FBI increases reward for UnitedHealthcare CEO's killer to $50,000

Christopher Vondracek, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Dec 7, 2024

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MINNEAPOLIS — As the manhunt for the masked man who executed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk entered its fourth day on Saturday, the FBI upped a reward for tips on the identity of the killer to $50,000.

No new breakthroughs in the search have been announced since Friday evening, when law enforcement officers discovered the suspected killer’s backpack in Central Park.

According to the New York Post, Mayor Eric Adams told reporters at a police holiday party on Saturday that the “net is tightening.”

Authorities believe the person wanted in Wednesday’s shooting has left the city on a bus. Thompson, who was gunned down outside a Hilton in midtown Manhattan, was in New York to attend an investors’ conference for UHC’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, a health insurer and the nation’s fourth largest company with headquarters in Minnetonka.

Investigators have relied on the web of video cameras spread out throughout New York City to locate Thompson’s suspected killer. Officials say the gunman arrived in New York on Nov. 24 on a bus that originated in Atlanta. Video footage captured the man briefly removing his mask while checking into an Upper West Side hostel and purchasing a water bottle and snacks at a Starbucks on the morning of the shooting.

After shooting Thompson, the suspect sailed off into Central Park on a bike. Video later tracked him entering a bus station on the northwestern edge of Manhattan.

The cold-blooded shooting of Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two who lived in Maple Grove, drew reactions of shock and outpourings of grief from across the nation, including public officials, colleagues, and Thompson’s own community in the west metro suburbs.

But the killing of the insurance executive, who once led a business unit that has been scrutinized for denying health care claims, has sparked a public debate about the role and power that insurers wield in the American health care system.

In a video address sent to UnitedHealth Group employees on Friday, CEO Andrew Witty called the murder “immeasurably sad” and “profoundly shocking,” and encouraged workers to take time to care for one another.

“I’d like to ask you all to look out for yourselves,” Witty said. “This is a moment where, in among everything else, we’re reminded for the fragility of families, of individuals and the importance that that really represents.”