included witness testimonies, bodycam footage, and 911 audio.
Mangione showcased rapid change in demeanor as Christy Wasser, the Pennsylvania police officer who initially searched his backpack the day of his arrest, took the stand. Mangione then looked toward the floor as Wasser spoke and presented bodycam footage of the search — being played on courtroom televisions.
Newly surfaced photographs revealed a handwritten “checklist” that included a trip to Best Buy and a “future TO DO” involving a survival kit. A digital camera, flashlight, and a USB 256 flash drive were crossed out on a Best Buy shopping list, and “Intel check in” and “survival kit” were written down under “Future TO DO.”
Among his belongings, investigators also found a bus ticket, displaying the name “Sam Dawson,” for a Philadelphia-to-Pittsburgh trip scheduled for December 4th — the day Mangione purportedly shot and killed Thompson.
Wasser’s testimony as a police officer could prove crucial to the suppression hearings, as authorities say they had recovered a 3D-printed 9mm pistol and a manifesto by Mangione, which allegedly discussed the “evils” of the health insurance industry. Mangione’s attorneys will likely wish to suppress these pieces of evidence, and so far, they have remarked that the recovered items were found via an “illegal, warrantless search.” If the evidence is suppressed, hypothetically, it would be extremely difficult to establish that Mangione possessed the gun that killed Thompson.
“[The officer] did not search the bag because she reasonably thought there might be a bomb, but rather this was an excuse designed to cover up an illegal warrantless search of the backpack,” defense attorneys argued in a court filing. “This made-up bomb claim further shows that even she believed at the time that there were constitutional issues with her search, forcing her to attempt to salvage this debacle by making this spurious claim.”
Agnofilo testified that during the initial search of Mangione’s backpack at a McDonalds, where his arrest took place, the officer “missed the loaded handgun, silencer, and journal” buried deep in the bag.
Bodycam footage depicts Wasser searching through the bag with gloves as Mangione stands nearby, hands cuffed, as the officer takes out a knife, a sandwich, a loaf of bread, a cell phone and a passport in a “Faraday bag” that blocks cell signals, and a fully loaded magazine wrapped in damp underwear.
After the search of the backpack, officers are then seen debating whether a warrant was needed for the search, though they reportedly came to the conclusion that one was not needed. Wasser noted in the footage, and on the stand, that she was worried the bag contained a bomb — not wanting to unknowingly bring a bomb to the station.
Wasser also testified that she only found the gun 15 minutes later after conducting a second search of the bag at the police station.
The accused 27-year-old killer, along with his supporters, watched on Monday as prosecutors played surveillance footage of the Thompson shooting, the 911 call from McDonald’s that resulted in his arrest, and related body cam footage from his arrest and interrogation.
Mangione has plead not guilty to his state and federal murder charges, and if convicted, he could face the death penalty. Federal prosecutors formally notified the court of their intent to seek the death penalty if Mangione is convicted on the federal charge of murder through the use of a firearm, despite New York state not imposing the death penalty. The federal case carries this possibility.
He is being held pretrial at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
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