The suspect wanted for the brutal slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson used a fake ID to check into a New York City hostel before the brazen execution-style killing, police sources tell Fox News.
Sources say the suspect used the fake ID and paid in cash.
Fox News Digital cameras captured officers leaving the AYH Hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Thursday. It’s unclear if the hostel is directly connected to the search for Thompson’s killer.
General view of the AYH Hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, NY on Thursday, December 5, 2024. The suspect in the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson is believed to have stayed here. (Jennifer Mitchell for Fox News Digital)
FORMER NYPD INSPECTOR ‘SKEPTICAL’ UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO GUNMAN WAS PROFESSIONAL, ZEROES IN ON WEAPON OF CHOICE
The New York Police Department has been hunting for the killer since early Wednesday morning. Police sources told Fox News the suspect dropped a burner phone in an alley after the shooting. Police are looking into data that was on the phone, as well as fingerprints that were left on the device, sources say.
Police are also looking into a water bottle that was left at a Starbucks near the scene of the murder. Police sources say that DNA from the bottle is being used to build a suspect profile. The suspect is said to have paid in cash at the Starbucks.
Thompson was savagely gunned down in cold blood on an NYC sidewalk just before 7 a.m. Wednesday morning. Police have been hunting for him ever since.
Former NYPD inspector and Fox News Contributor Paul Mauro said the type of weapon used by the gunman could work to police’s advantage, and addressed rumors the suspect may have worked as a hitman.
“The speculation is that it’s a hit man, it’s a professional killer and all this sort of stuff…I would just hesitate on that and tell people to just be mindful of the fact that professional hitmen primarily exist in the movies. They don’t really exist,” Mauro told Fox News Digital. Mauro says everything we know at this point is just speculation.
UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO SHOOTING SUSPECT, UNMASKED IN NEW PHOTOS, BELIEVED TO HAVE LEFT MESSAGE ON BULLET CASINGS
In video obtained by Fox News Digital, Thompson is seen walking down a sidewalk outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan early Wednesday morning when a masked man guns him down before fleeing the scene.
“What we know so far is that he was very calm, he clearly knew the route…it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a murder for hire. Those things do happen. The idea that this is a ‘professional shooter’ I am skeptical of,” Mauro said.
Firearms expert David Katz, a former DEA firearms instructor who is now the CEO of Global Security Inc., agreed that the suspect was not a professional, but may have been using a rare pistol.
Katz told Fox News Digital that he believes the weapon may have been a bolt action pistol, a “modernized version of a World War II pistol.”
“The operation that he does with his hands is consistent with the operation of that weapon,” he said, noting that he “immediately moved to rack the slide manually with his left hand” after he fired.
“He knew he had to chamber around every time he fired a shot,” he said. Katz said the suspect was “not a master spy” and he “made a lot of stupid mistakes.
“And if it is that pistol, it is a very unique pistol and they don’t make that many of them,”he noted, adding, “If it is that gun they will be able to narrow him down to a very small number of purchasers.”
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Fox News’ Brie Stimson and Stepheny Price contributed to this report.