They're sure they're the same person. This guy spent 10 days in the city, and obviously would have changed clothing. We know of two different jackets he was wearing, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had more than that. A change in backpack fits with this, as he'd want to change up his appearance.
www.standard.co.uk
IF he kept the gun, did he get rid of the silencer? Was it too bulky to keep?
No way. That bridge is covered with cameras and there are police monitoring. Someone would definitely notice.
No, he reportedly arrived in NYC using the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown. If he exited the park around 60th Street as the NYT reported today, it would have taken him far less time to get to the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) (which is on 42nd Street) than biking up to 85th Street and then taking a cab from 86th Street to the GW Bus Terminal at 178th Street.
But, was the video not just before he went to Starbucks? Leaving very little time for a total change. I believe that LE are mistaken. The person in the picture has a different backpack (that doesn’t look big enough to contain the other backpack the suspect was pictured with plus a change of clothing) and is clearly wearing shorts.
Wow, he could have been anywhere by the evening of the murder!
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
www.bbc.co.uk
We don't know when the maskless image was taken. Presumably it was over the several days he stayed in that hostel (perhaps at check in).
Ah thank you! That makes much more sense of his movements in that case. Teaches me to type before understanding the new information properly!
Could they be friends, then?
I think far more likely someone was afraid he would flip. It’s hard for me to imagine someone that just held the stock would arrange a murder for hire.
Only to 0.1% of society
