Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is no. They called
Speaker 3: me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan,
Speaker 3: the Tennessee pal Fake and most importantly, you are here.
Speaker 3: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: This may be one of the last times we record
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four. You guys, can you believe it?
Speaker 2: Yay?
Speaker 3: Can you believe how far we've come? How far we've fallen?
Speaker 3: Or risen? I can believe depending on where you stand.
Speaker 3: So happy New Year, folks. We are recording on let's
Speaker 3: see December twentieth. If you are hearing this episode the
Speaker 3: day it publishes, you have made it to twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: and we hope we have too. I think we probably
Speaker 3: will have. You know, knock on wood and can you
Speaker 3: hear that that's real wood? That's a solid No, it's
Speaker 3: more of a compositemy. We paid extra. So this evening
Speaker 3: we are recording in person in our studios and we're
Speaker 3: exploring a conspiracy that is ongoing. We will not have
Speaker 3: all the answers, but as you know, whether or not
Speaker 3: you live in the United States, a young man named
Speaker 3: Luigi Mangioni has been recently arrested on the suspicion of
Speaker 3: murdering a United Healthcare CEO named Brian Thompson. And in
Speaker 3: the aftermath of the events, we've started to witness this
Speaker 3: narrative war, you know, on multiple fronts. How would you
Speaker 3: guys characterize that.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean he's sort of been almost like elevated
Speaker 4: as this Robin Hood esque sort of freedom fighter friend
Speaker 4: of the people, you know, taking out the big bads
Speaker 4: at the corporations and all that, which I think is
Speaker 4: a little bit of a snow more.
Speaker 3: But it's interesting to see the discourse.
Speaker 2: I would just say it has thrown into the spotlight
Speaker 2: the situation that all of us in the United States,
Speaker 2: all citizens in the United States, find themselves in where
Speaker 2: there's mandated private healthcare for profit, and it's just highlighting
Speaker 2: all of that. While at the same time, as you said,
Speaker 2: the Robin Hood thing is very real and it is
Speaker 2: kind of overwhelming to see the reaction of most of
Speaker 2: the public coming out positively about someone being murdered.
Speaker 3: Versus media empire. So I was talking to our pal
Speaker 3: Medna Gandhi about this versus media empires, who seem to
Speaker 3: be pushing for a very different narrative from the one
Speaker 3: the public champions. So now we have to ask what
Speaker 3: exactly happened? Will dive in after a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts, all right, let's start with the victim. Well,
Speaker 3: let's start with the guy who got shot. As we'll
Speaker 3: see to your earlier point, Matt, there are arguably many
Speaker 3: victims in this story. Brian Robert Thompson. He's the CEO,
Speaker 3: or was the CEO of United health Care, that is,
Speaker 3: the insurance arm of a larger company, a parent group
Speaker 3: called United Health Group. They are very confusing, somewhat bland names.
Speaker 3: He's had this position since twenty twenty one, and as
Speaker 3: executives go, he's pretty young in the game. He's fifty
Speaker 3: years old, so by all accounts, he seems set to
Speaker 3: continue his career despite what we'll learn is a lot
Speaker 3: of controversy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's been at the company for twenty years
Speaker 2: and he had run like the medicare arm of it
Speaker 2: for quite a while, so you know, it's he was
Speaker 2: very experienced in what he did. I want to just
Speaker 2: quickly put something here. This is what I didn't understand,
Speaker 2: and we've encountered this actually here guys, United Healthcare has
Speaker 2: that insurance arm you're talking about, right, or the health
Speaker 2: group Unite Healthcare. And then the other thing is the
Speaker 2: optim Yes, Optum, so that is something we've encountered specifically
Speaker 2: with prescriptions, but they do all kinds of other stuff.
Speaker 2: And I just quickly wanted to read this because I
Speaker 2: didn't know anything about them. Sure, if you go on
Speaker 2: their website and you go under business, it says Optum
Speaker 2: delivers care aided by technology and data, empowering people, partners
Speaker 2: and providers with the guidance and tools they need to
Speaker 2: achieve better health. But the important thing there is technology
Speaker 2: and data.
Speaker 3: Data. Yeah, yeah, leveraging data. It's something that we've talked
Speaker 3: about in years past, the idea of weaponizing personal information
Speaker 3: against consumer, which can't really happen in a lot of
Speaker 3: state supported healthcare programs, but can definitely happen in privatized,
Speaker 3: profit driven programs. And this is something that Brian Thompson
Speaker 3: also comes under fire for in the events leading up
Speaker 3: to earlier this December. I think for a lot of people,
Speaker 3: when you hear the name United Health Group, you think
Speaker 3: you kind of glaze over, you tune out. You know,
Speaker 3: who cares? That is such a boring name. Right, it's
Speaker 3: not doing anything for Meuse it.
Speaker 2: Up a little unless you're an investor. Right.
Speaker 3: If you're an investor, then you're also looking at their
Speaker 3: stock and you're looking at their revenue, which grows year
Speaker 3: over year. They're so big, they're a leviathan. They're extremely profitable,
Speaker 3: I would say, as profitable as they are unpopular. In
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three alone, you guys, their revenue grew forty
Speaker 3: seven point five billion dollars. That's not the total, that's
Speaker 3: how much it grew.
