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Assassination of United Healthcare CEO

CNN reporting that he funded the escape by punching random boxes and collecting coins that spewed out of them.

This guy is really pissing me off. When arrested, he looked exactly like the pics of when he fled New York. Still had the blue COVID mask on and those ferrets stapled to his forehead. If the nitwit did a little grooming and threw on an Eagles jersey and Phillies cap or something, he'd have blended right in with the crowd, but he was still in that Assassin's Creed getup.

Longshot: was he still carrying the tainted fake ID and gun to plant them far away (but where they would be found), then doubling back, to throw investigation in the wrong direction? Grasping at straws, I know, but he had to know that ID was hot, and keeping it was only going to put another inarguable nail in his coffin.
 
NBC News now reporting that Luigi played a game with his college friends in which they took on the roles of assassins...

They're talking about Among Us.
 
No, I just wanted to remind you of how wrong you were.
Oh, so not discussion, just a pissy personal comment. Thanks for admitting that.

"Hired" was a poor likelihood, conceded. That he was working with someone else is more where I was going, and have said so for many pages. Did you find it productive to latch onto that one line and cling to it, ignoring pages of other discussion? Do you feel more right or something?

Don't forget, we still don't know what was going on. Even a little bit. All we know is that he was...after the fact...scribbling some kind of manifesto. I don't feel like we have the even broad brush answers yet. Do you have something more that leads you to such a firm conclusion?
 
"Hired" was a poor likelihood, conceded. That he was working with someone else is more where I was going, and have said so for many pages. Did you find it productive to latch onto that one line and cling to it, ignoring pages of other discussion? Do you feel more right or something?
Yes. Glad you have conceded that, finally.
 
NBC News now reporting that Luigi played a game with his college friends in which they took on the roles of assassins...

They're talking about Among Us.
Stop the presses! A zoomer that played a commonly themed game years ago? What will they dig up next? The school nurse once wouldn't put a band-aid on his boo-boo?

I hate disappointment. I hate Luigi.
 
CNN reporting that he funded the escape by punching random boxes and collecting coins that spewed out of them.

This guy is really pissing me off. When arrested, he looked exactly like the pics of when he fled New York. Still had the blue COVID mask on and those ferrets stapled to his forehead. If the nitwit did a little grooming and threw on an Eagles jersey and Phillies cap or something, he'd have blended right in with the crowd, but he was still in that Assassin's Creed getup.

Longshot: was he still carrying the tainted fake ID and gun to plant them far away (but where they would be found), then doubling back, to throw investigation in the wrong direction? Grasping at straws, I know, but he had to know that ID was hot, and keeping it was only going to put another inarguable nail in his coffin.


Looks like he did hide his bushy ferrets in the McD's. Doesn't look much like the guy at the hostel, either.



My theory is the Feds were already staking the guy out and the call from McD's meant they had to go in pronto, instead of biding their time.
 
Looks like he did hide his bushy ferrets in the McD's. Doesn't look much like the guy at the hostel, either.
Doesn't look remotely like the hostel and other pics, IMO. Also, the reporting was that he was found in the blue mask, hunched over a laptop. Someone just took a pic of an anonymous guy eating a hashbrown?

ETA: conspiracy theory: that pic is AI. Look at the size of those fingers.
My theory is the Feds were already staking the guy out and the call from McD's meant they had to go in pronto, instead of biding their time.
Doubt it. They wanted his ass in a big way. If they had any idea at all, they'd have been all over him.

What would be the benefit of believing he was on the bus and just following it around? You can be questioned at any time by police. The Altoona police did so, and got him in cuffs while the Feds and NYPD caught up.
 
No, I just wanted to remind you of how wrong you were.
I haven't seen anything in the past ten pages that rules out assassin-for-hire. But I do think that hypothesis multiplies entities unnecessarily.

Removing all the Kremlinology, sidebars, and wishful thinking, Thermal's position seems to me to be this: It's implausible that the assassin was in the right place at the right time, with the right gear, by coincidence or lucky break. That much I agree with. The number of entities necessary for a "lucky break" hypothesis is... implausible. To me, at least.

