The 911 call that led to the arrest of Luigi Mangione

The 911 call that led to the arrest of Luigi Mangione has been made public for the first time after the press urged for its release.

The audio captured the moment a McDonald’s manager, who suspected that Mangione was sitting at the restaurant eating breakfast, called the police.

The clip was played at Manhattan state court at a hearing about evidence gathered during the 27-year-old’s arrest over the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

‘I have a customer here that some other customers were suspicious of, that he looked like the CEO shooter from New York,’ she said on the phone, after seeing the suspect in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles west of Manhattan.

‘They’re really upset and coming to me, and I was like, ‘well I can’t approach him’, you know?’

The manager, whose name was not released, said Mangione was sitting at the ‘back of our lobby by the bathroom’ while she sat at the opposite end of the restaurant with her manager.

She said he was wearing a black jacket with a blue face mask and a khaki coloured beanie.

She added that Mangione’s hat was ‘pulled down so the only thing you can see is his eyebrows’.

She said she turned to Google for photos of the suspect in an attempt to calm down customers who strongly suspected Mangione was at the restaurant chain.

‘Because I tried to Google it, I could try to calm them down a little bit,’ she said.

Pressed by the operator for more details about his description, she said the man sitting at the restaurant was of ‘mid-height’ and ‘mid-weight’, adding that determining his build was difficult because of his clothing.

She said: ‘He’s wearing a big, thick hoodie, so he kind of looks mid-weight.But the hoodie on, it makes him look heavier because he’s obviously cold.’

Moments later, the operator confirmed it had dispatched officers to the restaurant, and urged the manager to contact police if Mangione was seen leaving the premises.

An audio of the call was played on Monday as part of a pre-trial evidence hearing for the killing of Thompson on December 4 last year.

Before he was flown to New York City to face murder charges, Mangione was held under constant watch in an otherwise empty special housing unit at a Pennsylvania state prison.

A correctional officer testified that the prison wanted to keep Mangione away from other inmates and staff who might leak information about him to the media.

Among the evidence Mangione’s defence team wants excluded are a 9mm handgun and a notebook in which prosecutors say he described his intent to ‘wack’ a health insurance executive.

Both were found in a backpack Mangione had with him when arrested.

Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges. The state charges carry the possibility of life in prison, while federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

After getting state terrorism charges thrown out in September, Mangione’s lawyers are zeroing in on what they say was unconstitutional police conduct that threatens his right to a fair trial.

They contend that the Manhattan district attorney’s office should be prevented from showing the gun, notebook and other items to jurors because police didn’t have a search warrant.

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