Brian Thompson’s Wife Attends Luigi Mangione Hearing After Years of Abuse

The widow of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson appeared in public on Friday, attending a court hearing where Luigi Mangione acknowledged in front of a judge that he had shot her husband.

Paulette Thompson was seen arriving at Manhattan Federal Court wearing a navy dress and sunglasses, months after she and her two sons endured threats, harassment and stalking following the killing of their loved one.

The hearing brought a dramatic admission from Mangione, who said he shot and killed Thompson in New York City in December 2024.

Mangione told the court he chose to target UnitedHealth after experiencing back pain, stating, “I shot Mr Thompson and he died,” before entering a guilty plea to federal stalking charges.

Mangione is still due to face a state murder trial next month, though his attorneys have argued that his admission in Friday’s federal case that he killed Thompson makes a second prosecution impossible under double jeopardy protections. On the stalking charges, he faces a potential sentence of 24 to 30 years in prison.

Paulette has not publicly responded to Mangione’s admission, but the hearing may mark a significant step in a painful ordeal that has also seen her family targeted by disturbing supporters of the man who killed her husband.

The targeting of Thompson’s family began within 24 hours of his killing, as fake bomb threats were made against two of his family’s homes in Maple Grove, Minnesota the day after he was gunned down. 

Thompson was separated from his wife at the time he was shot, and the Maple Grove Police Department said bomb threats were sent to his and Paulette’s separate homes – a mile apart from each other. The perpetrators have never been caught.  

Ultimately, investigators said there was no evidence those bomb threats were real, and were instead an attempt at ‘swatting’ – the act of forcing a huge law enforcement presence to descend on a victim’s property. 

The incident was a terrifying omen for the ordeal Thompson’s family have been put through ever since, while the executive’s killer Mangione has gained a legion of twisted supporters. 

Thompson’s family have kept a low profile and have largely remained away from Mangione’s court appearances. On Friday, his widow Paulette attended Mangione’s federal court hearing, the first time she has come face-to-face with her husband’s killer. 

While many who have targeted Thompson’s family have not been prosecuted, earlier this year New York resident Shane Daley, 40, pleaded guilty in court to sending harassing voicemail messages to them. 

Daley’s campaign against the Thompsons also started within hours of the executive’s high-profile murder, and he bombarded the family for over three days with menacing calls and messages. 

In his voicemails to the Thompson family, Daley celebrated the CEO’s death and repeatedly cited profits made by insurance companies, prosecutors said. 

He hurled profanities at the family as he said Thompson’s two sons, now aged 19 and 16, ‘deserved to meet the same violent end’ as their father, documents showed.

‘(Thompson) got lit the f*** up cause he’s a f***ing a**hole. Profiting off the backs of poor Americans. This s*** is going to keep happening to you f***ing pricks. F*** you,’ he said in one voicemail. 

In March 2026, Daley pleaded guilty to cyberstalking the family, and he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced. 

At the time Thompson was shot dead in New York City, he was separated from his wife Paulette, and they had reportedly been living in separate homes one mile apart in the Maple Grove neighborhood for several years. 

After his high-profile assassination, she revealed that Thompson had been receiving death threats, but decided to go ahead with his trip to New York for an annual UnitedHealth Group investors’ meeting anyway.

‘Yes, there had been some threats basically I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details,’ Paulette told NBC News at the time. 

‘I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.’ 

She added in a statement that her family were ‘shattered’ by Thompson’s death, describing him as an ‘incredibly loving father’ and a ‘generous, talented man who truly lived life to the fullest and touched so many lives.’ 

Paulette and the rest of the Thompson family have largely remained out of the spotlight in the time since the CEO’s death. 

On Friday, Paulette made her first court appearance, coming face to face with Mangione for the first time after previously avoiding the admitted killer’s court hearings at the risk of facing his fans and supporters.

In court, Mangione confessed to shooting the UnitedHealthcare CEO as he pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges.

Mangione, 28, admitted to gunning down Thompson, 50, in Midtown Manhattan as he walked to a conference on December 4, 2024.

‘I shot Mr Thompson and he died,’ Mangione told the judge on Friday. ‘I understood that my actions would place him in fear of death of bodily injury. I knew what I was doing was illegal.’

The confession came as the Maryland native pleaded guilty to one count of interstate stalking resulting in death and one count of stalking through use of interstate facilities resulting in death.

Federal murder charges against Mangione were previously dropped, but he faces a state trial on charges of murdering Thompson next month.

Thompson’s grieving family watched as Mangione revealed that ‘after years of enduring pain from a broken back’ he learned about the UnitedHealthcare investor conference.

Mangione said he traveled to Manhattan and emailed the company posing as an investor managing $58 billion and got information about the location within an hour, then printed a gun with a 3-D printer.

Both stalking charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. His sentencing hearing has been scheduled for December 18.