Infamy as Motive: Attention Seeking through Homicide

The case of Luigi Mangione demonstrates the affinity between a sudden mass assault (or autogenic massacre) and a singular murder that could be added to the category Deitz has identified as “sensational” (a particularly peculiar killing that garners publicity).[i] The additional type would be selective homicides performed for the purpose of acting out, that is, intentionally demonstrating bellicosity.[ii] These murders would include many assassinations and the deliberate victimization of preeminent figures. Those acts share features with rampages involving multiple victims. Both are based on perseveration of internalized wounds or slights; both are irrational from the standpoint of material or social gain; both are exhibitionist in nature.

Mangione apparently nursed a grudge against the medical and insurance industries in relation to treatment of a debilitating spinal condition that had hampered his productivity and enjoyment in life for years.[iii] A handwritten note found when he was arrested said, in part, “I do apologise for any strife or traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.”[iv] However, in terms of actual societal betterment, his shooting was no more sensible than the manifestation of the more generalized accumulation of grievances collected by rampaging assailants. “Society had their chance,” Jame Huberty muttered to his wife a few hours before he assaulted a McDonald’s in San Ysidro where he spent 77 minutes firing upon employees and customers before a police sniper ended his deadly reign.[v]

There is still another similarity that Mangione shares with indiscriminate rampageous murderers. New York Police Department commissioner Jessica Tisch described his shooting as “premeditated, preplanned, targeted.”[vi] Contrary to popular perceptions, seemingly random public assaults are foreseen with calculating eagerness by their instigators and in some instances rehearsed (albeit artificially). Two entire chapters in How Rampage Killers Interpret Their Worlds are devoted to describing the anticipation and preparations of autogenic mass murderers prior to actively assaulting their unsuspecting victims.[vii]

Elliott Rodger first fantasized his predation on woman and alpha males six years before a stabbing and careening cross-town shooting spree that left 6 dead and 14 wounded.[viii] The Columbine assailants (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold) planned their slaughter for more than a year before carrying out the “judgement day,” that resulted in 13 deaths and 25 injuries with 3 impaired for life.[ix] James Holmes spent months collecting materials for his assault while booby trapping his apartment with explosive mechanisms before opening fire on the audience at a movie theatre in Auro Colorado killing 12, including a six-year old girl, while wounding another 70.[x] Tragically, all three of these episodes were preceded by activities that foreshadowed the perpetrators obsessions. If authorities, acquaintances, or mental health workers had been more alert to the signals and more proactive in their response multiple deaths as well as injuries could have been averted.

Rodger posted videos advertising his accelerating discontent on YouTube. The announcements concerned his mother enough for her to contact his therapist, who in turn notified a mental health agency that alerted law enforcement. Four deputies from the Santa Barbara Sherif’s Department, a city police officer, and a dispatcher in training paid him a visit and spoke to him for about 10 minutes outside his apartment, only to conclude that he posed no threat. They failed to view the clips that had caused the original consternation and did not ask to take a look inside his residence (where they could have found two advanced semiautomatic handguns: a Glock 34 and a double-action Sig Sauer P226).[xi] Rodger wrote in his autobiographical manifesto, “I tactfully told them that it was all a misunderstanding and they finally left.”[xii]

Harris casually joked to a peer that it might be fun to kill all the “jocks” (slang for athletes) or maybe even blow up the entire school.[xiii] The acquaintance assumed he was merely joking, but Harris was kidding on the level – a type of foreshadowing where an eventual perpetrator is conveying his intentions but masking them as humor.[xiv]

A psychiatrist who was treating Holmes prior to his rampage informed campus police where he was attending graduate school that her patient posed a “danger to the public due to homicidal statements.”[xv] The officers, presumably because he quit his doctoral studies shortly after the notification, failed to do anything other than deactivate the card that allowed Holmes access to university buildings. Just three days prior to disenrolling, after failing an exam, he had purchased a high powered assault rifle.[xvi]

Like so many of his autogenic counterparts Mangione has often taken to writing to convey his concerns or, simply stated, to rant. His violent aspirations in regard to the corporate power structure were unabashedly expressed when he wrote a review for Goodreads of the manifesto for Ted Kaczynski, more commonly known as the Unabomber.[xvii] The fact that the accusatory screed – now almost 30 years since its publication in the New York Times and, for the most part, a disjointed unsubstantiated set of doctrinaire proclamations – was viewed as worthy of a critique in and of itself speaks to the desultory state of the future killer’s mind.[xviii] More to the point, Mangione wrote with respect to the manifesto’s diatribe on the oil industry, “These companies don’t care about you, or your kids, or your grandkids. … They have zero qualms about burning down the planet for a buck, so why should we have any qualms about burning them down to survive? ‘Violence never solved anything’ is a statement uttered by cowards and predators.”[xix] Like Rodger, Harris, and Holmes, Mangione was plainly expressing a propensity for extreme violence while rationalizing its necessity and as was true with those multiple murderers, his expression went unnoted because those who encountered his words lacked the necessary knowledge to put them into the proper horrific context. The investigation is barely underway, but based on the documented activities of other marauders who have preceded him, it is almost certain that other instances of foreshadowing by Mangione will come to the fore.

