NY - UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Midtown. #3

[eddie_van]

It is ODD - and unexpectedly lucky for the shooter - that the victim did not have a security detail with him

It really isn't that odd. C-Suite executives are not walking around with security detail all the time.

 

[whitelilac]

"This is a smart guy": Former criminal profiler says suspect was wise to avoid airports​

From CNN's Elizabeth Wolfe
Former FBI criminal profiler Candice Long believes the suspected gunman in the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing rode to New York on a Greyhound bus so he could avoid encountering tight airport security while carrying a gun.

“This is a smart guy. This has been very well planned out,” Long said on “CNN Newsroom” Friday morning. “Being on a bus, he would be inconspicuous and would not have to go through all the problems that would arise at an airport with a gun.”

But the thing he didn’t account for, Long said, was being asked to drop his mask by a clerk at his hostel — a moment that ultimately gave investigators crucial surveillance footage of his face.

“She caught him off guard, and that could be his undoing,” Long said, later noting: “The pressure is on because of that picture.”

When asked whether she believes the suspect is still in New York City, Long said, “It’s hard to say.”

“It’s possible. I mean, you can get lost in New York for years.”

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/brian-thompson-unitedhealthcare-news-12-6-24/index.html?t=1733514344755

 

[Curiousobserver]

My hunch from my armchair is he got on the bus in Newark, with his handy fake NJ ID in hand. And he might have headed back to Newark after the crime. But, I'm just guessing.

jmopinion

If he was existing the 57th street station at 6:15 he was on the F train.

F Train doesn't go to NJ but he may have hopped on from lower on the island having come from NJ.

He didn't have that bike with him though and only had 30 minutes to get it. Very strange.

 

[justtrish]

Hello, I been a long time websleuth reader/ watcher. Love this place. I usually want to write but delete and carry on reading Today I ‘ll be brave. This case is very interesting but one thing my mind can’t un see is there is actually two people maybe two family members… making it hard to distinguish between camera and times. The backpack is meant to focus on maybe and missing the slight other difference in camera pics. I’m not sure if I’m making sense but what I see is two different people with very little difference between them.

Glad you posted! I've thought about this myself. Maybe if this is someone upset about a family member being denied life saving care, then it is brothers or cousins with similar appearance that were working together.

 

[IzzyBlanche]

He went through Central Park because he knew there were no cameras so he had a place away from surveillance immediately after the crime as LE swarmed to the scene. And, it was a good route back to the UWS.

jmopinion

Actually, there are security cameras in Central Park.

https://pix11.com/news/local-news/manhattan/nypd-adds-more-cameras-in-central-park-after-sunbather-was-almost-raped/

 

[ManicMuggle83]

Atlanta airport is just so big & busy which might make it easier to blend in with a crowd, imo. (For sure Washington Reagan airport in DC is a lot smaller, fewer flights, & fewer hours of operation; I think there are noise limits for late night flights there. Not sure how Dulles compares.) Jmo.

Baltimore, Dulles, Reagan... I just don't get flying into Atlanta and being stuck on a bus for x hours. Idk. Jmo

 

[Columbo Was The Best]

Big mistake. I checked the websites for the two HC companies I worked for, both have removed BOD and Company officers. Word is everyone's being very carefully and the Corp office has extra security. Both have large contacts with UHC. Moo


Anthem BCBS backtracks
on plan to limit anesthesia services during surgery. This was insane, doctors have been speaking out. How does anyone know how long a surgery will last, potential complications, just crazy the extent large insurance companies are going to.

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield halts anesthesia payment policy after backlash

The health insurer planned to cap the length of time anesthesia can be covered during medical procedures in three states, prompting outrage.

www.nbcnews.com

This could have ended up being pretty much large-scale murder. Many people would not have left the operating theatre alive as, like you rightly said, nobody knows with certainty how long a surgery will last and its potential complications.

