Cops are using facial recognition technology to identify and track down the killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Police in New York are focusing on a surveillance image taken from a Starbucks near the scene of the shooting in Manhattan in their manhunt for the attacker.
Mr Thompson, 50, was fatally shot in the back and calf yesterday morning outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan before his assailant fled.
They believe Mr Thompson was the victim of a targeted attack, and are currently investigating a cell phone, live rounds and spent casings found at the scene.
They have also found cryptic words engraved into some of the recovered casings, which they hope will help them form a motive.
Police sources close to the investigation told CNN that they believe the shooter was an experienced marksman based on his reactions.
They say that the suspect appeared to be waiting for Thompson for five minutes outside the Hilton hotel, where he was expected to speak at a conference.
The victim’s wife, Paulette Thompson, with whom he had two children, revealed that her husband had received threats before leaving for the New York event.
Surveillance from a nearby Starbucks show the shooter inside prior to the incident
Brian Thompson was fatally shot in the chest and was pronounced dead within 30 minutes
Police told ABC News that casings were found at the scene with the messages on them
The investigation continues to focus on a number of items recovered from the scene and surveillance footage before and during the attack.
Police revealed that the suspect was seen in a nearby Starbucks minutes before the shooting.
A photo shared by authorities shows a Caucasian man in a dark jacket with a bag, hood and grey mask.
With just his eyes and part of his nose revealed, investigators hope facial recognition will be able to narrow down their search.
They are also looking at bullet casings with ‘deny’, ‘defend’ and ‘depose’ scrawled on them, recovered from the scene of the shooting.
They are now working to determine what the words mean and if they could possibly hint at a motive for the slaying of the 50-year-old.
Curiously, the messages bear similarity to the title of a 2010 book on ‘why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it’, called ‘Delay, Deny, Defend’.
Critics allege the tactic is used by insurance companies to ‘ensure your claim is either never paid or paid at a rate far below what you deserve’.
A member of the NYPD Crime Scene Unit takes a picture of a shell casing found at the scene
Law enforcement officers work near evidence markers placed where shell casings were found
Investigators also recovered a cellphone from an alleyway on the suspect’s escape route.
Police say they are now ‘working through’ the phone.
They are also expected to search the room that the victim was staying at in New York, at the nearby Marriott.
While a motive is yet to be established, Mr Thompson’s grieving widow claimed that her husband had received threats before he was shot.
‘There had been some threats,’ Paulette Thompson, 51, told NBC News as she broke her silence in her first comments since her husband was killed.
‘I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him’ before his trip to New York, she added.
Ms Thompson said that she could not ‘really give a thoughtful response right now’ as she had ‘just found this out’ and was ‘trying to console [her] children’.
She said police had told her it is believed to have been a ‘targeted attack’.
Ms Thompson said ‘there were some people that had been threatening’ her husband
Officers are still searching for the unknown assailant who gunned down Thompson, seen here, outside of the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan on Wednesday morning
Paulette Thompson, left, spoke to media after the attack on her husband, center back
Mr Thompson was fatally shot in the chest in a possibly targeted attack by a masked man, who then fled down 6th Avenue and is being sought by police.
The gunman fired multiple shots during the ambush and jammed his gun in the process, but managed to quickly clear the obstruction and continue firing.
After the assailant darted across the road and out of sight, Mr Thompson was rushed to Mt Sinai Hospital in critical condition, where he was later pronounced dead.
Mr Thompson, named UnitedHealthcare CEO in 2021 and earned a reported $10m a year, was slated to speak at an investor meeting at the Hilton soon after the shooting.
Thompson was set to speak about the company’s hugely profitable 2025 financial outlook, including announcing expected revenues upwards of $450 billion.