Speaker 4: Well, And you know, that's the thing with privatizing healthcare,
Speaker 4: because then it starts to fit into that rubric of
Speaker 4: you know, forever growth being kind of the name of
Speaker 4: the game. And it's not like people's health needs change.
Speaker 4: So where does that growth come from?
Speaker 2: Well to we're going to get into full numbers here,
Speaker 2: but according to their third quarter results that they reported
Speaker 2: in mid October of this year, that growth came to
Speaker 2: the tune of two point four million new users or
Speaker 2: consumers that are served by United.
Speaker 3: Health because it's a product, yes, right.
Speaker 2: And just in that third quarter of this year in October,
Speaker 2: they had revenues of one hundred point eight billion dollars
Speaker 2: and they grew eight point five billions, So that's a
Speaker 2: that's a quarter of their growth for that year, for
Speaker 2: this year plus if you're looking at twenty twenty three
Speaker 2: numbers that we were just talking about, it's mind blowing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And this would be a company that would be available
Speaker 4: to just average you know, maybe self employed people who
Speaker 4: would want to get healthcare through the market to.
Speaker 3: Invest in or wait, you mean, could somebody just on
Speaker 3: their own without a company, right, do something like that.
Speaker 3: That's a good question. We know that a lot of
Speaker 3: their profit is driven by making deals with companies overall,
Speaker 3: you know, sort of like how some car manufacturers make
Speaker 3: a lot of their sales through fleet vehicles. Right. So
Speaker 3: they they're just so huge there, I think we get
Speaker 3: to the conversation of too big to fail or too
Speaker 3: big to exist in the case of healthcare. For twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three, their revenue was three hundred and seventy one
Speaker 3: point six billion dollars. By metric. They're huge. That's how
Speaker 3: is that even a real number?
Speaker 2: And that's that's revenue. That's just the revenue based on
Speaker 2: serving people healthcare, and that's their.
Speaker 3: Revenue denying clay investing premiums right, because every premium you
Speaker 3: don't have to pay back on is some money you
Speaker 3: can play with in investments, dude.
Speaker 4: And there aren't any regulations around that. I mean, shouldn't
Speaker 4: that money be sitting inro or something a.
Speaker 3: Little of regulations to protect private insurance companies.
Speaker 2: But that's not what it's about. Going back to that earnings,
Speaker 2: the third quarter earnings of twenty twenty four, they say
Speaker 2: third quarter earnings of six dollars and fifty one cents
Speaker 2: per share, which includes previous cyber attack impacts that they
Speaker 2: had on the bottom line, which was a big deal
Speaker 2: for United Healthcare in the recent past. But just think
Speaker 2: about what that means. A growth of six dollars six
Speaker 2: and a half dollars right per share. So if you
Speaker 2: are just a person that is investing in the corporation
Speaker 2: and maybe you're not even using their services at all,
Speaker 2: you are making bank.
Speaker 3: Right as long as the system continues according to the
Speaker 3: status quo. This is where we get back to Thompson,
Speaker 3: there's something a bit cinematic. All right. So it's early December,
Speaker 3: less than a month ago as we record, and Thompson
Speaker 3: is in New York City. It's December fourth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: He's planning to attend an annual investors meeting or conference
Speaker 3: for the parent company, United health Group. We don't know
Speaker 3: how the meeting would have gone, but we already know
Speaker 3: there was a lot of tension because, first off, there's
Speaker 3: so much money on the line. We should mention United
Speaker 3: health Group is the world's largest healthcare company by revenue,
Speaker 3: and just overall, if you looked at all the big
Speaker 3: companies in the world by revenue, it's in the top ten.
Speaker 3: It's the world's ninth largest company. Ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and can we just let's just reiterate there of
Speaker 2: what you just said, Ben, This was an investor conference.
Speaker 2: This was not a how do we make United Healthcare
Speaker 2: services better? This was how do we make more money
Speaker 2: for you investors.
Speaker 3: This was not a public policy meeting. Right. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: nuts because the company has already faced in step with
Speaker 3: its rise and profitability, it's faced regular strident criticism, especially
Speaker 3: the insurance arm run by Thompson. They were accused of
Speaker 3: unfairly rejecting claims and read statements about this. He calls
Speaker 3: it value based care. That's what they're getting into. It's
Speaker 3: a tricky bit of terminology there. They were also we
Speaker 3: were talking about this off air, they were accused of
Speaker 3: using AI to wholesale reject claims.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, AI that was accused of being so faulty,
Speaker 2: and they were aware of its faultiness that it would
Speaker 2: it was denying like between eighty and ninety percent of
Speaker 2: all claims, so then human beings had to go back in,
Speaker 2: which was just a way to delay the process of
Speaker 2: paying people.
Speaker 3: Well, and the problem there too is, like I mean,
Speaker 3: so many.
