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Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was an active Reddit user, reports from publications like USA Today claim. The 26-year-old seemingly discussed his health issues on Reddit under the username u/Mister_Cactus. Mister_Cactus was also traced back to a page on GitHub, a computer code-sharing platform.
In the wake of his December 9 arrest, Luigi Mangione’s alleged Reddit account has been suspended. A spokesperson for the social networking site told ABC News and The New York Times that as per Reddit policy, any account "that may potentially be related to suspects in high-profile criminal investigations" gets deactivated.
While the Reddit account Mister_Cactus has been suspended, its posts can still be accessed from the archives and can be traced back to the fall of 2018 until February 2024. People Magazine obtained some of the alleged posts on a subreddit focused on spondylolisthesis. Cleveland Clinic defines it as a condition where a vertebra in the spine slips out of alignment and presses down on the vertebra below it.
In April 2023, Mangione reportedly wrote his condition “went bad to the point where I felt it every day.” In October of the same year, he allegedly mentioned that "constant pain means something is wrong." In another post dated August 2023, he seemingly spoke about his chronic back pain.
“It can be easy to get caught up in the plethora of horror stories on the internet. When my spondy went bad on me last year (23M) it was completely devastating as a young athletic person,” Luigi reportedly wrote.
Earlier, an alleged X-ray plate of Luigi Mangione went viral after people online noticed the same on the header of his alleged X account. Netizens, experts, and people with similar conditions analyzed the X-ray. They surmised that if it did belong to Luigi Mangione, he would have been struggling with back issues, such as spondylolisthesis.
Exploring Luigi Mangione’s alleged Reddit posts detailing back pain
Luigi Mangione’s alleged Reddit account, u/Mister_Cactus, which has now been disabled, was active between mid-2018 and early 2024. Created in 2016, it primarily discussed a range of medical issues, from back pain to insomnia, Lyme disease, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Gaming and traveling were other topics Mister_Cactus frequented.
In a July 2023 post, Mister_Cactus discussed having “spondy” (shorthand for spondylolisthesis) and having recurring back pain since childhood. However, the Reddit user said the pain was aggravated after he went surfing. After the surfing incident, the user claimed:
“I slipped on a piece of paper and my right glute locked and right leg shut down for a week.”
He claimed that his “back and hips locked up after the accident, and my whole lumbar/hips have been out of wack since then.” Later that month, he claimed to have suffered bladder/genital numbness below the right knee and sciatica after the back injury, besides the chronic back pain.
“In my case, it is due to my piriformis/ hip muscles tightening to compensate for my injury. The tightness squeezes my nerves. It doesn’t show up on MRI and no doc has really confirmed it,” he added.
Subsequently, the account holder reportedly shared his experience of having undergone a successful surgery and recovery on the Athletic Success Stories Reddit thread in August 2023.
"Seemingly all I could read on the internet was that I was destined to chronic pain and a desk job for the rest of my life. That representation was terrifying, and inaccurate and completely destroyed me until I realized the silent majority of fusions are highly successful,” he reportedly wrote.
“Hoping this can help others who find themselves in the same place! This is not to encourage surgery per se, but just to provide reassurance that athletic life is totally normal after fusion if/when the surgery is necessary.”
Mister_Cactus even offered advice on other possible remedies, including physical therapy and stretching exercises. In one of his last alleged posts uploaded in February 2024, the Reddit user reportedly confirmed having “L5/S1 spinal fusion 6 months ago after 1.5 years of failed conservative treatment."
The alleged post claimed that within a week of the surgery, he was seemingly on “zero pain meds.”
“That's probably faster than most folks, but my point is just that your body isn't supposed to be in pain and need meds. Even after getting my back sliced open and my spine drilled into, I wasn't in much pain," the alleged post read.
He even responded to another user's comment asking for advice about surgery on the lumbosacral joint.
“The surgery wasn't nearly as scary as I made it out to be in my head, and I knew it was the right decision within a week.”
No hospital, doctor, or medical provider was named in the concerned posts.
More about Luigi Mangione's alleged back pain
Following his arrest earlier this week, R.J. Martin, founder of a co-living space in Hawaii called Surfbreak, told the Honolulu Civil Beat that Luigi Mangione stayed there for six months in 2022.
Martin mentioned that his boarder suffered from chronic back pain, which was a “misaligned vertebrae that would pinch” his spinal cord. On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, R.J. shared that something "constantly weighed" on Luigi Mangione and "impeded" him from "doing many things."
A spokesperson for Martin also told The New York Times that Luigi’s back pain reportedly affected his romantic life and passion for surfing. As per People magazine, Luigi’s former neighbors from Hawaii claimed that his back pain was a result of an apparent pinched nerve.
In contrast, Barstool Sports podcaster Jack Mac wrote on X that he heard from sources close to Luigi Mangione that he suffered a back injury while surfing in Hawaii and underwent surgery, which seemingly changed his life.
“Spoke with a source that had a lot of friends that went to high school with Luigi Mangione. What keeps coming up is a back surgery that 'changed everything' for him and he went 'absolutely crazy.' Checks out with his Goodreads history and the X-ray in his header,” Mac wrote.
“Back injury happened when he was surfing in Hawaii. Surgery didn’t go great. Moved to Japan. His contact with family stopped about a year ago. Recently the family reached out to his friends from high school asking if they had info on him. So, he’s been pretty aloof for a while. This checks out with his IG tagged photos as there were a lot of posts from family through 2023, none recently.”
Apart from the concerned X-ray image, Mac’s post also featured a screenshot of Goodreads history, reportedly tracing back to Luigi Mangione. The Goodreads history comprised of books, including Back Mechanic by Dr. Stuart McGill and Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin, all dedicated to back pain issues.
Meanwhile, Aaron Cranston, a former classmate of Luigi Mangione, shared with The Times that he received a forwarded text earlier this year as Luigi’s family was seemingly trying to locate him.
At the time of his arrest at a McDonald’s store in Altoona, Pennsylvania, police reportedly found a handwritten manifesto on Luigi Mangione, which seemingly revealed his grievances against the healthcare industry.
Similarly, the words "deny, defend, depose" were reportedly engraved on the shell casings at the crime scene. These refer to terms used by health insurance critics to define the strategies insurance companies use to avoid paying claims.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was on his way to an investor’s meeting on the morning of December 4 when he was shot multiple times outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan, New York City. He is survived by his wife Paulette and their two sons.
Meanwhile, Luigi Mangione has been charged with second-degree murder, three counts of weapons possession, and one count of forgery in New York, besides five separate felonies in Pennsylvania. He appeared before court on December 10 and is fighting extradition to New York.
