close
close
  • February 11, 2025
Luigi Mangione’s Hawaiian friends shocked by arrest in shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO

Luigi Mangione’s Hawaiian friends shocked by arrest in shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO

Luigi Mangione lived in the Surfbreak co-living community near Ala Moana Park on O’ahu. He was arrested in Pennsylvania on Monday, five days after the shooting of an insurance executive.

Friends of Luigi Mangione of Hawaii, arrested in the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, remember him as a natural leader who headed a book club where members exchanged ideas while watching the sunset from a place called Magic Island.

“He was such a thoughtful and deeply compassionate person in everything he did,” says Jackie Wexler, a food technologist in New York. She lived with Mangione at Surfbreak, a co-living space near Honolulu’s Ala Moana Beach Park.

Mangione, 26, suffered from chronic back pain from an apparent pinched nerve, said RJ Martin, Surfbreak’s founder. His friends didn’t hear from him again this summer.

He said he was stunned by Mangione’s arrest. “I loved this man,” Martin said. “In some ways I feel like my members are my children.”

Luigi Mangione, second from left in the photo, lived in Hawaii before he became a suspect in the shooting of a health insurance executive in New York City. (Courtesy of Surfbreak Hawaii)

Wexler had attended the University of Pennsylvania with Mangione, she says, but didn’t become friends with him until they were both living on Oahu, near Surfbreak. Originally intended as long-term housing for graduate students, Surfbreak turned into a sort of adult dormitory for: as the website says,“adventurers, remote workers and conscious travelers united by a shared life in our co-living + coworking spaces.”

Mangione was arrested Monday at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania and charged with five crimes, including carrying a weapon without a permit, forgery, falsely identifying himself to authorities and possessing “instruments of crime.” He is suspected of shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last week.

Surfbreak residents are expected to contribute to the community, and Mangione played a role in co-founding the book club with Wexler and Martin. They recall that Mangione had recently read “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity” by Yuval Noah Harari and was excited about sharing ideas with friends.

The book club reading list included “What is our problem”, by Tim Urban, creator of the blog “Wait But Why” and “The Monkey Who Understood the Universe: How Mind and Culture Evolve,” said Steve Stewart Williams, Wexler and Martin.

Wexler remembers Mangione as a thoughtful man who facilitated discussions through deep listening. Martin, a former college professor with a doctorate in history, said Mangione had a rare ability to express ideas in the books they read.

“I feel like he’s been able to parse the nuances of things better,” Martin said.

RJ MartinRJ Martin
RJ Martin, founder of Surfbreak Hawaii, where Luigi Mangione lived while on Oahu, remembers that the suspect in the UnitedHealthcare shooting had chronic back pain. (Stewart Yerton/Civil Beat/2021)

Wexler and Martin said they proposed that the book club read the manifesto of Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, as “a joke.” Mangione reviewed it on a Goodreads account, which was widely quoted on social media on Monday.

The rambling screed proved “painful to read” and so difficult to deal with that it led to the club’s demise, Martin said.

Mangione was committed to personal development through reading and sports. He got around Oahu by bicycle, and even after moving from Surfbreak, he walked with Wexler from Magic Island to Surfbreak, located in the penthouse of a building near the Hawaii Convention Center.

Luigi Mangione, suspected in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, led an active lifestyle in Hawaii, including rock climbing, biking and surfing, despite chronic back pain, his friends recalled. (Courtesy of Surfbreak Hawaii)

But it wasn’t all idyllic. Mangione was often in pain due to a back problem, Martin said, although the two still rock climb together at HiClimb, a gym in Kaka’ako near Surfbreak.

Martin recalled that the problem, which had persisted for years, was a misaligned vertebra that was pinching Mangione’s spinal cord.

Martin did not remember the exact dates Mangione lived in Surfbreak, but says they kept in regular contact after Mangione left. Martin said Mangione later texted him photos after he underwent back surgery.

“In June or July he went radio silent,” Martin said.

Mangione has no significant criminal record in Hawaii. He was criminally charged last November 12 for entering a “closed area” of the Nuuanu Pali Lookout, a popular scenic viewpoint visited by tourists on Oahu. At the time, he told a state parks officer that his address was in Towson, Maryland, according to the citation.

After pleading no contest to the minor misdemeanor charge, court records show he paid a court-imposed $100 fine. Honolulu police said he had no other encounters on the island.

Mangione had a gun believed to be the weapon used in last week’s shooting and was taken into custody after police received a tip that he had been spotted. a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

The news was heartbreaking for his Hawaiian friends.

“It makes me sad to think about how alone he must feel,” Wexler said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story,