Search for UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killer provides evidence, but few answers
NEW YORK– They saw him smiling on a hostel security camera, but don’t know his name. They found the backpack he left behind while fleeing, but don’t know where it went.
As the search for the killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson continues, investigators find themselves faced with a tantalizing dichotomy: They have a wealth of evidence, but the shooter remains an enigma.
Police don’t know who he is, where he is, or why he did it – although they are convinced it was a targeted attack rather than a random act.
“The net is tightening,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Saturday.
Hours after they spoke, police divers were seen searching a pond in Central Park, where the killer had fled after the shooting. Officers have been scouring the park for days looking for possible clues and found her bag there Friday.
Tracing the shooter’s steps using surveillance video, police said, it appeared he left the city by bus shortly after Wednesday morning’s shooting outside New York’s Hilton Midtown. He was seen on video at a downtown bus station about 45 minutes later, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
As the high-profile search stretches across state lines, the FBI announced Friday evening that it will offer a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, adding to the reward up to $10,000 offered by the New York Police Department. Police say they believe the suspect acted alone.
Police provided no updates on the hunt Saturday, but investigators are urging patience, even with a killer on the loose.
Hundreds of detectives are scouring video recordings and social media, checking tips from the public and interviewing people who may have information, including Thompson’s family and co-workers, as well as roommates randomly assigned to the hostel shooter from Manhattan where he was staying.
“It’s not ‘Blue Bloods.’ We’re not going to solve this problem in 60 Minutes,” Kenny told reporters Friday. “We’re thoroughly reviewing all the evidence we can come across.”
The shooter paid cash at the hostel, presented what police believe was a fake ID and allegedly paid cash for taxi rides and other transactions. He did not speak to other people at the inn and almost always kept his face covered with a mask, only lowering it when eating.
But investigators got a break when they came across security camera footage of an unsupervised moment in which he briefly showed his face shortly after arriving in New York on November 24.
Police have distributed the images to the media and on social media, but so far have been unable to identify him using facial recognition – perhaps due to the angle of the images or limitations imposed to how the New York Police Department is allowed to use this technology, Kenny said.
On Friday evening, investigators found a backpack in Central Park that had been carried by the shooter, police said. They did not immediately reveal what, if anything, it contained, but said it would be tested and analyzed.
Another potential clue, a fingerprint on an item he purchased at a Starbucks minutes before the shooting, has so far proven useless in identifying him, Kenny said.
Aided by surveillance cameras installed in almost every building and block, police were able to trace the shooter’s movements.
They know he ambushed Thompson at 6:44 a.m. as the executive arrived at the Hilton for his company’s annual investor conference, using a 9mm pistol that resembled the guns farmers use to cut down animals without causing noise. They know that the ammunition found near Thompson’s body bore the words “delay,” “deny” and “drop,” mimicking a phrase used by critics of the insurance industry.
Kenny said the fact that the shooter knew UnitedHealthcare Group was holding a conference at the hotel and what route Thompson might take to get there suggested he could possibly be a disgruntled employee or customer.
Investigators know from surveillance video that the shooter fled into Central Park on a bicycle and abandoned it around 7 a.m. near 85th Street.
He then walked a few blocks and got into a taxi, arriving at 7:30 a.m. at the George Washington Bridge bus station, located near the northern tip of Manhattan and offering commuter service to New Jersey and Greyhound routes to Philadelphia, Boston and Washington. .
Investigators don’t know what happened next. They are searching for more surveillance video, but have yet to find video of the shooter getting on a bus or leaving the station.
“We have reason to believe that the person in question has left New York,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told CNN on Friday.
Police determined from video that the shooter was in the city for 10 days before the shooting. He arrived at Manhattan’s main bus terminal aboard a Greyhound bus from Atlanta, although it is unclear whether he boarded there or at one of the roughly half- dozen stops along the route.
Immediately afterward, he took a taxi to the nearby Hilton and stayed there for about half an hour, Kenny said.
Around 11 p.m. on the evening of his arrival, he took a taxi to the HI New York City hostel. It was there, while chatting with an employee in the lobby, that he briefly pulled down his mask and smiled, giving investigators the brief glimpse they now rely on to identify and capture a killer.
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Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo in Washington, Jake Offenhartz, Cedar Attanasio and Karen Matthews in New York, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.