Speaker 4: People who do have are lucky enough to have health
Speaker 4: care through their employer. Oftentimes those premiums are a decent
Speaker 4: chunk of their check. And then if you get denied
Speaker 4: a claim, the costs of fighting that or even the
Speaker 4: complications of appealing that are sometimes so daunting that you
Speaker 4: just eat it, you know.
Speaker 3: Delayed, delay, well, you delay your.
Speaker 4: Needs, you know, unless it's some sort of absolute emergency.
Speaker 4: I'm sure that they bank on that happening.
Speaker 3: Of course, And if it's your health, there's also a
Speaker 3: there's also very much a ticking clock. So yeah, even
Speaker 3: if you had the money to fight in court, depending
Speaker 3: on your condition, you may no longer be upon this
Speaker 3: mortal plane. Ruling goes in your favor.
Speaker 2: Think about how adversely that affects any individual's health when
Speaker 2: they're going through a health issue like that, then they're
Speaker 2: faced with that, as you said, daunting situation where you
Speaker 2: are now stressing out like fully because of this that
Speaker 2: you're not Oh, you're already stressing out because you're sick.
Speaker 2: Something's wrong. Now you're like, how what am I gonna do?
Speaker 2: What's my family gonna do? My descendants, what are they
Speaker 2: going to do when I have to pay tens of
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars?
Speaker 3: Right? What's going to be left for them? As well?
Speaker 3: You know, it goes into quality of life. To correct
Speaker 3: or I guess, clarify the AI stuff. Let's go to Snopes.
Speaker 3: They have a great breakdown on this, which is not
Speaker 3: I think as vulnerable to the narrative war as a
Speaker 3: lot of other media places are proving to be. So.
Speaker 3: There was a lawsuit against United Healthcare and United Health
Speaker 3: Group that also names Navvy Health in avi health, not
Speaker 3: related to Avatar I think NAVI Health developed an AI
Speaker 3: tool called NH Predict, and it is true that United
Speaker 3: Health did deploy AI to evaluate claims, but we still
Speaker 3: don't know to what extent the technology informed these decisions.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if you can hear the italics
Speaker 3: in the voice there, folks, but yes, a lot of
Speaker 3: the yes.
Speaker 2: That is a really good point, though, Ben, because everything
Speaker 2: I saw about the AI stuff was from a lawsuit.
Speaker 2: So those are like allegations, right.
Speaker 3: We do have to say their allegations.
Speaker 2: So it's in my head it's already kind of solidified,
Speaker 2: just because I've read it so many times now at
Speaker 2: this point that there are these problems, but it is allegations,
Speaker 2: the same way everything that's been said about Luigi are allegations.
Speaker 3: At this point, he is technically a person of interest
Speaker 3: in custody.
Speaker 4: Hey, hold up, guys, let's take a quick pause here,
Speaker 4: have a word from our sponsor, and then jump right
Speaker 4: back into this conversation about Luigi Manngiani.
Speaker 3: Ed.
Speaker 2: We're back.
Speaker 3: Now. You might wonder where Luigi gets into the story here.
Speaker 3: Let's set this up a little further. You see, Thompson
Speaker 3: was also a personal target for critics as a human being, civilians,
Speaker 3: and institutions. He had received multiple death threats related to
Speaker 3: the denial of claims. People who may be out of
Speaker 3: terminal condition and were threatening him because they thought he
Speaker 3: was gilling them, or survivors who had lost a family
Speaker 3: member and said, you know, if you take the life
Speaker 3: of one of my loved ones, then your life should
Speaker 3: also be forfeit. Now we're not agreeing with this, We're
Speaker 3: now letting you know, he said. And it's all so
Speaker 3: not to sound too cold, it's not just a point
Speaker 3: made by individuals in the public, but institutions are also
Speaker 3: haranguing Thompson in this company. Maybe we go to the
Speaker 3: American Hospital Association, who back in twenty twenty one when
Speaker 3: this guy became the CEO, they were already talking about
Speaker 3: how terrible they thought his ideas were.
Speaker 2: Oh, and this is in relation to non critical that's
Speaker 2: in quotes visits to the er, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, this is where we get to value based care,
Speaker 3: which is just such a the omami of that, the
Speaker 3: juicy evil of that phrase. What did the American Hospital
Speaker 3: Association say?
Speaker 4: Patients are not medical experts and should not be expected
Speaker 4: to self diagnose during what they believe is a medical emergency,
Speaker 4: threatening patients with a financial penalty for making the wrong
Speaker 4: decision could have a chilling effect on seeking emergency care.
Speaker 3: Scary stuff when you think about it. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 3: of what I was.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just like, you know, all of the chaos,
Speaker 4: and you know, stress of just looking into it or
Speaker 4: even like figuring out what to do can just cause
Speaker 4: you to throw your hands up and say, you know what,
Speaker 4: I'm just not even gonna deal with this.
Speaker 3: Now. You have a pain in your chest, kick the right.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the pain's there, sometimes it goes away. Should I
Speaker 3: go to a doctor? Well, I know, if I go
Speaker 3: and I make the wrong bet and it's just you know, heartburn,
Speaker 3: then insurance might not pay for it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, even we who have insurance have those
Speaker 4: thoughts plenty where it's like, is this something that's going
Speaker 4: to cause my premiums to go up? Should I just
Speaker 4: kind of deal with it and suffer in silence?
