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As the hunt continues for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killer police have traced some of the suspected gunman’s deadly path.
Between arriving in New York City more than a week before the shooting in Midtown, surveilling the site in advance of the crime and even using a fake ID to check into a youth hostel, a picture is emerging of a meticulously planned murder plot.
Here’s what we know so far:
Arrival in NYC
The suspect hopped a Greyhound somewhere between Atlanta and the Big Apple and arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Nov. 24, according to sources, 10 full days before he would carry out his assassination plot, according to sources.
It is not yet known precisely where on the route he boarded.
He then checked into the HI New York City Hostel on the Upper West Side before heading over to the Hilton hotel on Sixth Avenue and West 54th Street to stake out the location where the ambush was to take place, the sources said.
The suspect seemingly checked out of the youth hostel for a single night on Nov. 29 before returning in an Uber a day later and booking a room using a bogus New Jersey identification and paying in cash, sources said.
Cops released surveillance footage from the lobby of the hostel showing the killer flashing a smile at a receptionist who had asked him to remove his mask so she could see his face. Sources say he obliged because he had been flirting with her.
It’s unclear what he was up to between then and the shooting on Dec. 4.
Day of the killing
Police sources said the suspect was seen on surveillance footage at around 5 a.m. near the Frederick Douglass Houses, a NYCHA complex on the Upper West Side.
He is believed to have taken the subway to Midtown, and was captured on video about 30 minutes before the shooting stopping at a Starbucks at West 56th Street and Sixth Avenue, just minutes away from the Hilton.
He bought coffee, a bottle of water and two PowerBars, and later tossed the empty bottle and coffee cup in a trash can — which cops fished out of the garbage and now have as evidence, according to sources.
Surveillance footage also showed the suspect speaking on the phone about 10 minutes before the murder. Police have recovered the phone in a nearby alley, which sources said was a burner.
Thompson, 50, was scheduled to speak at UnitedHealthcare’s annual investor day event at the Hilton, and was walking alone from his hotel across the street to the venue at about 6:44 a.m. while city streets were still dark.
The shooter, who had been waiting outside the building, began firing at the CEO, who stumbled to the ground after being hit in the back and the leg.
After the assassin discharged several rounds, he fled on foot down an alley before mounting an electric bicycle, which he rode north along Sixth Avenue into Central Park, where surveillance camera coverage is spotty, police said.
