Healthcare boss assassin’s escape route reveals the scale of his sinister plot, says

The man who shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week plotted the murder in excruciating detail, a former lieutenant commander of the NYPD said.

‘He’s not a professional, but he is calculated,’ Lieutenant Joe Cardinale told Fox News.

‘He obviously planned this out to a very good degree as well. He planned his escape route, he planned everything prior to it.’ 

The retired cop said the suspect has likely relished the attention he’s received since the sensational assassination. He also described him as arrogant – something Cardinale said could be his undoing. 

The shooting occurred early Wednesday, and the suspect was able to flee the scene undetected.

On Monday, police in Pennsylvania were questioning a man about the slaying, NBC News reported. 

During the search for the suspect, many online chose to lambast the late CEO before he was even put to rest – as others painted his killer as a folk hero. 

The fanfare, indicative of greater frustrations with the American healthcare system, has likely served to ‘fascinate’ the gunman, Cardinale said.

Citing the messages seen scrawled on bullet casings left behind at the scene likely indicates a motive that the ex-officer said he has seen this in the past – from criminals who feel like they are ‘smarter than the police.’ 

‘They want to commit the perfect crime, but they’re doing things to let them know that it is me,’ Cardinale said, pointing to the three words written on the casings: ‘deny,’ ‘depose’ and ‘defend’. 

‘I mean, him showing his face, he had to know that there was a camera there and he showed his face,’ he added, referencing images of the suspect seen unmasked at an Upper West Side hostel where police said he had been staying.

Stills of the suspect’s face – shrouded in part by a hood – included one showing with him grinning widely at a female desk attendant at the Hi New York City on Amsterdam Avenue.

‘Maybe it was just for that flirtatious moment that they discussed’, he said, though seemingly not convinced.    

‘But I even said that’s somebody I would like to speak to – because she actually had a conversation with him, the clerk at the hostel.’

The clue is one of few that have been made public by the department, who, with the help of the FBI, have managed to trace the suspect’s arrival in New York on a bus from Atlanta.   

Officers were also able to map out the route he took immediately after the shooting – up Sixth Avenue on an e-bike through Central Park, where he ditched a backpack he was wearing during the killing.

The bag was discovered by cops on Friday. 

A senior law enforcement official described him as being ‘extremely camera savvy,’ as all other images released by the department have his face obscured. 

But he let his guard down at the hostel, where he checked in with a fake ID and paid in cash.

‘I’m sure there are tips coming in because somebody, this man’s face, is on a nationwide platform right now through all the media,’ he said. ‘Somebody has got to recognize this individual.

‘And I think it’s going to be when he does get caught, he’s going to make it his moment in the sun,’ the former officer continued.

‘He’s leaving these clues…he planned it from the beginning,’ Cardinale said.

On Thursday, authorities also released images of the shooter at a Starbucks blocks from the Midtown Hilton where the assassination would take place – these ones showing the man’s mask still up. He paid for a power bar and drink, again, with cash.

Within minutes, around 6:30am, the shooter would surface outside the hotel where Thompson had been set to speak at an investors meeting.

Seemingly aware of this – and lying in wait – the suspect was filmed shooting the father-of-two as he arrived outside.

Of this, Cardinale concluded, ‘I think [the suspect] had intimate knowledge of where Mr. Thompson would be at that hour. 

‘Now, how did he get that knowledge?’ the retired investigator said. ‘That is the big million-dollar question right now.’

CCTV footage of the assassination showed the suspect using a pistol with what appeared to be a silencer attached.

Such a device is incredibly difficult for a member of the public to get their hands on, and possessing one without the proper credentials is a federal offense.

Investigators are now looking into a theory the shooter used a veterinary gun used on farms and ranches to put down livestock.

Complicating matters is the search for the bike the suspect used to flee – first said to be a CitiBike, but now just an e-bike.

This comes after Thompson, 50, was gunned down in one of the busiest, most surveilled neighborhoods in the country.

A water bottle found near the scene that authorities said may have been dropped by the CEO’s killer failed to yield useable prints, cops have said.

A motive has also yet to be confirmed – though the casings left behind and accounts given by Thompson’s widow indicate it may have surrounded issues with insurance coverage.

The words scrawled on the bullets are eerily similar to those from the 2010 book ‘Delay, Deny, Defend.’ which details ‘why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it.’

It suggests the shooter – who is said to have escaped the day of the incident on an interstate bus – could be someone involved in a civil suit with UnitedHealthcare or at least connected to the company.

That would explain the careful, painstaking plan, Cardinale said.

When asked whether the NYPD knows the name of the suspect, Cardinale said the public is on a need-to-know basis and that there are certain elements of the case that must stay under wraps.

‘They’re giving as much as they can without compromising a case that once he is caught needs to move forward and get a conviction,’ he explained.

‘So they can not, just for the sake of putting it out there to the public, blow their case before it’s even formed.’