Speaker 2: Can I afford to get an ambulance out here?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah? Or do I take the uber? Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And either way, once I get there, they're
Speaker 2: taking care of me. That's in quotations as well. At
Speaker 2: the hospital, and they are the staff there is going
Speaker 2: to take care of you and do what they have
Speaker 2: to do, but who knows what care is going to
Speaker 2: go into it and how much the care is going
Speaker 2: to cost, And can you make those rational decisions or
Speaker 2: even your loved one who's there on your behalf making
Speaker 2: those decisions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And then you know, on the dark side
Speaker 3: of it, if you gamble wrong and you say I'm
Speaker 3: not going to go to the er, sometimes this chest
Speaker 3: pain goes away and you die. Yeah, you know. It's
Speaker 3: Here's the way I was trying to think of a
Speaker 3: good way to explain this. I would say, if you're
Speaker 3: not familiar with privatized insurance, one way to think of
Speaker 3: it is imagine a pizza company. Imagine you want to
Speaker 3: buy a pizza. So in the world of privatized insurance,
Speaker 3: the business model is you go to this store, you
Speaker 3: apply to see whether or not you can buy a pizza,
Speaker 3: and then you pay them every month, and if you
Speaker 3: ever want a pizza, they will tell you what kind
Speaker 3: you can get, where you can go, and afterwards they'll
Speaker 3: tell you how much you pay for it. Good God,
Speaker 3: I mean, that's how you know it's pizza insurance.
Speaker 2: You'll negotiate with how much you have to pay uh
Speaker 2: before will help you?
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to buy two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty dollars worth of pizza, and then they might
Speaker 3: pay for some of it. Maybe it's weird you're paying
Speaker 3: to pay for stuff would be one of the arguments.
Speaker 3: We're trying to be fair here. There was a lot
Speaker 3: of disturbing contexts this investor conference. What would have happened
Speaker 3: we will never know because Thompson did not make it
Speaker 3: to that meeting. This is where we get to December fourth,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four. It's early in the morning, six forty
Speaker 3: five local time or so. He is leaving the Marriott
Speaker 3: hotel that he's staying at. It's across the street from
Speaker 3: the New York Hilton in Midtown. This is where the
Speaker 3: meeting was gonna happen.
Speaker 2: At eight o'clock in the morning, so it's all it's about.
Speaker 3: To happen, right, He's getting coffee, basically probably taking his
Speaker 3: morning constitutional. He's walking along West fifty fourth Street toward
Speaker 3: that Hilton. He gets shot from behind a point blank
Speaker 3: range we call maybe about six feet yeah, and there's
Speaker 3: the person who is on camera shooting him on CCTV
Speaker 3: is is masked, They're wearing a hoodie, they have a backpack,
Speaker 3: They're wielding a pistol that later becomes a subject of
Speaker 3: a lot of speculation scrutiny. He is shot in the
Speaker 3: caf and in the back. He's transported to Mount Sinnott.
Speaker 3: He's transported to the local hospital and he's pronounced dead
Speaker 3: shortly thereafter, at seven to twelve am. And I'm going
Speaker 3: to be honest. One thing that offended a lot of
Speaker 3: the public as this case continued is that there are
Speaker 3: a lot of homicides in New York and they don't
Speaker 3: all get the same level of investigation. Is that fair
Speaker 3: to say?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, especially shooting deaths in a large city center like that.
Speaker 2: And you know, not just New York, any city in
Speaker 2: the world. There are homicides that occur on a very
Speaker 2: regular basis. And yeah, and it's just kind of okay,
Speaker 2: there's an investigation, it's not a big deal. But this
Speaker 2: guy was very prominent at a very prominent thing in
Speaker 2: a very prominent city. I understand the argument of why
Speaker 2: it's bigger news, right, sure, but it is just strange
Speaker 2: to know that all of our attention gets focused on
Speaker 2: this guy because he is in some ways, in some
Speaker 2: very real ways, responsible for billions of dollars of money
Speaker 2: that flows through our economy.
Speaker 3: And arguably, according to the critics, hundreds of thousands, if
Speaker 3: not millions, of deaths yep, albeit indirectly. So the authorities
Speaker 3: react quickly. There's an intensive man hunt, and we were
Speaker 3: all texting with each other talking off air about this.
Speaker 3: Following the story, public officials on both sides of the
Speaker 3: all sides of the political spectrum, they expressed condolences for Thompson,
Speaker 3: his family, and his friends, and there was a lot
Speaker 3: of initial speculation about the kind of gun used and
Speaker 3: how this guy took an e bike later found to
Speaker 3: be in Central Park, how did he escape you know
Speaker 3: what I mean?
Speaker 4: It was one of those city bikes right like and
Speaker 4: drop off at another little hub.
Speaker 3: It's kind of crazy. I think I may have mentioned this.
