New York
Mangione’s lawyers seek dismissal of federal charges in assassination of health care CEO
NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Luigi Mangione asked a New York federal judge Saturday to dismiss some criminal charges, including the only count for which he could face the death penalty, from a federal indictment brought against him in the December assassination of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive.
In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, the lawyers said prosecutors should also be prevented from using at trial his statements to law enforcement officers and his backpack where a gun and ammunition were found.
They said Mangione was not read his rights before he was questioned by law enforcement officers, who arrested him after Brian Thompson was fatally shot as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference.
They added that officers did not obtain a warrant before searching Mangione’s backpack.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges in the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson on Dec. 4 as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for his company’s annual investor conference.
The killing set off a multi-state search after the suspected shooter slipped away from the scene and rode a bike to Central Park, before taking a taxi to a bus depot that offers service to several nearby states.
Five days later, a tip from a McDonald’s about 233 miles (375 kilometers) away in Altoona, Pennsylvania, led police to arrest Mangione. He has been held without bail since then.
In their submission, defense lawyers provided a minute-by-minute description of how police officers apprehended a cooperative Mangione, including a photograph from a police body-worn camera of the suspect initially sitting alone at a table with a white mask covering nearly all of his face.
They said Mangione was first approached by two “fully armed” police officers when one of them “told Mr. Mangione that someone had called the police because they thought he was suspicious” after he’d been there about 40 minutes.
When the officers asked to see his identification, Mangione turned over a New Jersey driver’s license with someone else’s name, according to the filing.
As Mangione prepared to eat his food, the officers asked him to stand up with his hands atop his head so they could frisk him, the lawyers wrote.
Soon afterward, one of the officers went outside to summon more officers, telling a colleague he was “100 percent” convinced that Mangione was the suspect they were looking for, the lawyers said. Within minutes, nearly a half dozen additional officer arrived.
Last month, lawyers for Mangione asked that his federal charges be dismissed and the death penalty be taken off the table as a result of public comments by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. In April, Bondi directed prosecutors in New York to seek the death penalty, calling the killing of Thompson a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Murder cases are usually tried in state courts, but prosecutors have also charged Mangione under a federal law on murders committed with firearms as part of other “crimes of violence.” It’s the only charge for which Mangione could face the death penalty, since it’s not used in New York state.
The papers filed early Saturday morning argued that this charge should be dismissed because prosecutors have failed to identify the other offenses that would be required to convict him, saying that the alleged other crime — stalking — is not a crime of violence.
The assassination and its aftermath have captured the American imagination, setting off a cascade of resentment and online vitriol toward U.S. health insurers while rattling corporate executives concerned about security.
After the killing, investigators found the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” written in permanent marker on ammunition at the scene. The words mimic a phrase used by insurance industry critics.
South Dakota
Man receives 3 life sentences in shooting deaths
CANTON, S.D. (AP) — A man accused in the killings of three people at a house party last year in South Dakota has received multiple life sentences in connection with the shooting deaths.
A jury had found Justin Cody Rackley guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. On Friday, he was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without parole, as well as 30 additional years, KELO-TV reported.
The June 2024 shooting in a Sioux Falls neighborhood left 43-year-old Daniel Carl Kemnitz, 43-year-old Kellie Elizabeth Reaves and 34-year-old Michael Andrew Thompson dead. Two other people were wounded.
Rackley had pleaded not guilty. The Associated Press left a phone message for his attorney.
Florida
Execution date set for man who raped and murdered 6-year-old girl in 1979
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of raping and killing a 6-year-old girl in central Florida is scheduled to be put to death in November under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who continues to set a record pace for executions.
Bryan Fredrick Jennings, 66, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Nov. 13 at Florida State Prison. Jennings would be the 16th person set for execution in Florida in 2025, with DeSantis overseeing more executions in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
DeSantis signed the death warrant Friday, just days before the scheduled execution Tuesday of Samuel Lee Smithers. Another convicted killer, Norman Mearle Grim Jr., is set to die Oct. 28.
Jennings was convicted of murder, kidnapping and sexual battery and sentenced to death in 1986 after two previous convictions were overturned.
