Why I’m wondering if he had very bad dealings going on, like massive illegal gambling debts or other dark people he was dealing with.
The person they paid to do the job, on the other hand, might. It was mentioned that the killer was seen on CCTV just before the killing making a phone call. I was thinking that was him calling his patron to tell them he was about to do it.
Yeah. If this was a pro job the next step is figuring out who hired the hitman, even if the hitman themselves is never caught.
Was the shooter sending the call or receiving it? if this was a pro job I’d sooner expect that was the lookout at the other hotel calling to say “Target has left his hotel; will be to your location in 3 minutes. Click.”
Has Jessica Fletcher’s location been confirmed?
She was coincidentally vacationing in the area
Considering that the man was undoubtedly very wealthy with a very cushy job that paid him tens of millions in salary and stock options, I find the likelihood that he was involved in anything really shady in his personal life to be quite improbable. Lord knows, the business he was in was already shady enough and naturally positioned to be widely hated and my money is that it was connected with this, most likely perpetrated by a disgruntled client. Those who have been recently screwed over by UHC are going to get a lot of uncomfortable attention, and it’s probably a very long list.
I also predict that he’ll soon be caught, as this case is going to get unprecedented priority.
I posted this over in the True Crime thread in Cafe Society; thought I was posting it here.
Thompson’s violent death outside a hotel where UnitedHealthcare was hosting an investor conference didn’t just prompt scathing jokes but heated criticism of the insurer he had helmed since 2021. One image that made the rounds online was a chart from the personal finance website ValuePenguin, which found that UnitedHealthcare denies 32 percent of all in-network claims relating to individual health insurance plans — twice the industry average.
Another ongoing lawsuit against UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, named Thompson along with two other top executives. A pension for firefighters in the city of Hollywood, Florida, filed the securities fraud class action earlier this year, accusing Thompson and his colleagues of selling $120 million of their UnitedHealth shares after learning of a U.S. Justice Department antitrust investigation of the company — but before the probe became public.
A former mayor of San Diego died with over a billion dollars in gambling debts. Stranger things have happened.
$120 million worth of insider trading ain’t nothing, though I spose arguably that counts as business and not personal. But it’s fraud on a scale beyond most people’s ability to actually grasp.
So we know he’s a criminal given the chance, and no doubt felt he could get away with most anything with impunity. I don’t find the idea that he was involved in shady stuff implausible at all.
Still, pissed off denied customer/family member is the way I’m betting.
I agree that no one with a conscience could run an intrinsically criminal business like a health insurance company and be able to sleep at night. My belief that he wasn’t involved in anything very shady outside the company isn’t based on a presumption of morality, but on a presumption of simple pragmatism.
Now, I like Leverage, but I didn’t think it was that popular.
OK, my L&O episode has pivoted to an Elementary episode, where the guy was killed by his own company. Because he was going ti “whistleblow” and turn over incriminating evidence at the trial.
I was referring to Breaking Bad, but I assume you were joking.
It’s also the same day as the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, which would also be a high-security event.
She wasn’t $1 billion in debt at the time of her death, but she’s believed to have gambled $1 billion as a high roller in her lifetime. FWIW, the story said her father was a bookie.
The 50th anniversary of Karen Silkwood’s death was quite recently. She was going to whistle-blow on her employer, a nuclear power plant, and was run off the road and the documents she was going to present were never found.
What if it was mistaken identity, and the shooter killed the wrong guy?
Now all your health insurance jokes aren’t so funny, are they?
(Okay, still funny. But that’s all I got)
So if this was a hit job, it was probably masterminded by someone:
- distrustful of the medical industry
- familiar with the requirements for targeted assassination, perhaps having done his own research after losing several family members to such killings himself
- well-versed in using Central Park as an escape route
I think this might be the most popular killing with the American people since the raid that got Osama.
It’s very disturbing.