The parallels between the murder of Charlie Kirk and Luigi Mangione’s supposed killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson are numerous and remarkable.

As a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent with a 21-year career involving countless manhunts, including the search for the Boston bombers, I firmly believe that, like Mangione, Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin, identified as Tyler Robinson, intended to make a statement.

Perhaps most chillingly reports suggest that both appear to have written that message on the ammunition used in the attack.

When Thompson was killed investigators found the words ‘Deny,’ ‘Defend’ and ‘Depose,’ written on three shell casings found at the scene.

The significance of these cases lies in their reflection of the ‘Delay, Deny, Defend’ mantra — a phrase often used to describe the strategies employed by the insurance sector to evade settling claims.

Writings like this are more than just scribblings, they’re psychological fingerprints.

Mangione’s alleged issue was rooted in his perception of corporate America’s injustice, epitomized, in his view, by the profiteering of huge insurance corporations at the expense of denying clients their rightful funds.

Now, it has been reported that investigators found writing on unspent cartridges discovered alongside the weapon recovered following Kirk’s shooting.

We don’t yet know the full details, but in this instance they reportedly bore messaging initially described by law enforcement officials as, ‘transgender and anti-fascist.’

We now know that one of the messages read, ‘Catch a fascist.’

This points to narrative-driven violence. The shooter wanted to weaponize both the act of killing and the story behind it. For law enforcement, understanding that story is just as critical as tracking the shooter down.

Behind the scenes, investigators will be working to match those writings with anything in the shooter’s digital footprint.

That includes journals, social media posts, and videos. The goal is to determine whether this was linked to an ideology, a grievance, or both.

There are other commonalities between Mangione and Kirk’s killer.

Mangione was 26 when he allegedly committed his crime. We have learned that the young man being held in connection with Kirk’s murder is 22.

Both young men targeted one person. Both dressed in black. Both were organized. So organized in fact that they managed to evade law enforcement for a considerable period of time.

With a seemingly carefully plotted exit plan, Mangione was on the run for nearly a week. The investigation into Kirk’s killing was 33 hours old when Robinson was taken into custody.

And both followed what in law enforcement we call the Pathway to Violence.

That means violence that is not impulsive but the result of a methodical progression of thoughts into targeted, premeditated attacks.

It starts with a grievance and usually involves some rehearsal. There may be ‘leakage’ which means the perpetrator talks to someone or expresses their views on social media or online before they act.

That ‘leakage’ is one of the things that investigators will be searching for.

The fact that investigators released images of the person of interest, just one day after the killing, was huge and led directly to the suspect they now have in custody when one of Robinson’s own family reportedly reached out to law enforcement.

Officials had grainy images on the day of the assassination which they did not immediately put out. They may have wanted to enhance or improve on them. Waiting to release images that were clear enough paid off.

I remember we waited to release images of the Boston bombers because the FBI felt certain they could sharpen the pictures which local law enforcement wanted to push out immediately.

Ultimately, what we released broke our case wide open as family and friends recognized the bombers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

The same happened with the release of images of Mangione which led directly to his arrest. Just as with Robinson one of Mangione’s own family – his mother – was already in contact with investigators when, ultimately, a member of the public recognized him at a McDonalds in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

The public have been a big part of the search for the Utah gunman from the start. Tip lines have been flooded with calls and every credible tip logged and mapped against the growing investigative picture.

That investigation comprises of two separate but simultaneous prongs: the manhunt and the forensic investigation.

Officers will be on the Utah campus for days securing and processing the scene in a bid to build a case that will lead to a successful prosecution. That takes time.

Shell casings, fingerprints, DNA, and surveillance footage are gathered and rushed to the lab. Even something as small as a cigarette butt or a smudge on a door handle can provide a breakthrough. Ballistics experts work to match casings to a weapon, and analysts check fingerprints and DNA against national databases within hours. 

By contrast a manhunt is fast and unforgiving.

Fugitive squads fanned out to check the neighborhood into which the shooter fled and. as more information emerges, they will go to the homes of relatives, old friends and former workplaces.

Tactical teams were staged and ready to move at a moment’s notice. Surveillance technology is used aggressively, from license plate readers on highways to helicopters with infrared cameras scanning wooded areas.

While the crime scene continues to be processed, analysts and agents are now building the shooter’s profile. They collect every piece of information available: criminal history, past addresses, family connections, phone records, social media accounts, and financial transactions. 

A shooter who leaves symbolic writings as this one seems to have done is often preparing for a final confrontation, which made the timeline even tighter.

In the end, manhunts usually end in one of three ways: the shooter surrenders, tactical teams capture him or there is a forced confrontation. Thankfully this one appears to have ended in the best possible way, with a suspect arrested and in custody.