About

The Luigi Mangione Is Not the Shooter Conspiracy Theory, also known as the Luigi Mangione Is Innocent Conspiracy Theory, refers to a conspiracy theory that Luigi Mangione, the suspected assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is not the perpetrator. Theorists compared the eyebrows of each individual in the security camera photographs released by the New York Police Department (NYPD) amid its December 2024 investigation. Many believed that Mangione's eyebrows started closer together compared to those seen in the images of the suspect in the Starbucks on the morning of the murder. Others believed that Mangione wasn't the killer for other reasons, such as the fact that he did not admit to the crimes when taken into custody. Others believed that the evidence on Mangione, when detained in the Altoona, Pennsylvania McDonald's, was too obvious and could have been planted on him, possibly making him a scapegoat or fall guy. Discourse surfaced about his gun not matching the one used in the crime and his alleged manifesto not sounding like his own words, like a moment in it when he praises the Feds. A minor theory amid the discourse was the 286 Conspiracy Theory that concerned the Pokémon Breloom featured in Mangione's Twitter / X banner.

Origin

On December 9th, 2024, Luigi Mangione was detained in Altoona, Pennsylvania as the main person of interest in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which occurred on December 4th in New York City. On his person, police found a manifesto (reportedly related to gripes with the healthcare industry), a fake New Jersey ID (reportedly the same driver's license used at the hostel) and a gun that matched the description of the murder weapon.^[1]

Mangione was taken into custody and two mugshot photos were released that went viral on social media (shown below).

On December 9th, viral posts surfaced online from users who believed that Mangione was not the perpetrator. X^[2] user @hoolie_r shared the earliest known viral post about the theory, attaching the image of the suspect in the Starbucks on the morning of Brian Thompson's assassination, captioned, "So who the hell is this guy though?" The tweet received over 23,000 likes in a day (shown below, top).

In a reply, X^[3] user @hoolie_r shared a side-by-side comparison of Mangione's eyebrows seen in one of his mugshots and the eyebrows of the Starbucks suspect, writing, "Look, all I’m sayin' is my unibrow doesn’t even grow that fast," receiving over 2,000 likes in a day (shown below, bottom).

Spread

Later on December 9th, 2024, X^[4] user @n_e_rd tweeted a similar side-by-side comparison image that circled the space between the eyebrows of Luigi Mangione and the Starbucks suspect. The user wrote, "Lol. Nah," receiving over 19.5 million views and 363,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Also on December 9th, X^[5] user @kirawontmiss tweeted a similar post, writing, "Nah something doesn’t add up…" The tweet gained over 89,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Some people pushed back on the theory being spread online, like X^[6] user @domislivenews on December 9th, 2024, who replied to @kirawontmiss, comparing the images of the suspect smiling in a hostel to the shirtless photo of Mangione presumably in Hawaii. The user wrote, "I don’t know man. I can see it here. 🤷‍♂️," gaining over 570 likes in a day (shown below).

People also discussed the theory on Reddit during the same timeframe. For instance, on December 9th, Redditor^[7] AnArmChairAnalyst shared their own image comparing Mangione's eyebrows to the Starbucks suspect's on the /r/conspiracy subreddit, gaining over 2,900 upvotes in a day (shown below).

A 4chan greentext originally posted to /pol/ ^[8] on December 9th, 2024, was reposted on X^[9] and Reddit.^[10] The original poster and the subsequent reporters used the timeline to hint that Mangione was a possible scapegoat or "sleeper agent," like X^[9] user @SyeClops who wrote, "Project MKUltra experiment?" (shown below).

The manifesto found on Luigi Mangione at the time of his detainment was publicized by independent journalist Ken Klipperstein on Substack^[11] and X^[12] on December 10th, 2024 (shown below).

Internet users were skeptical of the manifesto's contents, specifically centering on the first line reading, "To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country." For instance, on December 10th, X^[13] user @derhausputz tweeted an image of an FBI agent typing the line, gaining over 174,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Other skepticism regarding Mangione's detainment surfaced when a photo of the gun found on him were posted online. For instance, on December 10th, 2024, X^[14] user @loreleisdemise said that it was "not the same gun" and speculated that Mangione might die like Jeffery Epstein did, receiving over 6,400 likes in a day (shown below).

286 Conspiracy Theory

On December 9th, 2024, X^[15] user @_foxygrandpa__ quote tweeted a post that included the banner image in Luigi Mangione's X^[16] bio at the time of his detainment. The banner included the Pokémon Breloom.

X^[15] user @_foxygrandpa__ noted that Breloom's Pokedex number is 286, and further linked the number to Proverbs 28:6 in the Bible, which reads, "Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways." The quote tweet received over 206,000 likes in two days (shown below).

On December 10th, X^[17] user @0xWolfff replied to the abovementioned post, noting that Mangione had 286 posts on his X account at that time (shown below).

However, according to the earliest recorded screenshot of Mangione's X account on December 9th, which was logged on archive.is,^[16] Mangione originally had 292 posts (shown below). Either some of his tweets were deleted or users previously retweeted by him deleted their posts.

In the following days, internet users discovered more instances of the number 286 concerning Mangione and the criminal case. For instance, on December 10th, 2024, X^[18] user @DiamondEyesFox tweeted screenshots of claims, notably shared in X^[17] user @0xWolfff's thread, regarding instances of 286, such as 286 being a "denial code" for US healthcare systems. Another claim was that the McDonald's where Mangione was detained was 286 miles away from the New York crime scene. The tweet received over 297,000 likes in a day (shown below).

However, many debunked the claim that the McDonald's was 286 miles away, like X^[19] user @Staroxvia on December 10th, who revealed that the straight line distance was roughly 232 miles and the driving distance was roughly 279 miles (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References