Speaker 4: We were talking about this recently, but I was actually
Speaker 4: in New York when this happened. Yeah, I was at
Speaker 4: eating at this deli and there was this reporter kind
Speaker 4: of snooping around and he was talking to this guy
Speaker 4: who was a security guard or like a concierge or
Speaker 4: like a baggage guy at a bell hop type guy
Speaker 4: at the Hilton, and.
Speaker 3: I had no idea what was going on.
Speaker 4: I'd seen it in the elevator for our building, our
Speaker 4: offices that are right down there in that area, and
Speaker 4: I didn't even know what was in New York. I
Speaker 4: just saw the headline. And I was just really busy
Speaker 4: that day and I was grabbing a quick bite and
Speaker 4: I heard this reporter talking, this guy asking about I
Speaker 4: wonder if if there was anything on the security cameras,
Speaker 4: and I was like, gosh, I.
Speaker 3: Wonder what's going on.
Speaker 4: Maybe they were like shooting a movie here and there
Speaker 4: was a celebrity sighting. I felt like such a dumb
Speaker 4: ass when I realized this was literally happening right under
Speaker 4: my nose.
Speaker 3: Wow, there were other people when we come to find
Speaker 3: who were nearby, Yeah, witness the shooting in person. The assailant,
Speaker 3: whomver they made, we have to legally say, chose not
Speaker 3: to attack those people. This was clearly a premeditated operation,
Speaker 3: specifically against Brian Thompson for one reason or another. Right,
Speaker 3: everybody initially assumed it was because of his profession, right,
Speaker 3: and the assailant. We talked about this just amid the
Speaker 3: three of us, the assailant fired three times with what
Speaker 3: appeared to be a suppressed nine millimeter struck Thompson the
Speaker 3: back the right calf, but after each shot he had
Speaker 3: to manually cycle the gun. So for the three shots
Speaker 3: he took, there were three unexploded cartridges that also popped out,
Speaker 3: and he did not hesitate when he did it. He
Speaker 3: didn't look surprised at the malfunction.
Speaker 2: So, Okay, I want to talk about this because I'm
Speaker 2: I'm unsure of the exact details, and I don't know
Speaker 2: if we're going to get those until the court starts
Speaker 2: going through, right, But I was talking I had a
Speaker 2: conversation with my neighbor about that, and he was talking
Speaker 2: about specific types of guns, like suppressed guns that are
Speaker 2: specifically for stealth purposes that he had encountered in the
Speaker 2: military before. And it's the kind that you have to
Speaker 2: cycle every time. It's not it doesn't have that automatic
Speaker 2: the semi automatic functionality where it racks back. You have
Speaker 2: to like tap and racket every time. Yeah, So I
Speaker 2: was just wondering if you guys had seen anything, if
Speaker 2: that's the type of weapon he had, or if it
Speaker 2: was a semi automatic that was malfunctioning. That he had
Speaker 2: to rack.
Speaker 4: Because originally it was reported that he was the gun
Speaker 4: had jammed, right, which would mean you know, it's a
Speaker 4: malfunctioning semi auto.
Speaker 2: Well that's what it looks like on the buzz video, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well exactly.
Speaker 4: But then we find that the cartridges that were at
Speaker 4: the crime scene may well have been intended to have
Speaker 4: been ejected and left there, you know, to send a message.
Speaker 2: It certainly looks like to literally.
Speaker 3: Send a message. Deny, defend, and depose. These are the
Speaker 3: words written on the casings and they are similar to
Speaker 3: a phrase called delay, deny, defend. And this is the
Speaker 3: way that some attorneys and public rights advocates have described
Speaker 3: privatized insurances strategy that we just discussed, denying services and payment.
Speaker 3: It's also the title of a book published in twenty ten,
Speaker 3: which is a great read. It's highly critical of the
Speaker 3: insurance industry. And as we also discussed, we talked about
Speaker 3: this with each other a lot off air. That book
Speaker 3: is again a bestseller, correct.
Speaker 2: It will you jumped up immediately? It was number two
Speaker 2: when we talked about this on Strange News on the
Speaker 2: Amazon nonfiction list.
Speaker 3: And this is all happening at once. There's this wide
Speaker 3: scale search. There's a focus of resources that honestly don't
Speaker 3: see in a lot of other homicides, and authorities across
Speaker 3: the city, that across the region, then across the land
Speaker 3: entire are scour every possible lead they can identify, and
Speaker 3: they're trying to find and arrest the shooter based on
Speaker 3: this footage. We also see footage emerging of him at
Speaker 3: a hostel, which goes viral. We also see collections of
Speaker 3: different pieces of circumstantial evidence saying, whomever this was, we
Speaker 3: think they did the following blah blah blah. Still very
Speaker 3: fog of war. But they find stuff like a water
Speaker 3: bottle and a candy wrapper and a phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's all kinds of interesting stuff. There's a several
Speaker 2: places online that give like a timeline of events where
Speaker 2: it's trying to track whoever the killer was via what
Speaker 2: came out early. So this was I think the fifteenth
Speaker 2: of the seventeenth. I was seeing, especially on the seventeenth,
Speaker 2: seeing detailed lists of like where the suspect moved and
Speaker 2: like where they encountered things and could have left little.
