In December 2024, a photograph circulated widely purportedly showing UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect, Luigi Mangione, dressed in a costume. The image appeared to show Mangione in an older photograph wearing what looked like the outfit of a character from the Japanese manga series, "Sailor Moon." Printed over the image were the words "Fighting Evil by Moonlight," a reference to the "Sailor Moon" theme song in English.
(X user @TennesseeTwunk)
But the above photograph is fake. A real picture of Mangione was edited to add the costume onto his body.
A reverse-image search found no authentic sources for the above image. Were such an image real, it would have been more widely shared. In fact, most posts that shared it acknowledged it as a joke and questioned whether it was real.
The actual photo of Mangione's face was taken from Instagram and shows him wearing a suit and tie while standing in front of a sign that appears to read "Philadelphia Museum." We took a screenshot of the photograph from a story in Los Angeles Magazine.
(Los Angeles Magazine)
It is also clear from the X post that the bottom right of the image had been heavily edited, given the visible fading around Mangione's "hands."
Mangione reportedly loved Japanese culture and visited Japan, though he later began to criticize aspects of the culture, according to X posts attributed to him by news organizations. Many have also poked fun at the shooting suspect's name, Luigi, which he shares with the popular video game character from Nintendo's Mario franchise. The Super Moon image edit is likely a nod to his connection with Japan and video game fandoms.
Mangione was arrested in December 2024 days after the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City and detained in Pennsylvania, where he was denied bail and was fighting extradition to New York, as of this writing.