Family of suspect in health CEO's killing reported him missing after back surgery [View all]

[speak easy]

Mangione, 26, was reported missing on 18 November, police told the New York Post, after family members became worried that they had lost touch with him. A message from relatives had earlier been circulated to his circle of friends asking for help finding him after Mangione had undergone back surgery a few months previously.

As detectives begin to piece together the suspect’s history, one line of inquiry is the chronic back problems that he appears to have suffered since childhood. According to CNN, Reddit posts that match the description of Mangione talked about wrestling with spondylolisthesis, a condition where a vertebra, often in the lower back, slips out of place.

The condition had become much more severe, the Reddit user said, after a surfing accident. “My back and hips locked up after the accident,” the user said, causing “intermittent numbness” which left him “terrified of the implications”.

The owner of Surfbreak, a housing community in Honolulu, Hawaii, where Mangione lived for a few months, told CNN that Mangione had struggled from the back pain that could force him to stay in bed for days. “It was really traumatic and difficult, you know, when you’re in your early 20s and you can’t, you know, do some basic things,” RJ Martin said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/10/brian-thompson-killing-suspect-family