Thermal's hypothesis adds three entities: An accomplice, inside information, and a payment.

I think only the second entity, inside information, is truly necessary. I think there are a number of ways the killer could have gotten this information himself. The first entity, an accomplice, isn't much of a stretch beyond that. But there are many variations of this relationship that could lead to inside information. The addition of a payment is unnecessary, in my opinion.

I mean, look at the public reaction. It seems pretty clear there's no shortage of people in this country who are open to the idea of this being done for free, or for the principle of the thing. Even if this guy is one in a million, there's seven other people in New York ready and willing to do it, if the opportunity arose. All it takes is for one of them to be dating an executive admin, and there's your inside info.
 
According to weather dot com, it was 52 degrees in Altoona PA when the hommes here was arrested. He was wearing multiple layers, a heavy coat and scarf, and maybe a winter stocking cap. I'm starting to realize why he drew so much attention.
 
According to this picture below he didn't do a ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ thing with those damn eyebrows...unless they stapled them back on afterwards.

1733854306277.png
 
I haven't seen anything in the past ten pages that rules out assassin-for-hire. But I do think that hypothesis multiplies entities unnecessarily.

Removing all the Kremlinology, sidebars, and wishful thinking, Thermal's position seems to me to be this: It's implausible that the assassin was in the right place at the right time, with the right gear, by coincidence or lucky break. That much I agree with. The number of entities necessary for a "lucky break" hypothesis is... implausible. To me, at least.

Thermal's hypothesis adds three entities: An accomplice, inside information, and a payment.
I think only the second entity, inside information, is truly necessary. I think there are a number of ways the killer could have gotten this information himself. The first entity, an accomplice, isn't much of a stretch beyond that. But there are many variations of this relationship that could lead to inside information. The addition of a payment is unnecessary, in my opinion.

I mean, look at the public reaction. It seems pretty clear there's no shortage of people in this country who are open to the idea of this being done for free, or for the principle of the thing. Even if this guy is one in a million, there's seven other people in New York ready and willing to do it, if the opportunity arose. All it takes is for one of them to be dating an executive admin, and there's your inside info.
Payment not necessary. Kindred spirits with a common goal suffices.

Talking on a burner phone immediately before taking position is what I'm really latching onto, in addition to the several compounding coincidences needed to put him in precisely the right place and time.
 
Payment not necessary. Kindred spirits with a common goal suffices.

Talking on a burner phone immediately before taking position is what I'm really latching onto, in addition to the several compounding coincidences needed to put him in precisely the right place and time.

I agree that payment wasn't necessary because he was already wealthy and I think this was more about principal than anything else. Maybe it wasn't even about him. He could have come across an article about how someone using their healthcare got screwed over and that led him down a wormhole that brought him to the AI denying claims, etc.

I'm still quasi in the camp of the estranged wife playing a role in this somehow.
 
Payment not necessary. Kindred spirits with a common goal suffices.

Talking on a burner phone immediately before taking position is what I'm really latching onto, in addition to the several compounding coincidences needed to put him in precisely the right place and time.
Yeah, that's the Kremlinology I'm talking about. There's no point in latching on to arbitrary details. The boring truth is almost certainly that most criminals are dumb. Life is not an Agatha Christie novel. Most phenomena surrounding a crime are not clues to an elaborate plot to misdirect and confound the police.
 
Yeah, that's the Kremlinology I'm talking about. There's no point in latching on to arbitrary details. The boring truth is almost certainly that most criminals are dumb. Life is not an Agatha Christie novel. Most phenomena surrounding a crime are not clues to an elaborate plot to misdirect and confound the police.
I don't know what you are talking about. Are you proposing that talking on a burner phone immediately before taking position is not likely significant? Just logging in some quick anonymous phone sex or something?

And wtf is with this "Kremlinology"? Its observable action, and actions have meaning in context. Deducing that the call was connected to its immediately following (and incredibly opportune) behavior is not exactly Kremlinology.
 
I don't know what you are talking about. Are you proposing that talking on a burner phone immediately before taking position is not likely significant? Just logging in some quick anonymous phone sex or something?

