Doctors have raised the prospect that sexual frustration may have played a role in the healthcare CEO’s assassination — as speculation swirls about the alleged killer’s motive.
Luigi Mangione, 26, is said to have been unable to have sex because of a debilitating lower back injury that caused him constant pain, according to a friend and former roommate who he lived with while at a surf camp in Hawaii.
His friends say the lower back pain also caused Mangione to retreat away from his friends and family and quit sports, surfing and hiking.
Psychiatrists say that sexual frustration can leave someone with feelings of anger and frustration over being unable to find a partner, which they blame society for. Violent attacks may be carried out as an emotional ‘release’.
Dr Raj Persaud, a psychiatrist in Britain, told DailyMail.com: ‘It definitely is the case that there is a link between sexual frustration and attacks.
‘We’ve seen some famous examples in history. Sex is really such a powerful drive that it is difficult to break out of the vision, unlike with others such as a desire for money.
Trump’s first would-be assassin Matthew Cooks appeared to have been sexually frustrated, watching porn before trying to kill the then-presidential candidate.
And experts have also previously drawn a link between sexual frustration and mass shooters and murderers, adding that Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook elementary school shooter, had child abuse images on his phone.
Elliot Rodger — who killed six people and injured 14 in California in 2014 — is thought to have gone on his shooting spree out of hatred toward women who rejected him.
Luigi Mangione, 26, from Maryland, is pictured above. He has been charged with shooting the UnitedHealthcare CEO
The above is an image from his Twitter account that appears to show several screws that have been implanted into his spine
A 2023 study on 178 mass shootings in the US, from 1966 to 2021, found that about a third of the shooters had sexual frustrations.
They were also six times more likely to have a history of sexual offending, and were also more likely to have a strong desire for fame.
These individuals exhibited various indicators of sexual frustration, such as explicit complaints, stalking, harassment, engagement in illegal sexual behaviors, and interest in minors or violent fetishes.
Sexually frustrated mass shooters were more likely to be young, male, unmarried, childless, unemployed, and misogynistic compared to other mass shooters. They exhibited behaviors associated with relief-seeking, power-seeking, revenge-seeking, and displaced frustration.
Dr Adam Lankford, a criminology expert at the University of Alabama who led the research, said: ‘We were surprised to discover that sexually frustrated perpetrators committed so many of the deadliest mass shootings in US history.’
He added: ‘When profound sexual frustration is combined with access to firearms, psychological issues, lack of empathy for others, and toxic masculinity, the risks of mass violence may be particularly high.’
Your browser does not support iframes.
Shootings driven by sexual frustration are normally associated with right-wing incel ‘involuntary celibates’ culture.
Members of this heavily-online group often express misogynistic views and hostility toward women, as well as espousing traditional family values and opposition to LGBT rights.
Mangione, however, appears to have been captured by far left anti-capitalist ideals and the texts of ‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski — who started sending bombs to people after watching the wilderness by his home be destroyed.
RJ Martin, who lived with Mangione for six months in Hawaii, told the New York Times that the alleged shooter ‘knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn’t possible’.
‘I remember him telling me that, and my heart just broke,’ he added.
He also said that Mangione had a slipped vertebrae that had ‘pinched a nerve’ which would cause him extreme pain at times.
Alleged killer Brian Thompson, 26, yelled at cameras as he entered court on Tuesday
Other posts from a Reddit account suspected to be Mangione’s, described the individual experiencing ‘locked up’ back and hips and ‘intermittent numbness’.
Dr Persaud added that his use of what is believed to be a scan of his back on his Twitter profile also revealed a lot about his identity.
‘That is really interesting,’ he said, ‘that really does suggest that the back pain was central to his identity and dominated his way of looking at the world.’
The top psychiatrist also suggested that Mangione’s back issues may not have been his only barrier to sex, saying he may also have struggled to connect with women.
Mangione is seen with his sister and parents in an undated photo. His mother said she had no contact with him since July 1 as she reported him missing
‘I don’t want to appear to be supportive or anything, but he is a good-looking guy, an Ivy league graduate, so why doesn’t he have a girlfriend? I suspect he had trouble in some way connecting to women.’
Dr Persaud also said it was also possible that Mangione was homosexual, which would come with its own mental and psychological challenges, particularly around both accepting his own sexuality and believing others would accept it.
Doctors have suggested Mangione was suffering from spondylolisthesis, a spinal condition where the bottom vertebrae of the spine has slipped out of position.
They warn that in severe cases this can cause the penis to become numb if the nerve delivering feeling to the area — called the cauda equina — is suppressed.
They warn that suppression of this, and other nerves, can also lead to issues with erections and ejaculation.
It comes as young people in America, generally, are having much less sex than older generations.
Nearly one in three young men and 10 to 15 percent of women not having had sex by the age of 30 years, according to a 2020 study from the University of Indiana.
Among the most famous mass shooters also struggling with sexual frustration are George Sodini, who shot four women at an LA fitness center in 2009 and then himself.
It was later revealed that the man had written repeatedly about women rejecting him and the frustration that it had left him feeling. He also repeatedly said how he had not had sex in 20 years.
For Mangione, police are yet to reveal a theory as to their suspected motive for the shooting.
