What did NYPD's chief of detectives say that has Luigi Mangione's lawyers mad?
The accused assassin's defense team says prosecutors have not provided documentation to back up a very public claim against their client.
A San Francisco police sergeant says he isn't the investigator who heard a potentially damning — and highly disputed — statement from the mother of accused assassin Luigi Mangione, that the ambush slaying of a health insurance CEO was "something she could see him doing," according to a new report.
Mangione is accused of stalking UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, and shooting him in the back outside a Manhattan hotel last year.
At a news briefing on Dec. 17, 2024, eight days after Mangione's arrest, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters that Kathleen Mangione appeared to acknowledge the possibility that her son could have committed the crime in a conversation on Dec. 7, two days before Mangione's capture at a Pennsylvania McDonald's.
"They had a conversation where she didn't indicate that it was her son in the photograph, but she said it might be something that she could see him doing," Kenny told reporters. "So that information was going to be passed along to the detectives the next morning, but fortunately we apprehended him before we could act on that."
Luigi Mangione, charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, appears in State Supreme Court in Manhattan during an evidence suppression hearing in his case on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. (Curtis Means for Daily Mail via Pool)
Kenny's remarks were widely reported by major news outlets, including Fox News Digital, and at least one book.
However, after turning over discovery to the defense, Mangione's lawyers said in court filings they found no record of the remark police attributed to their client's mother.
Sgt. Michael Horan, of the San Francisco Police Department, took a missing person report from Mangione's mother weeks before the murder, on Nov. 18, 2024. She couldn't find her son, who had apparently gone off the grid for months.
Kenny said the detective working that case, later identified as Horan, called his NYPD counterparts and said the person he was looking for "bears a resemblance" to the picture of the smiling suspect seen checking into a Manhattan hostel before Thompson's murder.
Luigi Mangione allegedly killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. (AP Photo/UnitedHealth Group via AP)
However, Horan in a new interview denied taking part in any conversation where the mother said she could have seen her son carrying out an assassination.
"That was never from us," he told Rolling Stone in an interview published last week.
Horan said he took the missing person report before the murder and never spoke with Kathleen Mangione after her son was identified as a suspect.
"After we made the connection between our case and the New York case, we never spoke with the mother again," Horan told the magazine. "I do believe that the FBI spoke with the mother that weekend while they were trying to confirm, so that might have been a conversation that they had with her."
Luigi Mangione, charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, appears in State Supreme Court in Manhattan during an evidence suppression hearing in his case on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. (William Farrington for New York Post via Pool)
He said San Francisco police did speak with one of Mangione's sisters, however, but she didn't bring it up.
Mangione's attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, told reporters outside a Manhattan courthouse earlier this month that Kenny's claim about Kathleen Mangione was incorrect.
"There is no such statement," she said. "It was never made. In fact, what Mrs. Mangione said was that she could never see her son being a risk to himself or others."
Luigi Mangione pictured in a booking photo taken shortly after his arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania. (Pennsylvania Department of Corrections)
Neither the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office nor the NYPD responded to requests for comment on the filing from Fox News Digital.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to charges in New York, Pennsylvania and federal courts.
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He could face the death penalty if convicted of the most serious federal charges and life in prison in the Empire State.
Fox News' Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.
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