And wtf is with this "Kremlinology"? Its observable action, and actions have meaning in context. Deducing that the call was connected to its immediately following (and incredibly opportune) behavior is not exactly Kremlinology.
Stipulated. But why latch onto this one detail? Why infer anything at all from it, other than that it was probably part of the job?
 
Yeah, that's the Kremlinology I'm talking about. There's no point in latching on to arbitrary details. The boring truth is almost certainly that most criminals are dumb. Life is not an Agatha Christie novel. Most phenomena surrounding a crime are not clues to an elaborate plot to misdirect and confound the police.
Yeah I bet the truth is boring. Kid grows up rich and resents his rich family - old story. He has persistent back pain and despite his dad running UHC he can't get it fixed somehow apparently. Sells his house and runs to Hawaii. The conference with investors was probably well known within certain circles - I can visualise the LinkedIn etc announcements - Quintus P Mumforairmiles III will be attending the investors conference today at... Or he's still on a mailing list somewhere or..... ?
The burner? Maybe he didn't want his location tracked - half the episodes of NCIS have them checking cell towers.

Who he was talking to? Possibly prosaic but that's the odd one. Unless he was swinging to the dumb side again and calling his girlfriend or pal. "Hey! Guess what I'm doing?"
 
Stipulated. But why latch onto this one detail? Why infer anything at all from it, other than that it was probably part of the job?

Right. Why even talk about anything with the crime at all? Why latch on to anything? What's the point? Why not let every thread die so that theprestige no longer has the ability to write smug bull ◊◊◊◊ that's trivially off-topic and generally comes off as talking down to everyone so that everyone on the forum can know how cool he is because nothing matters and no one knows anything. Am I doing it right?

Seriously, what's your ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ point? You just want to ◊◊◊◊ on conversation or are you actually going somewhere with this smug, nihilistic holier than thou nonsense?
 
Stipulated. But why latch onto this one detail? Why infer anything at all from it, other than that it was probably part of the job?
"Part of the job" is exactly what we are trying to suss out. What job? Right now, the prevailing theory from our posters is "random rich nut job with stunning good luck". That phone call was the first action in a very short chain of events that ended with Thompson being ventilated. That, to me, indicates another party involved, in contradiction to the prevailing narrative. At least one co-conspirator, if you will.
 
Yes, we all know this, and have for about a century. So what?

It was not. We discussed this in depth upthread.

Because they are on a private internal mailing list. We did this already. Have you not been reading this thread?

Yes. {ETA: I am wondering more and more about this. Posters have been insisting that Thompson was the intended target, because of the words on the shell casings. But I'm not so sure Witty wasn't the intended target, and Luigi got entirely he wrong guy? I mean, if we are interpreting every event as part of a zany madcap sitcom plot}

I'm sure luck played a part, both good and bad. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a part that seems to have been planned.

He was videoed walking around a block away, talking on a burner phone at 6:30AM. After this call, he goes straight to the ambush spot and waits. For like 5 mins, and the (presumed) target walks right in front of him.

So ok. We know now that family and friends say he had gone "poof" for about a year (I don'rt actually believe this, but it kinda sorta helps to account for why no one IDed him from the circulated pics for a week). So who was he talking to on a freaking burner phone immediately before the ambush? You think he was calling for the current time? Maybe checking the surf report?

They have the phone (presumably), and the call logs will be telling, especially the number he was making/receiving the call he was on. And how often they were in contact and when, etc.
Here's a few problems with your scenario.
I think you're relying far too much on media reports that easily could be wrong. For example even if he was seen before talking on a phone. And a burner phone was found. Do we know for sure that the two are the same phone? I think the answer is no. Certainly it's a good guess.

But I bet you dollars to donuts, this guy is a solo nut. I had given some thought that he was working with someone for the reasons you have mentioned in this thread. I have thought it could have been the wife or maybe a mob hit. But pre-meditated murders make up less than 5% of all murders. And murder conspiracies are even more rare. And given how sloppy he's actually been, I think it's highly unlikely there is a co-conspirator.
 