 

[Inthedetails]

I would imagine he knew. The DOT has cameras all along Central Park West at several intersections but given there's few business-type operations in the actual park (assuming he didn't stop at 6:50 in the morning to scope out the the zoo), he probably figured it'd be a safe place to hide/destroy/sink the evidence there. I mean there's a lake, a pond, a reservoir... not to mention brush/trash cans/toilets... my money is most of it is in the water. Put a coupe of rocks in the bag, toss it in, and ride into the sunset.

I can't see him tossing anything in the water without someone noticing. People use Central Park, even in the morning hours. The reservoir is fenced and there is a running track all around it. Throwing something over the fence would be noticed by runners, etc. And, except for the fenced reservoir, which is deep, the lakes are very shallow - just a few feet, for safety reasons. (The lakes are manmade, btw.) It would be risky to toss anything in the water expecting it to remain hidden.

But, maybe he doesn't care if the backpack and gun are eventually found in the water or elsewhere in the park. He'd be gone by then.

I think he either still had the backpack, but under his jacket or, more likely, imo, he handed it off to someone to distance himself from the weapon. I don't think the backpack or gun are in Central Park. Just a wild guess.

jmo

 

[wibbleflea]

Points that have been mentioned above by a few posters:

1. The backpack was unusual. As discussed above, it was a Peak Design Everyday that you don't see around very much. Expensive.
2. The gun was unusual – expensive, too, and not an obvious choice.
3. The shoes – easy to spot, immaculate looking and expensive.
4. The gun, if the IDs suggested earlier in this thread are correct, was made by B&T, possibly linking to 'BT'.

All points made by others previously. So, though there have been some suggestions that the shooter looked like a nerd or dressed anonymously, he was actually wearing and using carefully chosen items that were distinctive and identifiable. Why?

To send a message of confidence? To contrast with a very different appearance – perhaps radically different – before or after the shooting?

The unmasked stills of the person of interest also show a distinctive and easily recognisable face and smile. No one who knew the person pictured would fail to recognise his face, if this is his usual appearance. There's something curious about the absence of blandness and anonymity throughout.

And then: it's not clear that the person we've seen unmasked at the hostel is really the shooter. Something is off.

 

[ElizaKate]

<DBM>

 

[whitelilac]

Baltimore, Dulles, Reagan... I just don't get flying into Atlanta and being stuck on a bus for x hours. Idk. Jmo

I don't think he flew into Atlanta, or any airport, with a gun in his possession. Flying out through an airport after the murder is another matter.
unless the weapon was already stashed in NYC beforehand.

 

[TTF14]

Baltimore, Dulles, Reagan... I just don't get flying into Atlanta and being stuck on a bus for x hours. Idk. Jmo

Maybe he lives in Atlanta (or somewhere near it). Or, like others have said, he may have caught the bus in a city further north.

 

[K.jill]

Hello, I been a long time websleuth reader/ watcher. Love this place. I usually want to write but delete and carry on reading Today I ‘ll be brave. This case is very interesting but one thing my mind can’t un see is there is actually two people maybe two family members… making it hard to distinguish between camera and times. The backpack is meant to focus on maybe and missing the slight other difference in camera pics. I’m not sure if I’m making sense but what I see is two different people with very little difference between them.

I have thought about the possibility of 2 similar looking people being involved. It would explain some things but it seems like something out of a movie so I put that idea on the back burner. Nice to see that I am not alone in thinking about 2 people.

 

[Inthedetails]

This newly-updated NYT article says the suspect exited Central Park around 60th Street -- previously reports have said he was seen exiting the park at 77th Street. If true, this means the suspect biked out of the park almost as soon as he entered it (Center Drive starts at 59th Street) and then biked up to 85th Street, where he was caught on CCTV at 6:59am.

If he exited the park around 60th Street and not 77th Street, that would massively reduce the search area for the backpack.

Police Find Backpack in Central Park, a Possible Link to Gunman Who Killed C.E.O.

Three days after an insurance executive was fatally shot on a Manhattan sidewalk, the authorities provided a detailed timeline of the suspect’s movements. It was not yet known what was in the backpack.

www.nytimes.com

<snipped & BBM>
Police said the gunman fled the shooting scene into Central Park on a bicycle. Video surveillance of the park showed that he exited it on the west side, in the area around 60th Street, without his backpack, according to a law enforcement official. Officers searched the park on Thursday but were unable to find the pack, the official said.