Speaker 3: Breadcrumbs bus originating from Atlanta. But you don't that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean the suspect hopped on in Atlanta because buses are
Speaker 3: kind of sketchy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the more you but the more you
Speaker 4: kind of put these pieces together, the more it really
Speaker 4: reminds me of like John Doe and seven, you know,
Speaker 4: like wanting to be caught, or like the Riddler and
Speaker 4: the Batman kind.
Speaker 3: Of like I just it just feels that way.
Speaker 4: And I mean, you know, and and stuff like that
Speaker 4: is also what leads to this kind of maybe not lionization,
Speaker 4: but this glorification of this genius kind of you know,
Speaker 4: freedom fighter type mentality behind the way people are treating
Speaker 4: Luigi Mangioni as this larger than life kind of character.
Speaker 3: Like a full keyro Right. And that is a powerful narrative.
Speaker 3: It also is perhaps a simplistic narrative. I'm pointing at
Speaker 3: Jonathan Strickland as he walks by, look at that leather jacket,
Speaker 3: and what a smoke show that guy. Police said they
Speaker 3: believe they found the shooter's backpack a few days later,
Speaker 3: on December sixth, and adding to this idea or this
Speaker 3: image of this anti hero super character of some sort,
Speaker 3: the backpack has a Tommy Hill figure jacket and apparently
Speaker 3: monopoly money yeah. Again, as to that narrative, it's about
Speaker 3: sending you. This about sending you.
Speaker 2: Oh guys, I can hear the ads coming. Let's get
Speaker 2: to those and we'll be right back.
Speaker 3: And we have returned. The story continues and it just
Speaker 3: gets stranger.
Speaker 2: You guys. There are journals that we will have to
Speaker 2: get into at some point. But again, some of it's
Speaker 2: kind of dangerous to even talk about right now because
Speaker 2: it's unknown how much it's actually connected to the case
Speaker 2: and how much it is a human being's thoughts on
Speaker 2: something that's kind of messed up, right, like a situation
Speaker 2: that we've been describing this whole episode that is messed up,
Speaker 2: that we all are aware of is messed up, but
Speaker 2: then somebody writing about it, it's just then it appears
Speaker 2: to plot sending that message.
Speaker 3: Right, And that's the thing too. I think we're doing
Speaker 3: our level best to be careful with how we portray
Speaker 3: or how we frame these things. But you're absolutely right again,
Speaker 3: every piece here constructs a narrative or an argument for
Speaker 3: a narrative. The NYPD offers a reward. They say, look,
Speaker 3: if you give us information about this this assailant that
Speaker 3: we see on camera, then you can get up to
Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars. The next day they release those images
Speaker 3: we mentioned this what goes viral? Two stills show the
Speaker 3: suspect's face without the mask, and one of them is
Speaker 3: him tossing an insuscient Devil may Care smile as at assistant. Yeah,
Speaker 3: what a good looking fellow. And I like Jake jillanall.
Speaker 3: He does look like Jake jill at all.
Speaker 4: And that's another aspect of the narrative that I think
Speaker 4: is so interesting. You guys, just what a smoke show
Speaker 4: this Luigi Mangioni is. And it's almost like insulting, to
Speaker 4: be honest, and it really does. I mean not to
Speaker 4: get too in the weeds about it, but a lot
Speaker 4: of this glorification, it does seem to really kind of
Speaker 4: highlight how vain and sort of surface level and kind
Speaker 4: of frivolous American pop culture sort of has become.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent, especially with social media. I mean, to
Speaker 3: your point, I remember multiple times where some mugshot went viral,
Speaker 3: sometimes so I had done it, committed a horrible crime, No, yeah,
Speaker 3: the guy with all the face statue, Yes, it's horrible rapist,
Speaker 3: murderer and the most widely propagated social media statements or
Speaker 3: stuff like I can fix him, I'd hit it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, well, it does remind me. I'll just
Speaker 2: put this out where monster BTK is happening. We've interviewed
Speaker 2: a couple of psychologists who were related to that case.
Speaker 2: One of them, Catherine Ramslin, makes a very distinct point
Speaker 2: about how the media was disappointed when the person who
Speaker 2: was BTK was revealed because he was not a Ted Bundee.
Speaker 3: Like character exactly.
Speaker 2: And people build up this thing in their mind, of
Speaker 2: this mystique.
Speaker 3: All that's what it is, is what it is. That's
Speaker 3: the other question too. We'll get to which hinges on Luigi,
Speaker 3: because I would argue, and I think we're all on
Speaker 3: board with this, there is a larger context at play,
Speaker 3: whatever side you fall on. This is in many ways
Speaker 3: a damning condemnation of current society and what we prioritize
Speaker 3: and what we think about well.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and also how we're feeling underneath the surface
Speaker 2: of all of that stuff.
Speaker 3: And the conversation around the fed up healthcare system.
