Two days after the assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, the largest health insurer in the United States, the NYPD is still searching for the suspect. But the police managed to establish a composite portrait of the individual and a chronology of events.
It is a youth hostel well known to backpackers. Located at 891 Amsterdam Avenue, a major thoroughfare very close to Central Park in the Upper West Side, a quiet neighborhood of Manhattan, the “HI New York City Hostel” is a former women’s retirement home, built in 1883 in red brick, today now classified as a historic monument. A nice place to sleep for less than 100 dollars per night in the dorms. Thursday was buzzing. “Private property, no trespassing” could be read on the front door. The young people who came out, dragging their suitcases, were assailed by journalists who asked them what was happening inside. Equipped with a search warrant, the New York Police (NYPD) combed the establishment with a fine-tooth comb. Because that’s where the killer of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, stayed. According to TMZ, the murderer slept in room 407, on the fourth floor, which he shared with two other boys…
It is the news of the moment that fascinates New York. Because it’s hard to understand. Who was the killer, whom the police are having difficulty identifying? Why did he target this victim, this seemingly harmless CEO? A crime like this is unheard of in the city of Scorsese and De Niro. Using the arsenal of cameras which film all the places of passage in the city, the investigators managed, last night, to establish a composite portrait of the suspect: a thin young man of around 1.85m with light skin. They were just beginning to sketch the beginnings of a chronology of his actions before the murder.
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He would have arrived from Atlanta
The smile of the alleged shooter, immortalized by a surveillance camera.
REUTERS
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© NYPD
According to police, the suspect arrived in New York on a Greyhound bus from Atlanta (Georgia) last week, before the Thanksgiving holiday. He disappeared from the radar screens until November 30, when he showed up at the “HI Hostel” with a fake ID card from New Jersey, a neighboring state to New York. He spent four nights there, which he paid in cash. And he makes a mistake: while paying for his room, he flirts with the cashier who tells him that she wants to see his smile. He therefore lowers his mask in front of the hotel’s surveillance cameras. This allowed the police to release his uncovered photo yesterday.
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-On December 4, the day of the crime, he was filmed for the first time at 5 a.m. walking near the hotel with what looked like an electric bicycle battery. Then he goes south to the Midtown business district. At 6:17 a.m., he was seen at a Starbucks in this area, purchasing two energy bars and a bottle of water. Around 6:35 a.m., he reappears on a video recovered by the Fox News channel, on 55th Street. We see him walking briskly, with a hooded jacket, a black mask on his face, and a light gray backpack. At 6:39 a.m., he arrived on foot in front of the Hilton hotel on 54e street, in front of which he waits for his victim. At 6:44 a.m., Brian Thompson, dressed in a blue jacket, arrives on foot on the sidewalk, alone, and is about to enter the Hilton where he is to participate in an investor meeting, scheduled for 8 a.m. The assassin appears behind, points a long-barreled 9mm caliber B&T Station Six pistol, which, according to the police, has the advantage of being very silent.
He shoots at least twice, in the back and thigh of his victim, but the revolver jams. Brian Thompson, however, collapsed, mortally wounded. The suspect fled, first on foot towards 55e street, then on a seemingly electric bike, heading north on 7th Avenue before disappearing into Central Park, where cameras are far fewer than on the streets. Investigators intercept him cycling in the park one last time at 6:48 a.m. The CBS channel yesterday got its hands on a final video dating from 6:59 a.m. where we see the suspect passing on his bicycle on 85th Street, near his youth hostel. Afterwards, everyone had lost track of him on Thursday evening.
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Two clues
At the crime scene, investigators nevertheless discovered two major clues. They first find the bottle of water bought at Starbucks by the killer who probably dropped it while fleeing, and who left traces of DNA on it, unfortunately soiled and therefore imperfect. They also find a cell phone abandoned by the suspect, and, above all, cartridge cases bearing strange inscriptions: “deny”, “defend” and “depose”. Investigators wonder: perhaps this is a reference to the book by insurance law professor Jay M. Feinman entitled “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claim and What You Can Do About.” It’s a hotshot that dissects the stratagems deployed by insurers to avoid compensating their customers.
One of the preferred avenues is therefore the revenge of an activist or an individual considering themselves to be the victim of a fraud by insurance companies. But last night, the mystery remained. And the $10,000 reward offered by the NYPD to anyone who can solve it is more valid than ever.
