New York City mayor Eric Adams has said police know the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson – but won’t identify him yet.
Adams said they’re holding back on releasing the suspected killer’s name so they don’t ‘give a tip’ to the person they’re looking for.
‘We do not want to give him an upper hand at all. Let him continue to believe he can hide behind the mask,’ Adams said.
‘We revealed his face. We’re going to reveal who he is and we’re going to bring him to justice.’
A backpack believed to have belonged to the wanted man was found abandoned in Central Park — with Monopoly money inside.
The grey backpack was unearthed near a playground and was sent for testing in a Queens laboratory, where the board game money was found, according to the New York Post.
The backpack, described by NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny as ‘very distinctive’, also contained a jacket.
Paul Dering, CEO of Peak Design – which makes backpacks similar to the one worn by the suspect – said he believes it is one of his company’s products, though this hasn’t been confirmed.
Five days on from the assassination, the New York Police Department has released new photos of the masked suspect.
The assassin approached his victim from behind, levelled his gun, which had a silencer, and firing several shots, hitting Thompson in the back and leg.
Moments later, police said he fled on a bicycle and was last seen riding up to Sixth Avenue and into Central Park where he was last seen at 6.48am.
The daylight killing of one of the biggest health CEOs in America became even more mysterious when it was revealed the words ‘deny’, ‘defend’ and ‘depose’ were carved into shell casings found at the scene.
The words evoke the title of Jay Feinman’s 2010 book critical of the insurance industry ‘Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It’.
UnitedHealth is the largest US health insurer, providing benefits to tens of millions of Americans, who pay more for healthcare than people in any other country.
Thompson joined UnitedHealth in 2004 and became the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, a unit of UnitedHealth Group, in April 2021, reportedly earning around $10 million a year.
A Gallup poll released on Friday found that Americans believe the quality of health care is at a 24-year low.
Following the attack, UnitedHealth and several other health insurers including CVS Health and Centene, removed pictures of executives from their corporate websites in an apparent tightening of security measures.
Centene said on Thursday it would no longer hold an in-person investor day next week, and that the event would be streamed.
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