Speaker 4: Is absolutely valid, but the bigger conversation is more about
Speaker 4: it's almost like the memification of this guy, and it's
Speaker 4: kind of become this absurdist sort of joke as opposed
Speaker 4: to a real conversation.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it just makes me because it's an
Speaker 3: absolutely good point, and they still haven't at this point
Speaker 3: in the timeline, they still haven't identified this guy. But
Speaker 3: the police are getting are already, you know, deeply involved.
Speaker 3: The FEDS come in as well, which doesn't happen all
Speaker 3: the time. The US law apparatus, It's just true, it
Speaker 3: has a lot of toys it can deploy in any
Speaker 3: given situation or investigation. The thing is, they don't get
Speaker 3: pulled out all the time, candidly, not for most murders,
Speaker 3: not for a lot of violent crimes. That's why every
Speaker 3: that's why so many states at least have this absolute,
Speaker 3: just profane amount of sexual assault kits that are on
Speaker 3: back law right haven't been checked for years well, and
Speaker 3: not to get.
Speaker 4: Too too political about it, but like you know, I
Speaker 4: do think there's an interesting disparity between the way Luigi
Speaker 4: Mangioni is being treated versus the way like school shooters
Speaker 4: are treated, Like Mangioni is being you know, by the
Speaker 4: powers that be, not the people, of course, couched and
Speaker 4: raised up as this terrorist, this act of absolute aggression
Speaker 4: towards our our livelihoods, our system, you know, the status quo.
Speaker 4: And yet school shootings, you forget the guy's name a
Speaker 4: week later, you know, because it just we move on
Speaker 4: and it's apparently an unsolvable problem. And yet one CEO
Speaker 4: millionaire gets killed and everyone's freaking out.
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting thing because we're there's been a
Speaker 2: narrative that we need to not even say the names of.
Speaker 3: Like school shooters, right, to.
Speaker 2: Not glorify any of that stuff. But then right now,
Speaker 2: I mean, every news outlet has pictures of this guy,
Speaker 2: his name everywhere, all of this stuff going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is part of that narrative. War. Members
Speaker 3: of the public take the social media very quickly, you know,
Speaker 3: and they point out, initially before the suspects identified, they
Speaker 3: point out the discrepancy in police activity, and they say, hey,
Speaker 3: did this one guy somehow what makes him matter more
Speaker 3: than another innocent person who got shot? Stuff got so
Speaker 3: nasty so quickly. There appeared and still appears to be
Speaker 3: a huge difference between the overall public opinion and what
Speaker 3: the mass media wants to say. I'm thinking, in particular,
Speaker 3: some real I'll say it kish op eds who are
Speaker 3: arguing that Brian Thompson is the real working class hero. Oof. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's just not the time for that kind of time.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 4: And I don't think any of us are saying, go Luigi,
Speaker 4: You're doing God's work, because we've also talked about like,
Speaker 4: the death of one CEO does not change the nature
Speaker 4: of an entire industry of privatized healthcare, and it's just
Speaker 4: not going to.
Speaker 2: But it does potentially give that gift of fear that
Speaker 2: we're talking about and de Becker to anyone that's on
Speaker 2: that level that is making those decisions that have a
Speaker 2: mass effect on human beings and their welfare. I don't know, I'm.
Speaker 3: Not showing effects perhaps well, or at.
Speaker 2: Least a recognition that, oh, I'm not untouchable even though
Speaker 2: I'm making all these decisions based on profits. Maybe I
Speaker 2: just need to think more about the consequences of.
Speaker 4: Now something in the wind. It was my understanding that
Speaker 4: almost immediately after this took place, security details around other
Speaker 4: CEOs at that level increased significant.
Speaker 3: And New York, the State of New York, is currently
Speaker 3: evaluating a possible call in line just for CEOs who
Speaker 3: feel threatened. Look, we're talking about all this stuff at once, individually,
Speaker 3: in groups, sometimes on our show. And on December ninth,
Speaker 3: five days after the murder, authorities visited mcdondos in Altoona, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: where they arrest a twenty six year old man named
Speaker 3: Luigi Mangioni. He is later charged with the murder of Thompson,
Speaker 3: along with what appears to be an increasing number of charges,
Speaker 3: both in Pennsylvania and in New York. Initially, he faced
Speaker 3: eleven charges, including one of the more interesting ones, first
Speaker 3: degree murder with terrorist intent, murder in the furtherance of
Speaker 3: an act of terrorism as defined by the Anti Terrorism Act.
Speaker 4: I can see that though, you can see what why
Speaker 4: they would throw the book at him in that.
Speaker 2: We can see that. Yeah, because he's not trying to
Speaker 2: terrorize the public. He's trying to terrorize industry. Yeah, which
Speaker 2: are is a part of the public.
Speaker 3: They're trying to guy fox him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3: That's it. That's it. He also received we'll just give
Speaker 3: you the list in case murder in the first degree
Speaker 3: doesn't stick. He's also charged with murder in the second degree,
Speaker 3: two different counts of it, criminal possession of a weapon,
Speaker 3: a couple of different times, stalking using a weapon equipped
Speaker 3: with a silencer. These are the facts as they stand today.
