Authorities have pointed to fingerprints, shell casings, chronic back problems, and an “ill will toward corporate America” as they’ve been building a case against suspect Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

They’re learning more about a possible “motive and mindset,” New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference. And top NYPD officials told CBS News New York Wednesday it may be partially related to an injury and Mangione’s anger at the health care industry.

“We’re learning that he did possibly suffer an accident that caused him to visit the emergency room back on July 4, 2023,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told CBS News New York.

Police said they found a two-and-a-half page handwritten document in Mangione’s backpack when he was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that also offers clues.

“When you start using rhetoric like, ‘These parasites had it coming,’ you are referencing an anti-corporatist mentality that goes beyond an individual grievance toward a particular injury he may have suffered,” Rebecca Weiner, NYPD deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, told CBS News New York.

Experts in criminology and violent radicalization who spoke with The Baltimore Sun also talked about “grievances.”

Sometimes, instead of a personal grievance, a shooter can act on a “vicarious grievance,” said Timothy Clancy, a senior researcher at the University of Maryland with expertise in public mass killings spread by radicalization contagions.

“It’s grievance on behalf of people you feel are like you,” he said.

Pennsylvania defense lawyer Thomas Dickey on Tuesday warned against rushing to judgment in Mangione’s case — or any case.

“He’s presumed innocent. Let’s not forget that,” Dickey said.

At a news conference Tuesday, Dickey said Mangione is not guilty of the criminal charges he faces.

Police on Wednesday said they matched Mangione’s fingerprints to a water bottle and a KIND bar wrapper found near the scene of the killing and that the gun found on him matches shell casings found at the crime scene that had the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” written on them.

“First, we got the gun in question back from Pennsylvania. It’s now at the NYPD crime lab,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday. “We were able to match that gun to three shell casings that we found in Midtown at the scene of the homicide.”

There’s much more to be learned, but evidence revealed in the case so far suggests the suspect may have been driven by ideological factors reaching far beyond any personal grievances, criminology experts told The Sun.

Police said the handwritten document they obtained from Mangione shows him complaining that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world and that company profits continue to rise while “our life expectancy does not.”

Comparison to the Unabomber

Experts drew comparisons between the Mangione case and that of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, who carried out a series of bombings starting in the late 1970s and criticized modern society and technology.

In Mangione’s writings, he described Kaczynski as a “political revolutionary,” according to the Associated Press.

Mangione appears to share similarities with Kaczynski as a “crusader against a corrupt industry,” said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology, law and public policy at Northeastern University.

“It’s not necessarily that this particular individual had any direct impact … but this is the strike for the little guy against powerful corporates that take advantage of the poor and the sick,” he said.

Police said Mangione called Thompson’s killing a “symbolic takedown” in his manifesto.

More ‘political’ than personal

Mangione has had severe back pain since childhood, according to the AP, which cited a spokesperson for the owner and founder of the Surfbreak “co-living” space in Hawaii, where Mangione used to live.

Investigators now are looking into whether that pain led to any denied insurance claims, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto.

Sometimes a personal grievance can get wrapped up with the suffering of others, Clancy said.

“It’s through this pathological fixation on the grievance. As it becomes your identity, it becomes all-consuming,” he said.

But Joseph Giacalone, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says he believes the motive was more “political” than personal.

“I have back issues myself,” Giacalone said. “I went through lots of pain, and I never thought about killing anybody from the insurance company.”

In some cases, murder suspects will “use the court as a propaganda bench for whatever their cause is,” Clancy said.

“The style of their attack is not to get themselves killed in the outcome,” Clancy said. “They want to live and spread the propaganda even further.”

He pointed to Mangione’s appearance outside the courthouse Tuesday, as a potential example of that. As officers ushered Mangione inside, he shouted to onlookers that something was “an insult to the intelligence of the American people,” according to the Associated Press.

Though more may be learned, Giacalone points out there are a number of instances where motive was never discovered — such as the 2017 shooting at a Las Vegas music festival.

“There have been 100 years worth of research and development to try to figure out why people commit crimes in theories,” he said, “and we still don’t know.”

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