The Story Is Offline

Alleged murderer Luigi Mangione left a digital trail but no answers.

- John Herrman

AS SOON AS THE IDENTITY of Luigi Mangione, the man alleged to have shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was revealed, the online hunt-a familiar collective ritual-began. The basic dossier came together fast: Mangione had accounts on X, on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Goodreads. There was, maybe, a Tinder profile; finding his Reddit took a day. Reporters and social-media users noted possible retrospective red flags, eerie fragments of information, and small ironies. On Goodreads, Mangione had posted a contrarian, and favorable, response to Ted Kaczynski's manifesto. Was it evidence of violent tendencies? He'd reviewed a couple of books about back pain, and on Reddit, he wrote about suffering from a spinal condition. He was a member of a sub-Reddit devoted to efficient backpacks: Had he been planning in plain sight all along? On X, he posted about artificial intelligence and followed some anti-woke pundits: Had Mangione tumbled down a slippery slope? Was he black-pilled? Some sort of accelerationist? The frenzy to assign meaning to his extensive output, however, soon collided with a surprising reality: His online presence was mostly normal. One could spend hours reading his posts, sifting through his follows, and assembling a profile of his profiles, but the supportable theories would be pretty thin. The way Mangione presented himself on the internet was consonant with his identity and context as a 20-something striver with one foot in the tech industry.