Prosecutors say Luigi Mangione carried out a brazen shooting on the streets of New York City, killing a CEO of a large U.S. insurance company. He pleaded not guilty to federal charges of stalking, a firearms offense and murder. But behind bars, Mangione is receiving love letters. Now, Kristin Thorne is taking a look at the women who have been flooding his mailbox with pictures of themselves as part of In Touch Investigates, a new true crime video series.
The frenzy is all over social media, women telling each other how to get a letter to the 27-year-old Maryland native, and even the best way to write a letter in order to get a response from him.
“It’s a really interesting phenomenon and people have sort of an obsession with men who are in jail. I’ve talked to some psychiatrists. It’s this particular thing where a particular set of women are actually interested in these kind of men,” In Touch reporter Lindsay Hoffman says. “It’s like a psychological thing. They really like the idea that the man is in jail and that they can have full access to him, know what he’s doing. And on top of that, he’s really cute. He’s really good looking.”
Lindsay continues, “So whether we like it or not, if someone is more good looking, if they commit a crime, people are going to become fans of them. And on top of it, he has a cause that resonates with a lot of people. So all of these things combined is the perfect storm to create kind of like a little obsessive fan base over Luigi.”
“They like them. And from what I’ve heard from experts that I’ve spoken to, they want this because within the case, part of their defense, what’s going to help them is the jury pool selecting the right people from the jury pool,” she explains. “So, they want people to Luigi, they want him to kind of have these conversations with him. That’s kind of what’s important to them. And to show that he’s a person and to show the cause. And they think that a lot of people are going to resonate with who he is, which clearly people do.”
Luigi Mangione
On the morning of December 4, 2024, Brian Thompson was fatally shot outside the Hilton Midtown hotel in Manhattan as he arrived for an investors conference. The gunman first shot him in the back, causing Thompson to collapse against a wall, then approached and fired two more rounds into his chest.
Witnesses described the attack as deliberate and targeted, sparking chaos among bystanders. Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he later died from his injuries.
Women are advising other women on the best way to get a response out of Mangione, who is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, until his trial.
“It kind of goes into the mind of Luigi being a very strategic thinker in person. He had a lot of back issues and he was helping someone on Reddit who wasn’t getting help for the issues,” Lindsay adds. “And he specifically said a statement that stood out to me. He said, if you want to get help, you can’t say this is how much pain I am in. You have to say, I can’t go to work, I can’t do this. And he’s like, for some reason, the healthcare system will respond to that.”
