Explained | Murder of Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthcare CEO: All developments so far

The masked assailant who fatally shot Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, outside a midtown Manhattan hotel early Wednesday remained at large more than four days later, as details slowly emerged about his methods and whereabouts before the shooting.

Despite an intense, widening search for the suspect, whom authorities believe left New York City by bus after the killing, he had yet to be identified as of Sunday. Even so, police managed to trace his arrival in New York before the shooting, some of his movements in those days and his route immediately before and after the killing. A picture began to emerge of the suspect as a shrewd and elusive operator.

When did the shooter arrive in Manhattan?

The suspect appears to have arrived in Manhattan 10 days before the shooting, on November 24, a senior law enforcement official said. He came on a bus that originated in Atlanta and checked into the HI New York City Hostel on Amsterdam Avenue near 104th Street in Manhattan. He checked out November 29 and then checked back in the next day, the official said.

When he returned November 30, the shooter used a fake New Jersey identification to book a room, the senior law enforcement official said. On Thursday, police released two surveillance stills of the man who is believed to be the shooter with his mask down. The photos appear to have been taken at the hostel, where he had shared a room with two strangers, the senior law enforcement official said. It remains unclear when the photos were taken.

Why is it taking so long to catch him?

Thompson was gunned down in one of the busiest and most intensely surveilled neighborhoods in the country, during an especially busy season for shoppers and tourists. The Police Department has years of experience using images from surveillance cameras and drones to find and capture criminals. The department dispatched scores of officers and detectives, dogs and drones to search the city and to research tips, which arrived from all over the country.

So how has the gunman eluded identification, much less capture?

Part of the reason appears to be that he was camera-savvy, as the senior law enforcement official said. None of the surveillance images released by police show the suspect’s face entirely unobscured. Even in the pictures released Thursday, the suspect is wearing a hood. Late Saturday, police shared two more images of the suspect; in both, he is wearing a blue surgical mask and has a hood pulled over his head.

The gunman’s apparent getaway route, cycling north into Central Park before exiting and hailing a taxi on the Upper West Side, also may have helped him because the park has many areas with no cameras.

The shooter may also be lucky. Investigators believe he may have dropped a water bottle at the scene, and a fingerprint was found on the bottle, the senior law enforcement official said. But the print was smudged, making it useless in identifying the man.

Investigators are examining whether a cellphone left near the scene belonged to the shooter and was not a decoy or a so-called burner phone, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation. Police have not yet gained access to the device. On Friday, officers also recovered a backpack in Central Park that they believe the man may have discarded, but it was not immediately clear whether it had yielded any more clues.

Why are the shell casings a crucial clue?

Despite his elusiveness, the gunman may have left behind two revealing clues. Bullet casings found at the scene appear to have had the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” on them, officials said.

Those words may have been a message related to “Delay, Deny, Defend,” the title of a book that discusses how health insurance companies avoid paying patients’ claims. The book, by Jay M. Feinman, a professor emeritus at Rutgers Law School, was published in 2010.

The discovery led the police to think the shooter may have been a former employee or client of UnitedHealthcare, or possibly a conspiracy theorist, the senior law enforcement official said.

Investigators were looking into the purchase in Connecticut of a gun that resembled the weapon used in the shooting, according to two officials briefed on the investigation.

How did the shooting unfold?

The killer, according to images released by the police and security-camera footage, was a man wearing a dark hooded jacket, a gray backpack and a mask covering the bottom of his face.

Apparently knowing which door Thompson planned to use, the shooter arrived outside the hotel about 10 minutes before his intended target and ignored passersby as he lay in wait.

As Thompson, in a blue suit, walked toward the hotel entrance, the shooter approached him from behind and fired at least three shots with a pistol that appeared to be fitted with a suppressor, more commonly called a silencer.

Struck by the bullets, Thompson took several steps, turned to face his assailant and then collapsed on the sidewalk.

With his victim crumpled against a wall, the shooter walked toward him slowly. He seemed to point the gun at Thompson one more time, then walked away. He began to run only as he was crossing the street.

Who was Brian Thompson?

Thompson became UnitedHealthcare’s CEO in April 2021. The company, based in a Minneapolis suburb, is a unit of UnitedHealth Group, one of the country’s largest publicly traded companies, with a market valuation of $560 billion.

Thompson spent more than 20 years rising through the ranks at UnitedHealthcare, which offers insurance to companies and individuals, employs about 140,000 people and had $281 billion in revenue in 2023.

He received total compensation of $10.2 million last year, with $1 million in base pay augmented by substantial cash and stock grants. The company’s profits rose on his watch, jumping to more than $16 billion last year from $12 billion in 2021.

But amid the growth, the company and its parent also attracted scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators who accused them of systematically refusing to authorize health care procedures and treatments.

UnitedHealth Group’s size and scope have attracted the attention of the Justice Department, which is examining whether the company has engaged in anticompetitive behavior.

According to regulatory filings, Thompson owned about $20 million of UnitedHealth Group shares as of late September. Bloomberg reported in April that he was one of several company executives who sold shares before the Justice Department’s antitrust investigation was disclosed to investors — about $15 million worth, in Thompson’s case. The company told Bloomberg at the time that the sales had been approved.

Thompson lived in Maple Grove, Minnesota, where police responded to a bomb threat targeting his residence on Wednesday, about 12 hours after the shooting. A police report released Thursday said the small suburban department sought help from the Minneapolis bomb squad to search two residences. They found nothing. Thompson recently received several threats, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. The source and precise nature of the threats was unclear.

After Thompson’s death, a torrent of criticism was leveled against insurance companies over claim denials, in particular at UnitedHealthcare.

It was the subject of a scathing report released by a Senate panel that documented insurers’ refusal to pay for the care of older people recovering from falls or strokes. The report was part of Senate investigations into denial rates of private Medicare Advantage plans. Thompson’s company, in particular, was cited for a surge in denials of post-acute care, which increased to 22.7 per cent in 2022 from 10.9 per cent in 2020.

Before joining UnitedHealthcare, Thompson spent nearly seven years at the accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, now known as PwC.

He graduated from the University of Iowa with an accounting degree in 1997.

Why was he in Manhattan?

The shooting occurred as Thompson arrived early at the hotel to prepare for a UnitedHealthcare investors’ day gathering.

Such events, which are common for publicly traded companies, give major shareholders and analysts who track the companies a chance to hear from executives and to ask questions.

The New York Hilton Midtown, one of New York City’s largest hotels, is in a busy tourist area, close to the Museum of Modern Art and Rockefeller Center, where the famous Christmas tree was lit Wednesday night.