Stalkers, rampageous killers, and many assassins are so preoccupied with their distorted vision of retribution that they cannot abstain from advertising their anticipation of the moment they consider to be the culminating event of their life. Even Dylan Klebold, the depressed and more reticent of the Columbine duo, could not resist handing in a short story in his creative writing class that concentrated on a mass shooting. His instructor described it as “literary and ghastly – the most vicious story I ever read.”[xx]

The general public, most  criminologists, sociologists and  psychologists downplay the demonstrative aspect of harmful behavior. They tend to ascribe most of it to utility; for example, for profit  or revenge as evidenced by rageful jealousy. In fact, though, violent acts are sometimes compelled by a fantasized desire to exhibit cruelty with the intended outcome nothing more than the exhibition itself. It is performative, not functional. If we, as a society, wish to reduce episodes of extreme violence, we need to appreciate the prevalence – and cease the underestimation – of the existence of compulsive injury vis-a-vis psycho-drama. At the same time we must learn to recognize the markers prior to the threatened showdown.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn on January 13, 2025.

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[i] Park Elliott Dietz, “Mass, Serial, and Sensational Homicides,” (paper presented at Symposium on Homicide: The Public Health Perspective held by the Committee on Public Health of the New York Academy of Medicine, October 3 and 4, 1985), available at School of Law, University of Virginia), 477-479, 488-490, Deitz defines them as “those that have a higher than chance probability of receiving coverage in tabloids.”

[ii] In psychoanalytic parlance the phrase “acting out” describes a patient’s effort to suppress memories by negating language and showing anger, regret, disappointment, or trauma through emotional decisions, neglect of responsibilities, or superfluous exertion. As used in this criminological context, the descriptor merely suggests behavior for the sole purpose of expression regardless of the recall or lack thereof of specific developmental events. For more on this terminology, review: Eric C. Bettelheim, “Acting Out and Enactment: An Effort at Clarity,” Neuropsychoanalysis 24, no. 1 (2022): 71–85 and Alan Rowan, “The Place of Acting Out in Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Lacan,” Psychoanalytic Perspectieven 18 (2000): 83-100, https://www.psychoanalytischeperspectieven .be/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/5-Rowan-acting-out.pdf.

[iii] Natalie Rahhal, Luigi Mangione Suffered from Spondylolisthesis, A Back Condition. Experts Say It Can Cause ‘Massive’ Pain,” Yahoo!Life, updated December 13, 2024, https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/luigi-mangione-suffered-from-spondylolisthesis-a-back-condition-experts-say-it-can-cause-massive-pain-002349224.html.

[iv] According to The Economist, “Luigi Mangione’s Manifesto Reveals His Hatred of Insurance Companies,” posted December 12, 2024, https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/12/12/luigi-mangiones-manifesto-reveals-his-hatred-of-insurance-companies.

[v] Quotation from Robert Keller, The World’s Deadliest Rampage Killers (self-pub., 2016), 13; narrative based on replay of undated news cast hosted by Marty Levin, on Morbid Minds, “The 1984 McDonald’s Massacre: James Huberty,” YouTube, posted January 16, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25QkdMy889o.

[vi] As quoted in, Lauren Mascarenhas, Maureen Chowdhury, Holly Yan, Elise Hammond, and Aditi Sangal, “December 4, 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson Fatally Shot in New York City,” Cable News Network (CNN), updated December 5, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/unitedhealthcare-brian-thompson-death-12-04-24#cm4a3qo2w00003b6mtlfbxtvo.

[vii] S. Lee Funk, (Washington D.C: Academica Press, 2024), 97-177.

[viii] Elliot Rodger, My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger, under “Part 6 – Santa Barbara Endgame: Age 19-22,” http://www.document cloud.org/documents/1173808-elliot-rodger-manifesto.html; Peter Langman, School Shooters. info: Resources on School Shootings, Perpetrators, and Prevention, s.v. “Elliot Rodger,” last updated December 17, 2024, https://schoolshooters.info; Joe Schmidt and the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, Isla Vista Mass Murder, May 23, 2014, Investigative Summary (Submitted to Bill Brown, Sheriff-Coroner, February 18, 2015), 1-2.