According to court records, Jennings climbed through the window of a Brevard County home in May 1979 and abducted 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash. Investigators said Jennings drove the girl to an area near a Merritt Island canal and raped her. Following the assault, Jennings smashed the girl’s head on the ground and then drowned her in the nearby canal, where police later found her body.
A short time later, Jennings was arrested on a traffic warrant, and police eventually linked him to the girl’s murder.
Attorneys for Jennings are expected to file appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
So far 35 people have been executed in the U.S. in 2025 , with Florida leading the way behind a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. The most recent execution in Florida was the Sept. 30 lethal injection of Victory Tony Jones, convicted of killing a married couple during a 1990 robbery in South Florida.
The previous record for executions in one year in Florida was eight, most recently in 2014.Indiana
Indiana
Ex-NFL QB Mark Sanchez released from custody a week after arrest
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Former NFL quarterback and sports analyst Mark Sanchez was released from custody Sunday, about a week after police said he was stabbed during a fight with a truck driver outside an Indiana hotel.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department confirmed Sanchez’s release. He faces a felony battery charge, along with several misdemeanor charges, for what prosecutors have said was a fight over parking.
A police affidavit says the 38-year-old Sanchez, smelling of alcohol, accosted 69-year-old Perry Tole, who had backed his truck into a hotel’s loading docks in downtown Indianapolis on Oct. 4. Tole claims in a lawsuit filed Monday that Sanchez entered the truck without permission, then physically blocked and shoved Tole, who then doused Sanchez with pepper spray.
When Sanchez advanced after being sprayed, Tole pulled a knife to defend himself, authorities said.
Sanchez was hospitalized with stab wounds to his upper right torso, according to a police affidavit. A picture of Tole circulating online shows him in a neck brace on a hospital bed, covered in blood with a deep slash to the side of his face.
Sanchez was in Indianapolis for Fox’s coverage of last Sunday’s game between the Colts and the Las Vegas Raiders.
Sanchez had a 10-year NFL career before retiring in 2019. He spent four seasons with the New York Jets and also appeared in games with Philadelphia, Dallas and Washington.
He appeared on ABC and ESPN for two years before joining Fox Sports as a game analyst in 2021.
A defense attorney for Sanchez didn’t immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.
South Carolina
State’s longest-serving death row inmate dies of natural causes
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina inmate who spent 42 years on death row has died of natural causes at a prison hospital, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Fred Singleton, 81, was sentenced to die in 1983 for raping and strangling a woman in Newberry County and stealing her jewelry, according to court records. He was the state’s longest-serving inmate on death row.
Singleton spent his last three decades in prison in legal limbo after the state Supreme Court ruled he wasn’t competent to be executed because he didn’t understand he could die in the electric chair and only answered questions from his attorneys with “yes” or “no.”
But the justices also decided in 1993 that Singleton’s death sentence should remain in case advances in psychology allowed him to get better and that he couldn’t be forced to take medication to improve his mental state only so he could be executed.
Prosecutors said Singleton broke into the home of 73-year-old widow Elizabeth Lominick in 1982. Two of her sisters and her niece found her body. She had been strangled with a bedsheet. Singleton’s fingerprints were found on the screen to a bathroom window.
When Singleton was arrested in Georgetown County, he had Lominick’s diamond and gold rings in his pockets and her car, with Singleton’s fingerprints in it, was found nearby, police said.
Singleton’s death leaves 24 men on South Carolina’s death row. The state had 48 inmates on death row at the end of 2014.
South Carolina has executed six inmates since then, all in 2024 or 2025. The others off death row have either had convictions overturned and been resentenced or died of natural causes.
The longest-serving inmate now on death row is Jamie Wilson, 56, who has been there for 34 years.
Wilson killed two 8-year-old girls and injured several other teachers and students in a 1988 shooting at a Greenwood County elementary school.
Wilson is in a similar legal limbo to Singleton. Wilson was considered mentally ill at the time of his trial. He had a competency hearing in 2011, but the judge apparently has not issued a ruling in his case.
