UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has died after being shot in the back by an unknown gunman and it has gotten me thinking. Could the mystery woman who fled the scene be romantically involved with him or in the crime?
According to the police, it looks like it was a targeted attack. The assassin waited outside the Hilton for about five minutes before Thompson came out. That’s some serious planning.
Thompson was in town for his company’s investor conference, where he was supposed to announce massive revenues. This attack might have been an attempt to prevent that.
Police say they recovered a phone from the alley down which the shooter fled. They have not yet revealed what is on the phone, or confirmed that it even belonged to the shooter – but they do say they are performing forensic analysis on it.
It is understood that the shooter fled on foot to Sixth Avenue where he picked up an electric bike and rode up to Central Park, entering on Center Drive before disappearing.
Police initially said they were working with Lyft, the taxi company that owns Citi Bike, to track one of their e-bikes – which are all fitted with GPS. However, on Wednesday night, a law enforcement official told CNN that information was incorrect, claiming that the e-bike the shooter used was not a Citi Bike.
It is not yet clear how the bike was obtained. Rentable e-bikes have to be paid for and users must have memberships – which would mean electronically stored details. The bike could, of course, have been stolen or someone else’s membership details could have been used. It might also have been privately procured by the shooter.
Despite a massive ongoing manhunt with drones, dog units, helicopters and officers on the ground, police seem no closer to finding the shooter.
His last known location was entering Central Park at 6.48am.
Given the large backpack he was carrying, he may well have had a change of clothes that allowed him to slip out of the park unnoticed.
The atmosphere in the park on Wednesday afternoon was described by journalists as normal despite the grim news, with runners and walkers going about their usual business.
Police have had more luck tracking the assassin’s movements before the shooting, with news images from CCTV footage surfacing Wednesday afternoon of him in a Starbucks nearby to the Hilton Hotel and minutes before the attack.
It is not yet clear whether he ordered anything to eat or drink. In the images he appears to be holding a small object in his hands. One senior police official reportedly told CNN that the footage shows the gunman purchasing two power bars and a bottle of water.
Police are clearly confident that the gunman has fled the immediate area, as the annual Christmas tree lighting at the iconic Rockefeller Center – just blocks away – was allowed to go ahead on Wednesday evening. Thousands of New Yorkers and tourists attend each year.
An official motive for the shooting has not yet been released, but there is widespread speculation online that the attack was linked to Thompson’s job – as the head of a controversial health insurance company.
The CCTV footage is chilling. The assassin came out of nowhere and shot Thompson with a silenced handgun. Thompson didn’t see it coming. But what caught my attention was that as the shots were fired, this mystery woman with a coffee cup in her hand runs out of a doorway.
Now, I’m no detective, but she seems pretty suspicious, right? Why was she there at the same time as the attack? Could it be just a mere coincidence or she was part of the assassination plan?
Flip to the next page to watch the chilling footage…