Speaker 3: We haven't even got to Here's where it gets crazy
Speaker 3: because the deeper we have been digging and you as well,
Speaker 3: we imagine, the more strange details and rappid holes emerge.
Speaker 3: What happened here, what's going to happen next? What does
Speaker 3: it mean for the future. These are questions we are
Speaker 3: going to answer in another episode because we took a
Speaker 3: pause and we've been doing we've been diving into some
Speaker 3: two parters. We hope you enjoy them as much as
Speaker 3: we do. But given that this is an emergent, ongoing event,
Speaker 3: we're gonna pause and we'll come back with more details,
Speaker 3: you know, like trying to find an unbiased jury member.
Speaker 3: Oh Man.
Speaker 4: Ben said that when we were taking a break, and
Speaker 4: Matt and I both just exclaimed like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: it didn't even occur to me, And yeah, I think
Speaker 4: taking a little where you know, again, this is the
Speaker 4: last recording we're doing before the holidays, and I think
Speaker 4: more information will trickle out while we're taking that break
Speaker 4: that will all be taking him. But can I just add, yeah,
Speaker 4: I just you know, you mentioned where the charges were
Speaker 4: coming from. One of the most recent stories is that
Speaker 4: he denied or he I guess waved extradition, waved extradition,
Speaker 4: which means they could take him from Pennsylvan, Takehi from.
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania back to New York.
Speaker 4: But man, to your point, that purp walk shot is
Speaker 4: the hardest image of the year.
Speaker 3: It's egregious too. It is doesn't even makes sense. It's
Speaker 3: a bigger purple walk. Can you describe it? Yeah? Sure,
Speaker 3: it's a bigger purp walk than you would see for
Speaker 3: people like Timothy McVeigh.
Speaker 2: Wait, I didn't even see this. Let's describe it in
Speaker 2: full because I don't know what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: So you can see a small army of people walk
Speaker 3: purp walking him from a small plane that flew into
Speaker 3: New York. And the Mayor is there, The Mayor of
Speaker 3: New York is there. There are multiple armed guards. There
Speaker 3: was a smaller purp walk for the Unibomber WI And
Speaker 3: by the way, Luigi Mangioni does have on good Reads
Speaker 3: a review of the Unibomber's manifesto.
Speaker 4: And it's so stark too, because he's wearing that bright
Speaker 4: orange Department of Corrections jumpsuit. Got the lock up on
Speaker 4: the waist, got the lock up on the waist and
Speaker 4: the wrists by the water. It is just and there's
Speaker 4: an image of particular of like a front you know shot,
Speaker 4: and it's just like the memes right themselves. It looks
Speaker 4: like a gangster rap album cover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's Christopher Nolan.
Speaker 3: It's unbelieved comparison.
Speaker 2: That is fascinating because we didn't even talk today about
Speaker 2: the tipster and all of the blowback of the McDonald's.
Speaker 4: McDonald's review bomb exactly, we have so much McDonald's alatuna
Speaker 4: no snitches here.
Speaker 3: I'd also like to share, guys, just for us a
Speaker 3: photograph that I saw in a McDonald's that also went
Speaker 3: viral after these events.
Speaker 4: See something, say something, Oh Donald McDonald is the master snitch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the master of whispers. Not age well, and I'm
Speaker 3: sure their attentions were good, but that comes up in
Speaker 3: the review bombs. We haven't gotten to the fraternity. Emangio
Speaker 3: was part of this family.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be a great suit second part. But also
Speaker 4: just to add, I believe the person that was the
Speaker 4: tipster didn't call the right number and didn't get the money.
Speaker 4: They didn't get the rewards because they just called the
Speaker 4: regular old police instead of like the call and.
Speaker 3: The tip line. Right, And this is where we are
Speaker 3: going to leave it for now, folks. We want to
Speaker 3: hear your thoughts. Just with the facts as we've laid out,
Speaker 3: we've endeavored to be to be fair, not to editorialize
Speaker 3: too much, while also representing the viewpoints that we are
Speaker 3: encountering and you are encountering in the public sphere. So
Speaker 3: let us know your thoughts. We hope the end of
Speaker 3: the year finds you well. We will be back very soon.
Speaker 3: We'd love your help with part two or possibly part
Speaker 3: three of this ongoing case. In the meantime, tell us
Speaker 3: what's on your mind. We try to be easy to
Speaker 3: find online. That's right.
Speaker 4: You can find us on the internet all over your
Speaker 4: social media platforms of choice at the handle conspiracy Stuff,
Speaker 4: where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy. You got some hot tips.
Speaker 4: For us from McDonald's and alatuna, and you could communicate
Speaker 4: that with us and all of your fellow conspiracy realists
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Speaker 3: Guys. For now our nektalk. We are conspiracy stuff show.
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Speaker 3: void rights back lay out your opinion of the narrative war.
Speaker 3: Are you one of the people who still insists that
Speaker 3: Mangioni was a stitch up job? They're out there and
Speaker 3: we want to hear reasoning why if you believe so?
Speaker 3: What does this tell us about society overall? Perhaps most importantly,
Speaker 3: what do you think is going to happen next? Or
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