Mangione’s lawyers seek dismissal of federal charges in assassination of health care CEO
NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Luigi Mangione asked a New York federal judge Saturday to dismiss some criminal charges, including the only count for which he could face the death penalty, from a federal indictment brought against him in the December assassination of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive.
In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, the lawyers said prosecutors should also be prevented from using at trial his statements to law enforcement officers and his backpack where a gun and ammunition were found.
They said Mangione was not read his rights before he was questioned by law enforcement officers, who arrested him after Brian Thompson was fatally shot as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference.
They added that officers did not obtain a warrant before searching Mangione’s backpack.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges in the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson on Dec. 4 as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for his company’s annual investor conference.
The killing set off a multi-state search after the suspected shooter slipped away from the scene and rode a bike to Central Park, before taking a taxi to a bus depot that offers service to several nearby states.
Five days later, a tip from a McDonald’s about 233 miles (375 kilometers) away in Altoona, Pennsylvania, led police to arrest Mangione. He has been held without bail since then.
In their submission, defense lawyers provided a minute-by-minute description of how police officers apprehended a cooperative Mangione, including a photograph from a police body-worn camera of the suspect initially sitting alone at a table with a white mask covering nearly all of his face.
They said Mangione was first approached by two “fully armed” police officers when one of them “told Mr. Mangione that someone had called the police because they thought he was suspicious” after he’d been there about 40 minutes.
When the officers asked to see his identification, Mangione turned over a New Jersey driver’s license with someone else’s name, according to the filing.
As Mangione prepared to eat his food, the officers asked him to stand up with his hands atop his head so they could frisk him, the lawyers wrote.
Soon afterward, one of the officers went outside to summon more officers, telling a colleague he was “100 percent” convinced that Mangione was the suspect they were looking for, the lawyers said. Within minutes, nearly a half dozen additional officer arrived.
Last month, lawyers for Mangione asked that his federal charges be dismissed and the death penalty be taken off the table as a result of public comments by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. In April, Bondi directed prosecutors in New York to seek the death penalty, calling the killing of Thompson a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Murder cases are usually tried in state courts, but prosecutors have also charged Mangione under a federal law on murders committed with firearms as part of other “crimes of violence.” It’s the only charge for which Mangione could face the death penalty, since it’s not used in New York state.
The papers filed early Saturday morning argued that this charge should be dismissed because prosecutors have failed to identify the other offenses that would be required to convict him, saying that the alleged other crime — stalking — is not a crime of violence.
The assassination and its aftermath have captured the American imagination, setting off a cascade of resentment and online vitriol toward U.S. health insurers while rattling corporate executives concerned about security.
After the killing, investigators found the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” written in permanent marker on ammunition at the scene. The words mimic a phrase used by insurance industry critics.
South Dakota
Man receives 3 life sentences in shooting deaths
CANTON, S.D. (AP) — A man accused in the killings of three people at a house party last year in South Dakota has received multiple life sentences in connection with the shooting deaths.
A jury had found Justin Cody Rackley guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. On Friday, he was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without parole, as well as 30 additional years, KELO-TV reported.
The June 2024 shooting in a Sioux Falls neighborhood left 43-year-old Daniel Carl Kemnitz, 43-year-old Kellie Elizabeth Reaves and 34-year-old Michael Andrew Thompson dead. Two other people were wounded.
Rackley had pleaded not guilty. The Associated Press left a phone message for his attorney.
Florida
Execution date set for man who raped and murdered 6-year-old girl in 1979
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of raping and killing a 6-year-old girl in central Florida is scheduled to be put to death in November under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who continues to set a record pace for executions.
Bryan Fredrick Jennings, 66, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Nov. 13 at Florida State Prison. Jennings would be the 16th person set for execution in Florida in 2025, with DeSantis overseeing more executions in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
DeSantis signed the death warrant Friday, just days before the scheduled execution Tuesday of Samuel Lee Smithers. Another convicted killer, Norman Mearle Grim Jr., is set to die Oct. 28.
Jennings was convicted of murder, kidnapping and sexual battery and sentenced to death in 1986 after two previous convictions were overturned.
