(NEW YORK) — Luigi Mangione returns to court Friday for a fourth day of an evidence suppression hearing in the state case charging him with murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk last year.
Testimony is expected to include two Altoona, Pennsylvania, patrolmen who were among more than a dozen officers at the McDonald’s where Mangione was arrested following the shooting.
One of them, Christy Wasser, is seen on body camera footage searching Mangione’s backpack and, later, is heard saying, “there’s a weapon.”
The defense is trying to exclude the contents of the backpack from Mangione’s trial, arguing police had no warrant and no reason to even touch it.
“He never acted belligerent, did he?” defense attorney Jacob Kaplan asked Patrolman Tyler Frye during Thursday’s proceedings. “No,” Frye answered.
“He never attempted to open is backpack at the McDonald’s, did he?” Kaplan asked. “No,” the patrolman responded.
The bag contained what prosecutors have described as the means and the motive for the alleged crime. Prosecutor says police retrieved a 3D-printed pistol used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which Mangione allegedly wrote, “The target is insurance. It checks every box.”
The hearing is expected to continue well into next week, though the judge on Thursday told both sides they were being “duplicative” and said that’s “not helping your case.”
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