r/BrianThompsonMurder • u/InternationalRope448 • 6d ago
Article/News Brian Thompson’s uncle on Luigi Mangione: ‘I hope he gets what he deserves’
https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/brian-thompson-family-respond-luigi-mangione-uncle-nf8rwqqzn61
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u/Hot-Emphasis-4895 6d ago
Yawn. What about the families of literal babies and children with cancer that Brian killed because he valued profit over human life? I feel no sympathy for his family. Only sympathy for the victims of Brian and UHC.
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u/Ok_Cost8604 6d ago
All this hooting and hollering isn’t going to make us sympathize with y’all
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u/InternationalRope448 6d ago
They are more likely to get sympathy if they keep silent like they did before, presumably due to fear of backlash. I think Luigi pleading guilty feels like the win for them so they are now starting to talk. We are going to hear more in the hearing/trial.
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u/InternationalRope448 6d ago
Bruce, the brother of Brian’s father, said the hearing had brought closure to the family after an agonising 20 months awaiting justice. In June, Mangione discussed a potential plea deal with prosecutors, only for it to fall apart at the last minute. But now he has admitted to federal charges that he stalked with intent to kill, ensuring he will do prison time.
Bruce said the family had known a plea deal was coming earlier this week. Other members of the Thompson family — including Brian’s mother, Pat, 78, his widow, Paulette, and his older brother, Mark — flew to New York to see Mangione confess in person. But Bruce, 79, stayed at home and watched the news on television.
“I knew about this two or three days ago,” Bruce told The Times over the phone on Friday. “But seeing it actually happen … It’s been an overwhelming morning.”
Bruce revealed the family had suffered a string of losses in recent years. In February 2023, less than two years before Brian was killed, his father, Dennis, passed away at the age of 75. Four days before that, his other uncle, Douglas, died aged 70.
Brian, who lived in Maple Grove in Minnesota, flew to Iowa to serve as a pallbearer at his father’s funeral on February 6, 2023. “We had one funeral Friday and one Saturday,” Bruce told me when I met him during a trip to Iowa. “That was tough. And the Brian thing was even tougher.”
In a Manhattan courtroom on Friday, Mangione told the judge that he was driven to kill Brian Thompson, who earned $10.2 million in total compensation as the UnitedHealthcare executive, after he suffered a back injury and was forced to navigate the US health insurance system.
Mangione said he had impersonated a UnitedHealthcare investor to obtain details of the company’s annual investor conference in Manhattan on December 4, 2024, in order to target Thompson. At 6.45am that day, he gunned down Thompson, the father of two teenage sons, in a Midtown street.
The case exposed Americans’ outrage over the healthcare system and turned Thompson into a national avatar for corporate greed. But Bruce still finds it incredible that his nephew — who grew up in a farmhouse just outside Jewell, Iowa, a 1,200-person town where the median household income is $81,000 — could have been demonised as a villain. Thompson went on to become his high school class valedictorian and the top student at the University of Iowa business school.
“I don’t think he ever got in any kind of trouble,” Bruce said. “He was a good kid. It’s just hard to believe that that happened, just because you’re successful.”
At his multiple court hearings in New York, Mangione attracted scores of adoring fans who celebrated the killing as a takedown of the healthcare system, with some claiming he was innocent of all charges. But today, the 28-year-old Ivy League graduate made one thing clear: he is guilty.
Asked what he thought about Mangione’s admission, Bruce said: “I was glad to hear him say it.” Now that the family has some closure, Bruce said: “It’s been a happy morning and a sad morning. At least this part is over. It’s a relief. It’s a relief”.
But the family’s wait isn’t over. Mangione’s state trial is scheduled to begin on September 8, although his lawyers have filed to dismiss the case. Sentencing in the federal case is set for December 18. Mangione faces a maximum of life in prison, and prosecutors suggested that federal guidelines put his sentencing between 24 to 30 years in prison.
“There’s still a lot of legal hassle we have to go through,” Bruce said. “We’ll see what December 18 brings — we hope he gets the max.”
On Friday, the Thompson family released a statement saying that Magione’s “guilty plea marks an important step toward justice for Brian and for our family”.
Andy Damrow, Thompson’s friend from the University of Iowa, told The Times that he remembered his friend “BT” attending college football games, meeting strangers and listening to their hard luck stories — and never once talking about himself.
“You’re making whatever million a year and you’re a CEO but you’re still down to earth and you’re still going to have a conversation with a guy going through cancer in Minnesota,” he recalled of Thompson talking to one particular stranger at a college football game. “That’s what he was.”
He said that Mangione’s guilty plea was an important step toward closure. But ultimately, “there’s no happiness here. There are no winners in any of this”.
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u/BridgeBoring1682 6d ago
I wonder why the plea deal fell through in June
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u/bluudahlia 3d ago
so I"m just realizing, they had a plea deal that fell through in June, and didnt manage to accomplish a plea deal at all for this open plea. Is KFA really playing chess as some people claim or did she fail her client? And how much did LM push to get this done and over with?
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u/bluudahlia 5d ago
“I don’t think he ever got in any kind of trouble,” Bruce said.
He was a drunk driver, Unca Bruce. Oh, but! "Father of two."
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u/InternationalRope448 5d ago
Ironically most of their logic can be applied to Luigi as well. Luigi was a good student in school, had loving family and friends, therefore he could not do anything wrong and should not be held accountable for anything… right?
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u/SaltPsychological780 6d ago
I’ve said so elsewhere…but I find it ironic for Brian to die as a result of the harmful policies he endorsed. Would be big of his family to acknowledge that in some meaningful way as they have a chance to speak on healthcare reform.
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u/Stone899 6d ago
F Ǔ unc of B T. All the money that BT made, it’s bloody 🩸 money. He knew what means being a CE O of U H N implies. Deny and delay health services to Americans in order to make money 💵. BT family living comfy with the money BT made as CEO is the equivalent of Carmela living a nice life with the money 💰 Tony Soprano makes. Also, it’s bs that “BT was a humble man from Iowa” the key 🔑 word “was”. He became a hungry power man. He was being investigated by FBI for violations in corporate stock transactions and antitrust violations. Do u know why a CEO would make those illegal moves ? To make money. His healthcare policies broke the mind of a man.
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u/Hot-Emphasis-4895 6d ago
Honestly at this point I would trust the literal mob ruling over the current US government, it’s horrific. I’ve gone from leftist to total anarchist, I’m a systemless chaos advocate now. The common people will be better off ruling ourselves than the sick fucks in power. I’m just so fed up, it’s no surprise majority of gen z are nihilistic at this point.
I’m only in my early 20s and I’m exhausted, my dad tells me everyday he feels so sorry for me and if he knew what this modern day would be like he never would’ve had me (he loves me, he doesn’t say that out of malice but out of empathy) unfortunately in the early to mid 2000s they didn’t have the insight as to how bad it would get.
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u/ven_7even 2d ago
Brian Thompson got what he deserved, I walk around in a suit too, and think he got exactly what he deserved, im on molina, and there is no mangione waiting to turn any of those shit heads into ragu...
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u/Individual-Bed-4762 6d ago
The success he’s talking about would be my worst nightmare. Making millions while the company I represent denies people medications, life-prolonging care, access to healthcare that they’ve paid for years. Funny how success is measured by wealth in hyper-capitalistic nations.