When a man reaches 26, he is usually in his physical prime. His formal education may be over, but life in its infinite variety stretches before him. Career, family, travel, adventure, the possibilities are endless. Here is where the rubber hits the road, where decisions are made that reverberate. The direction to choose is often fraught, but outside of war fighting or gang banging, relatively few are accused of homicide.
An ill-matched pair of 26-year-old killers dominated our last few news cycles. Both crossed legal paths with the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg when they committed homicide.
One is alleged assassin Luigi Mangione, who has been held without bail in a grim Pennsylvania prison. If not already in Bragg’s custody in New York, he soon will be to stand trial, accused in the brazen targeted assassination outside the Midtown Hilton Hotel on W. 54th Street of UnitedHealthCare CEO, Brian Thompson.
With the physique of an Olympic swimmer, Mangione is an unlikely sex symbol whose rugged good looks and six-pack abs have made him a kind of cross between Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Robin Hood. By the time he goes on trial, Luigi will be more popular than say, revolutionary and T-shirt staple Che Guevara or mass murderer Ted Bundy.
Despite his fan club, Mangione is a legal goner. His Ivy League education and prominent Maryland family notwithstanding, the evidence against him is overwhelming to the point of incontestability, the gun, the ammo, the manifesto, the CCTV video, testimony from the hostel clerks, the McDonald’s staff, etc.
Perhaps his only legal chance is to take the route taken by would-be Reagan presidential assassin John Hinckley, claiming insanity. Example, someone he cared about was so ill-treated by health insurers that it made Luigi crazy to the point he could not recognize the line between right and wrong.
The other 26-year-old killer, subway samaritan Daniel Penny spent part of this past chilly Saturday afternoon being warmly greeted at the Navy vs Army football game, cheered by tens of thousands, an honored guest of President Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.
While it was perhaps over the top to celebrate him with a presidential embrace, Daniel Penny should never have been prosecuted for manslaughter in the chokehold death on a New York subway of Jordan Neely, a homeless man with a history of violence and mental illness.
There was ample witness testimony and camera phone video to show Penny acted heroically to spare his fellow riders the danger of Neely’s aberrant, threatening behavior. A New York jury easily acquitted him of all charges. Daniel will get a presidential citation. Luigi will be a rock star behind bars. 26-years-old, their different futures stretch out in front of them.
