Luigi Mangione, the man charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO, reportedly fled his day-to-day life in Hawaii to “zen out” on a long solo trip to Asia before returning and gunning down Brian Thompson.
After leaving his co-living space in the US state, the 26-year-old set off to Asia earlier this year to soak in hot springs, meditate, and catch up on books, besides doing some writing of his own, according to The New York Times. During his travels, he visited Japan and Thailand. In between, he recorded a voice message to share with a friend he met while travelling abroad.
“I want some time to zen out,” Mangione said in the audio message he sent his friend on April 27 this year. At the time, he was hiking in Japan’s Nara region.
Describing his Nara visit, Mangione said, “There’s like these tiny little villages here, on the side of the cliffs — I’ll send a photo. It’s super lush, there’s this beautiful river that cuts through the gorge”.
He further shared his desire to stay in the region for a month and “just meditate and just hot spring, and do some writing.”
A few weeks later, he sent another message to a friend when he was on Mount Omine in Japan. He even described the gruelling terrain and shared how women are not allowed to climb it.
“This mountain is peak misogyny… I needed to stop getting distracted by women lol,” he wrote to his friend whom he met during his travels.
Soon after that, Mangione started losing touch with his friends and family.
In June this year, a friend sent him a text, asking “Where in the world are you?”.
But he did not receive any reply from Mangione, The New York Times reported.
Thereafter, his family reached out to his friends late in the summer, saying they had not heard from him for months. Mangione was reported missing by his family in California on November 18.
A few weeks after that, Mangione re-surfaced in New York City, where he now stands accused of killing the UnitedHealthcare boss on December 4.
These details have emerged as investigators look into Mangione’s whereabouts in the months leading up to Brian Thompson’s murder.
This comes after the New York Police Department (NYPD) earlier said they were looking at whether Mangione’s back injury, which he suffered in July last year, had fueled the alleged vendetta against the medical industry.
“As far as motive, it looks like he had animus toward the healthcare industry,” an official earlier said.
Mangione was taken into custody from Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday after a five-day manhunt.
