Police sources have indicated that the suspect who assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday morning outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown, Manhattan, may have left a secret message on the bullet casings used in the “targeted attack.” The suspect currently remains at-large amid a manhunt by law enforcement officials.
Police sources told The New York Post that the New York Police Department is investigating a potential message that was engraved on the live rounds and bullet casings used to shoot Thompson multiple times on Wednesday. The message reportedly discovered on the bullet casings includes the words “deny,” “depose,” and “defend.”
According to The New York Post, law enforcement officials discovered three bullet casings and three live 9-millimeter rounds outside the Hilton Hotel following the suspect’s assassination of Thompson on Wednesday. Anonymous sources told the outlet that each of the bullets and discharged casings featured a single word, leading police detectives to question whether the suspect was attempting to leave behind a message in the aftermath of the shooting incident.
The New York Post reported that the words discovered on the bullet casings resemble the title of a book that was published in 2010, which criticized insurance companies for denying patients’ claims. The book is titled “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it.”
READ MORE: Video/Pics: CEO assassinated in broad daylight in NYC
The at-large suspect repeatedly shot Thompson at roughly 6:46 a.m. on Wednesday as the 50-year-old CEO was arriving for a conference at the Hilton Hotel. Police sources confirmed that the suspect quickly escaped on a bicycle after shooting the insurance company CEO.
According to The New York Post, the CEO’s wife, Paulette Thompson, indicated that her family had received threats prior to her husband’s death on Wednesday.
“There had been some threats,” Paulette Thompson told NBC News. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”
During a press conference following Wednesday’s fatal shooting, Joe Kenny, the New York Police Department’s chief of detectives, said that based on the evidence the police department has already obtained, “It does appear that the victim was specifically targeted.” “But at this point, we do not know why,” Kenny added. “This does not appear to be a random act of violence.”