[ix] Dave Cullen, Columbine (New York, NY: Hachette Book Group, 2009), 13-14, 42, 45, 320-321; Funk, How Rampage Killers Interpret Their Worlds, Appendix B; Ronald M. Holmes and Stephen T. Holmes, Mass Murder in the United States (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001), 116, table 11.1; Eric Harris, Journal, April 21, 1998; Keller, The World’s Deadliest, 82-83; Mathijs Koenraadt, ed. and transcriber, A Teenage Philosophy of Awareness and Existence: Analysis of the Columbine Shooters Worldview, (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Morningtime, 2015), 46, 47, 91; Dylan Klebold, A Virtual Book: EXISTENCES, November 3, 1997; Peter Langman, School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators (Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), 18. Thankfully, a major part of their plan went awry. They planted a homemade bomb in the school lunchroom that turned out to be a dud. Had it exploded, as many as 600 could have been injured, many fatally.

[x] Terrell Brown narration, in CBS News, “Aurora Shooting Victims Update,” YouTube, posted July 22, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWi_McggpcQ; CBS News, “Powerful Photos Released from Aurora Theater Shooting,” posted September 11, 2015, https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/ powerful-photos-released-from-aurora-theater-shooting/15/; Jordan Steffen, “Long-Awaited Trial Begins for Aurora Movie Theater Shooting Defendant,” Denver Post, posted April 26, 2015, updated April 24, 2016, https://www.denverpost.com/2015/04/26/long-awaited-trial-begins-for-aurora-movie-theater-shooting-defendant/; CNN Editorial Research, “Colorado Theater Shooting Fast Facts,” CNN, updated July 9, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/19/us/colorado-theater-shooting-fast-facts/ index.html; S. Lee Funk, Why Rampage Killers Emerge (Washington D.C: Academica Press, 2024), 158-170, Jack Healy and Serge F. Kovaleski, “Before and After Massacre, Puzzles Line Suspect’s Path,” New York Times, posted July 21, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/us/pain-and-puzzles-in-wake-of-deadly-colorado-attack.html; History.com Editors, “Aurora Shooting Leaves 12 Dead, 70 Wounded,” History, posted December 2, 2013, updated July 19, 2021, https://www.history.com /this-day-in-history/12-people-killed-70-wounded-in-colorado-movie-theater-shooting. Gordon Rayner, Mark Hughes, and Nick Allen. “Batman Cinema Shooting: Killer Said He Was ‘The Joker,’” Telegraph, posted July 20, 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica /usa/9416606/ Batman-cinema-shooting-killer-said-he-was-The-Joker.html.

[xi] According to Simon Astaire, a family friend, in Joe Mozingo, “Frantic Parents of Shooting Suspect Raced to Isla Vista,” Los Angeles Times, posted May 25, 2014, https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-frantic-parents-isla-vista-shootings-20140525-story.html; interview with County Sheriff Bill Brown, on Face the Nation, embedded in Rebecca Kaplan, “Sheriff: Elliot Rodger Long Concealed Mental Health Issues,” Face the Nation, last updated May 25, 2014, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elliot-rodger-long-concealed-mental-health-issues-sheriff-says/; Kate Mather, Richard Winton, and Adolfo Flores, “Deputies Didn’t View Elliot Rodger’s Videos in Welfare Check,” Los Angeles Times, posted May 29, 2014, https://www.latimes.com/ local/la-me-rodger-welfare-20140530-story.html; Rodger, My Twisted World, pt 6, under “21 Years Old”;

[xii] Rodger, My Twisted World, pt. 6, under “22 Years Old.”

[xiii] Cullen, Columbine, 330; Funk, How Rampage Killers Interpret Their Worlds, 141-142.

[xiv] The FBI uses the word “leakage” to categorize a broad swath of behaviors and utterances that purposely or not hint toward impending violence. J. Reid Meloy and Mary Ellen OToole, “The Concept of Leakage in Threat Assessment,” Behavioral Sciences and the Law 29, no. 4 (June 2011): 513-527, posted June 28 201, abstract, http://drreidmeloy.com/wp-content/ uploads/2015/12/2011_theconceptofleakage.pdf. Foreshadowing, in the context of autogenic killing, denotes verbalizations consciously meant by the actor to predict upcoming mayhem. Like the literary technique from which it derives, it is laden with foreboding. There are five types, which are itemized in Funk, How Rampage Killers Interpret Their Worlds, 140-142 and Appendix B.

[xv] Clayton Sandell with Carol McKinley, “Psychiatrist Called James Holmes ‘Danger to the Public’ before Killings,” American Broadcasting Company (ABC) News, posted April 5, 2013, https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines /2013/04/psychiatrist-called-james-holmes-danger-to-the-public-before-killings/.

[xvii] Patrick Terpstra, “Review of ‘Unabomber’ Manifesto May Offer Clues in CEO Shooting,” Q2 Billings, Montana, posted December 10, 2024, https://www.ktvq.com/us-news/crime/review-of-unabomber-manifesto-may-offer-clues-in-ceo-shooting.

[xviii] Originally published after coercion by Kaczynski on May 26, 1996, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes .com/library/national/unabom-manifesto-1.html.

[xix] As printed in Terpstra, “Review of ‘Unabomber’ Manifesto.”

[xx] Cullen, Columbine, 307-308.