Sure seems like a handoff happened. He only went a short distance in the park without cameras.

jmo

 

[no nonsense]

It’s the busiest airport in the world.

 

[RobSA]

This newly-updated NYT article says the suspect exited Central Park around 60th Street -- previously reports have said he was seen exiting the park at 77th Street. If true, this means the suspect biked out of the park almost as soon as he entered it (Center Drive starts at 59th Street) and then biked up to 85th Street, where he was caught on CCTV at 6:59am.

If he exited the park around 60th Street and not 77th Street, that would massively reduce the search area for the backpack.

Police Find Backpack in Central Park, a Possible Link to Gunman Who Killed C.E.O.

Three days after an insurance executive was fatally shot on a Manhattan sidewalk, the authorities provided a detailed timeline of the suspect’s movements. It was not yet known what was in the backpack.

www.nytimes.com

<snipped & BBM>
Police said the gunman fled the shooting scene into Central Park on a bicycle. Video surveillance of the park showed that he exited it on the west side, in the area around 60th Street, without his backpack, according to a law enforcement official. Officers searched the park on Thursday but were unable to find the pack, the official said.

Very interesting. So he was barely in Central Park. Looking at the map and where he was spotted biking on W. 85th St., he must have biked all the way up there on Central Park West, just next to the park. i have to wonder why he turned on W. 85th St. Where was he going? Where is the bag that has the clothes and stuff he wore for the 10 days? Is he picking that bad up somewhere and then taking a cab to the airport or train or bus out of town? He had to have had an exact plan.

 

[setyourselffree]

This could have ended up being pretty much large-scale murder. Many people would not have left the operating theatre alive as, like you rightly said, nobody knows with certainty how long a surgery will last and its potential complications.

Do they think doctors are just sitting on there hands in these rooms, running up anesthesia bills? Who even thought this was a good idea? I'm sure they had pretty graphs with time decreasing on one axis and money saved increasing on the other and it was some young guy headed for a promotion that impressed a room full of his superiors.

Also, it's comical that they are trying to 'erase' their executives/board members from the internet. That ain't how it works, folks.

 

[JDG]

It really isn't that odd. C-Suite executives are not walking around with security detail all the time.

They are if there have been protests at the office. Most definitely.

 

[MassGuy]

Just some experts throwing cold water on the hitman theory:

-The consensus among experts following the killing of Brian Thompson, the veteran chief executive of one of the nation’s largest health insurers, was that the shooter could indeed handle himself around a gun, but that everything else suggested that he was unlikely to have been hired to commit the crime.

“Forgive me for saying too much on too little evidence, but it looks like the kind of guy that made up his mind that he was doing the right thing,” said David Shapiro, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, and a former F.B.I. special agent. “He didn’t look like a guy that was fearful.”

He added: “In terms of a professional hit man, that seems unlikely. It would be very hard to get somebody to do something like this. It’s very high risk.”

-“I mean, the whole problem is doing the whole thing in Midtown Manhattan, even though it’s in the morning,” he continued. Not only are there “cameras everywhere,” he said, “there’s too much of a possibility of other people intervening, of a cop happening to walk by.”

He added: “There’s just too much that can go wrong and there’s too little that you control.”
-None of this looks like the work of a professional, the experts said. (Assassinations occur but are usually ordered by governments or criminal groups like drug cartels, and rarely leave behind much evidence, they said.)

Police Find Backpack in Central Park, a Possible Link to Gunman Who Killed C.E.O.

Three days after an insurance executive was fatally shot on a Manhattan sidewalk, the authorities provided a detailed timeline of the suspect’s movements. It was not yet known what was in the backpack.

www.nytimes.com

 

[no nonsense]

Seems like folks are confusing the airport with the bus terminal. Don't think anywhere in the news there was anything about the Atlanta Airport.