A San Francisco police sergeant has clarified that he is not the investigator who reportedly heard a controversial remark from the mother of Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin. According to a recent report, she allegedly suggested that the ambush killing of a health insurance CEO was “something she could see him doing.”

Mangione stands accused of stalking and fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, as Thompson was leaving a Manhattan hotel last year.

During a press conference on December 17, 2024, just eight days after Mangione’s arrest, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny informed the press that Kathleen Mangione seemed to concede the possibility of her son’s involvement. This conversation allegedly took place on December 7, mere days before Mangione was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.

“While she didn’t confirm it was her son in the photo, she expressed it might be something she could picture him doing,” Kenny explained to the reporters. “We planned to forward this information to detectives the next morning, but luckily, we managed to capture him before needing to act further.”

Luigi Mangione, facing charges for the murder of Brian Thompson, made an appearance in State Supreme Court in Manhattan for an evidence suppression hearing on Friday, December 12, 2025. (Curtis Means for Daily Mail via Pool)

Kenny’s remarks were widely reported by major news outlets, including Fox News Digital, and at least one book.

However, after turning over discovery to the defense, Mangione’s lawyers said in court filings they found no record of the remark police attributed to their client’s mother.

Sgt. Michael Horan, of the San Francisco Police Department, took a missing person report from Mangione’s mother weeks before the murder, on Nov. 18, 2024. She couldn’t find her son, who had apparently gone off the grid for months.

Kenny said the detective working that case, later identified as Horan, called his NYPD counterparts and said the person he was looking for “bears a resemblance” to the picture of the smiling suspect seen checking into a Manhattan hostel before Thompson’s murder.

Luigi Mangione allegedly killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. (AP Photo/UnitedHealth Group via AP)

However, Horan in a new interview denied taking part in any conversation where the mother said she could have seen her son carrying out an assassination.

“That was never from us,” he told Rolling Stone in an interview published last week.

Horan said he took the missing person report before the murder and never spoke with Kathleen Mangione after her son was identified as a suspect.

“After we made the connection between our case and the New York case, we never spoke with the mother again,” Horan told the magazine. “I do believe that the FBI spoke with the mother that weekend while they were trying to confirm, so that might have been a conversation that they had with her.”

Luigi Mangione, charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, appears in State Supreme Court in Manhattan during an evidence suppression hearing in his case on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. (William Farrington for New York Post via Pool)

He said San Francisco police did speak with one of Mangione’s sisters, however, but she didn’t bring it up.

Mangione’s attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, told reporters outside a Manhattan courthouse earlier this month that Kenny’s claim about Kathleen Mangione was incorrect.

“There is no such statement,” she said. “It was never made. In fact, what Mrs. Mangione said was that she could never see her son being a risk to himself or others.”

Luigi Mangione pictured in a booking photo taken shortly after his arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania. (Pennsylvania Department of Corrections)

Neither the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office nor the NYPD responded to requests for comment on the filing from Fox News Digital.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to charges in New York, Pennsylvania and federal courts.

He could face the death penalty if convicted of the most serious federal charges and life in prison in the Empire State.