Luigi Mangione’s mother spoke to police just one day before the accused killer was captured, and investigators say she told them that the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson “might be something that she could see him doing.”
Last month, Mangione’s mother reported her son missing to San Francisco police, saying she had not spoken to him since July.
Investigators in California believed they recognized Mangione after the New York Police Department (NYPD) released images of the suspect in Thompson’s murder, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
Kenny said investigators then called Mangione’s mother to ask if the suspect who police were hunting could be her son.
“They had a conversation where she didn’t indicate that it was her son in the photograph, but she said it might be something that she could see him doing,” Kenny said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
Kenny said the phone conversation happened “very late” on Dec. 7. Mangione, an Ivy League-educated computer programmer, was captured on Dec. 9 at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Mangione is being held in Pennsylvania as authorities work to extradite him to New York.
On Tuesday, Mangione was indicted by a New York grand jury.
Mangione faces a charge of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder, seven criminal possession of a weapon charges of various degrees and criminal possession of a forged instrument, all felonies.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg called it a “brazen, targeted and premeditated shooting.”
Mangione is due back in court Thursday.
Sources tell Fox News that Mangione does not plan to fight extradition at Thursday’s hearing in Pennsylvania. If that ends up being the case, he could be back in New York the same day.
Mangione, 26, is accused of sneaking up behind Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel as the victim, who lived in Minnesota, made his way to a shareholder conference early on the morning of Dec. 4.
He then allegedly shot Thompson to death in an assassination-style ambush that was caught on surveillance video.
