They have seen him smiling on a security camera, but don’t know his name. They found the backpack he discarded, but don’t know where he’s gone.
They have seen him smiling on a hostel security camera, but don’t know his name. They found the backpack he discarded while fleeing, but don’t know where he’s gone.
As the search for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killer goes on, investigators are reckoning with a tantalizing dichotomy: They have troves of evidence, but the shooter remains an enigma.
Police don’t know who he is, where he is, or why he did it — though they are confident that it was a targeted attack instead of a random act.
“The net is tightening,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Saturday.
Hours after he spoke, police divers were seen searching a pond in Central Park, where the killer fled after the shooting. Officers have been scouring the park for days for any possible clues and found his bag there Friday.
Retracing the gunman’s steps using surveillance video, police say, it appears he left the city by bus soon after the shooting Wednesday morning outside the New York Hilton Midtown. He was seen on video at an uptown bus station about 45 minutes later, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
With the high-profile search expanding across state lines, the FBI announced late Friday that it was offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, adding to a reward of up to $10,000 that the NYPD has offered. Police say they believe the suspect acted alone.
Police provided no updates on the hunt Saturday, but investigators are urging patience — even with a killer on the loose.
Hundreds of detectives are combing through video recordings and social media, vetting tips from the public and interviewing people who might have information, including Thompson’s family and coworkers and the shooter’s randomly assigned roommates at the Manhattan hostel where he stayed.
“This isn’t ‘Blue Bloods.’ We’re not going to solve this in 60 minutes,” Kenny told reporters Friday.