According to court records, Jennings climbed through the window of a Brevard County home in May 1979 and abducted 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash. Investigators said Jennings drove the girl to an area near a Merritt Island canal and raped her. Following the assault, Jennings smashed the girl’s head on the ground and then drowned her in the nearby canal, where police later found her body.
A short time later, Jennings was arrested on a traffic warrant, and police eventually linked him to the girl’s murder.
Attorneys for Jennings are expected to file appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
So far 35 people have been executed in the U.S. in 2025 , with Florida leading the way behind a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. The most recent execution in Florida was the Sept. 30 lethal injection of Victory Tony Jones, convicted of killing a married couple during a 1990 robbery in South Florida.
The previous record for executions in one year in Florida was eight, most recently in 2014.Indiana
Indiana
Ex-NFL QB Mark Sanchez released from custody a week after arrest
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Former NFL quarterback and sports analyst Mark Sanchez was released from custody Sunday, about a week after police said he was stabbed during a fight with a truck driver outside an Indiana hotel.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department confirmed Sanchez’s release. He faces a felony battery charge, along with several misdemeanor charges, for what prosecutors have said was a fight over parking.
A police affidavit says the 38-year-old Sanchez, smelling of alcohol, accosted 69-year-old Perry Tole, who had backed his truck into a hotel’s loading docks in downtown Indianapolis on Oct. 4. Tole claims in a lawsuit filed Monday that Sanchez entered the truck without permission, then physically blocked and shoved Tole, who then doused Sanchez with pepper spray.
When Sanchez advanced after being sprayed, Tole pulled a knife to defend himself, authorities said.
Sanchez was hospitalized with stab wounds to his upper right torso, according to a police affidavit. A picture of Tole circulating online shows him in a neck brace on a hospital bed, covered in blood with a deep slash to the side of his face.
Sanchez was in Indianapolis for Fox’s coverage of last Sunday’s game between the Colts and the Las Vegas Raiders.
Sanchez had a 10-year NFL career before retiring in 2019. He spent four seasons with the New York Jets and also appeared in games with Philadelphia, Dallas and Washington.
He appeared on ABC and ESPN for two years before joining Fox Sports as a game analyst in 2021.
A defense attorney for Sanchez didn’t immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.
South Carolina
State’s longest-serving death row inmate dies of natural causes
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina inmate who spent 42 years on death row has died of natural causes at a prison hospital, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Fred Singleton, 81, was sentenced to die in 1983 for raping and strangling a woman in Newberry County and stealing her jewelry, according to court records. He was the state’s longest-serving inmate on death row.
Singleton spent his last three decades in prison in legal limbo after the state Supreme Court ruled he wasn’t competent to be executed because he didn’t understand he could die in the electric chair and only answered questions from his attorneys with “yes” or “no.”
But the justices also decided in 1993 that Singleton’s death sentence should remain in case advances in psychology allowed him to get better and that he couldn’t be forced to take medication to improve his mental state only so he could be executed.
Prosecutors said Singleton broke into the home of 73-year-old widow Elizabeth Lominick in 1982. Two of her sisters and her niece found her body. She had been strangled with a bedsheet. Singleton’s fingerprints were found on the screen to a bathroom window.
When Singleton was arrested in Georgetown County, he had Lominick’s diamond and gold rings in his pockets and her car, with Singleton’s fingerprints in it, was found nearby, police said.
Singleton’s death leaves 24 men on South Carolina’s death row. The state had 48 inmates on death row at the end of 2014.
South Carolina has executed six inmates since then, all in 2024 or 2025. The others off death row have either had convictions overturned and been resentenced or died of natural causes.
The longest-serving inmate now on death row is Jamie Wilson, 56, who has been there for 34 years.
Wilson killed two 8-year-old girls and injured several other teachers and students in a 1988 shooting at a Greenwood County elementary school.
Wilson is in a similar legal limbo to Singleton. Wilson was considered mentally ill at the time of his trial. He had a competency hearing in 2011, but the judge apparently has not issued a ruling in his case.
