What Luigi Mangione’s mother did the day before his arrest, as ‘CEO shooter’ hinted at parental rift

Luigi Mangione’s mother paid a solemn visit to the church less than 24 hours before her son was arrested for allegedly being the killer of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO.

The accused killer of CEO Brian Thompson, who was shot dead on the streets of New York City, captivated the country after being captured by authorities following a five-day run from police.

And in the blink of an eye, Kathy Mangione went from a desperate mother searching for her estranged 26-year-old son to the mother of an accused murderer.

“Less than 24 hours later, their lives changed completely,” Santo Grasso, a longtime family friend who was at the church event, told the WJ.

People close to the successful family said a distraught Kathy spent half the year doing everything she could to find her son after he “went off the grid six months to a year ago and stopped communicating with anyone.” the WSJ reported.

His absence affected the family so much that they took it upon themselves to hire a private investigator to locate him.

Ahead of her son’s arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Kathy went to lunch with some friends Saturday at an Italian market near the Baltimore waterfront.

The next afternoon, she and her husband attended a ceremony honoring one of her brothers at a church in the city’s Little Italy.

But when her son finally resurfaced on Monday, it was under the most shocking of circumstances: His name was plastered all over the media for shooting the health care CEO.

The family have since released a statement expressing their devastation and shock, saying: ‘We only know what we have read in the media.’

Luigi’s arrest after being spotted by a customer at a McDonald’s turned the lives of his enormous Baltimore family upside down: sixteen aunts and uncles in all and more than thirty cousins.

Grasso, a 73-year-old retired police detective, remains convinced that Luigi’s parents were blindsided by their son’s arrest, given how calmly they watched the church service Sunday afternoon.

“It seemed to me that they were just in normal life mode,” Grasso said. “I know them so well that if something was bothering them or eating them, I would have known.”

While it is unclear whether the family recognized the posted photos of their son while he was on the run from authorities, Grasso suggested they likely did.

“I would probably look at that picture and say, ‘Maybe it’s not him, it can’t be him,’” Grasso told the newspaper, thinking about how he would react in the same situation.

Joe Di Pasquale, a friend of all four of Luigi’s grandparents, was floored by the news, recalling how he had just seen him at Di Pasquale’s Italian market a year or two ago as a cheerful, well-mannered top performer.

Pasquale noted how he and his wife were so impressed by his character that they urged their own children to be more like him.

“We’ve always modeled our kids on how to do it,” he told the outlet. “I drove my kids crazy.”

For the past year, Luigi’s family had no idea where their son was or what he was doing and desperately sent an email to his friends asking for help.

Kathy even reported Luigi missing to the San Francisco police last month.

“She would have done everything she could to find her son, but she couldn’t,” said a person close to the Mangiones.

But the prominent family, their relationship with their son and their mentality during his manhunt have drawn national attention.

There were multiple indications that Luigi had distanced himself from his family for at least a year before finally cutting ties – based on his Reddit posts and Goodreads book review site believed to be written by him.

Luigi suffered a back injury so severe that he was plagued with debilitating pain for months – including after his surgery in July 2023 – which many believe was related to his mental state.

His spinal injury left him unable to surf or “be physically intimate” with partners when he lived in Hawaii, his former landlord told the newspaper New York Times.

After Luigi started going MIA, a friend said they were told he had been struggling with pain medication due to the injury.

Other friends have told the media they believed Luigi injured himself in a surfing accident in Hawaii, where he lived on and off from around 2022 until this year.

Although classmates talked to each other about Luigi’s perceived estrangement, Luigi’s wealthy and influential Maryland family was discreet about their troubled son.

“They’re a big Baltimore family. They like to keep it quiet,” the school friend said.

He painted a picture of a brilliant and caring classmate, who designed an app for his fellow students and helped others around him – but who changed later in life.

‘He was extremely smart, friendly and helpful. He was just a really good person. And he was an innocent child, he almost looked like my younger brother.

“So this whole thing is extremely shocking,” the school friend said.

“I ran into him in Baltimore about two years ago,” he added. “Something wasn’t right.”

The friend said Mangione told him he had temporarily stepped away from his work projects and was “taking a break.”

“He said he was taking a break from some things. His voice was much deeper and much more serious and toned down,” the friend said.

“I just put it down to maturity and getting older. Something had changed, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly.’

“A few months later I heard he was estranged, had cut everyone off and they had to hire a private investigator to track him down, but they couldn’t find him.”

Power Yoga’s Dorian Wright also described his encounters with the 26-year-old on Wednesday, recalling how he struggled with certain poses during his classes in Hawaii due to his back pain.

“I remember him, like a lot of people who come in with injuries, telling me at the beginning of class or while we’re doing certain poses, ‘Oh, I can’t do this.’ Wright recalled, offering the new insight CBS News.

On Thursday, his former yoga teacher posted a story on Instagram in which he simultaneously expressed regret and sympathy for Luigi’s situation, as he is now being extradited to New York.

“You never know what kind of pain someone is going through,” he captioned a photo of one of Luigi’s mugshots after his arrest.

“Reach out to a friend today and let them know you care,” he concluded, as the case continues to make headlines.