"Part of the job" is exactly what we are trying to suss out. What job? Right now, the prevailing theory from our posters is "random rich nut job with stunning good luck". That phone call was the first action in a very short chain of events that ended with Thompson being ventilated. That, to me, indicates another party involved, in contradiction to the prevailing narrative. At least one co-conspirator, if you will.

To play devil's advocate, it could have been his "fair well" call to someone, as you were saying, a family member or maybe a girlfriend. Although he was flirting with the girl from the hostel.

That being said, while people are saying this isn't Jason Bourne or some novel, and that might be true, that doesn't mean it wasn't to good ol' Luigi here. He obviously didn't intend to get caught or why go through all the bull ◊◊◊◊ of getting out of the state?
 
But I bet you dollars to donuts, this guy is a solo nut. I had given some thought that he was working with someone for the reasons you have mentioned in this thread. I have thought it could have been the wife or maybe a mob hit. But pre-meditated murders make up less than 5% of all murders. And murder conspiracies are even more rare. And given how sloppy he's actually been, I think it's highly unlikely there is a co-conspirator.

You say that but he might not have thought it was sloppy at all. He might have thought he had everything planned out, textbook style, from top to bottom. We're all sitting here with hindsight and days to review what actually happened. In the moment I think we all would probably make mistakes, no matter how well we planned it out and people would be calling us sloppy too.
 
To play devil's advocate, it could have been his "fair well" call to someone, as you were saying, a family member or maybe a girlfriend. Although he was flirting with the girl from the hostel.

That being said, while people are saying this isn't Jason Bourne or some novel, and that might be true, that doesn't mean it wasn't to good ol' Luigi here. He obviously didn't intend to get caught or why go through all the bull ◊◊◊◊ of getting out of the state?
I don't know where the Jason Bourne thing is coming from. What I am proposing is the lowest of low tech and mundane explanations.

Guy walks around getting breakfast and stuff a block or two away. Talks on a burner phone, then straight to the ambush spot where, minutes later, Thompson is ventilated.

Many here: "Just a whacky sequence of complete coincidences"
Me: "Isn't the most mundane explanation that he was given information on that call to take position?"
 
Many here: "Just a whacky sequence of complete coincidences"
Me: "Isn't the most mundane explanation that he was given information on that call to take position?"

Depends on the duration of the phone call. If it came from someone near him that would know his schedule, I wouldn't think they'd be talking on the phone for longer than 20-30 seconds. I doubt you'd have a full blown conversation about the plan right before it happens. He was at the end game. Outside of where Thompson was going to be and when there isn't much more to discuss, I wouldn't think.
 
Yeah I bet the truth is boring. Kid grows up rich and resents his rich family - old story. He has persistent back pain and despite his dad running UHC he can't get it fixed somehow apparently. Sells his house and runs to Hawaii. The conference with investors was probably well known within certain circles - I can visualise the LinkedIn etc announcements - Quintus P Mumforairmiles III will be attending the investors conference today at... Or he's still on a mailing list somewhere or..... ?
The burner? Maybe he didn't want his location tracked - half the episodes of NCIS have them checking cell towers.

Who he was talking to? Possibly prosaic but that's the odd one. Unless he was swinging to the dumb side again and calling his girlfriend or pal. "Hey! Guess what I'm doing?"
Or maybe he was confirming with his accomplice that Eagle was on the move, Route A.
 
Film noir version: strangers on a train. He met the estranged wife and <fast forward a bit> they swapped murders. Now we just need to work out which of his enemies she bumped off.
 
Depends on the duration of the phone call. If it came from someone near him that would know his schedule, I wouldn't think they'd be talking on the phone for longer than 20-30 seconds. I doubt you'd have a full blown conversation about the plan right before it happens. He was at the end game. Outside of where Thompson was going to be and when there isn't much more to discuss, I wouldn't think.
All of which bakes right in my posit: there's a conspirator, Luigi isn't a lone nut.

My guess is that the particular convo wasn't long, as you say. But if there were other calls, and to other numbers over the last week or more, things could get interesting.
 
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