Is the NYPD Looking for the Wrong Guy?

Musings about red herrings and a possible doppelgänger in murder of Brian Thompson

The surveillance footage shows the killer of Brian Thompson wearing a distinct white backpack.

When I saw this, it immediately reminded me of the tail of a White-tailed deer. When I was a boy, my dad told me that if you are watching or hunting White-tail bucks, it’s important NOT to focus too much on their white tails when they run away. Your eye gets padlocked on the tail, but then the fleeing deer will tuck it, and you will lose sight of him. Better to focus on the entire animal as he runs away.

I would like to preface the following by stating that I am merely musing. As a true crime writer, I often begin with a hunch and muse about it for a few days. Acquiring more data will either enable me to develop the hunch into a plausible theory or to dismiss it as mere fantasy.

In my latest book, The Meaning of Malice, I had a hunch that my prime suspect in three murders may have used an accomplice that was involved in cocaine trafficking. It was just a hunch, but years later, when I acquired a heavily redacted FBI case file on the suspect, I saw the notation that the suspect was indeed thought to have worked with a man who was suspected of working in cocaine trafficking.

The following are my initial musings about the killer who shot UHC CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. I welcome critical reader feedback about these musings.

The NYPD now claims they have pieced together the following movements of their suspect from analyzing the tape of surveillance cameras all over the city.

• At 10:11 p.m. on Nov. 24, he arrives at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on a Greyhound whose route started in Atlanta.

• Checks into hostel on Upper West Side, smiles for a desk clerk.

• Leaves hostel 5:30 a.m. and “likely rode a bicycle toward Midtown,” Chief Kenny said. Though investigators do not have video of him taking the bike to the scene of the shooting, they are speculating that he did because it took him only 10 minutes to get from the hostel on 103rd Street to West 54th Street. The police are “still looking into” the possibility that he could have stolen the bike, he said.

• At 5:41 a.m., suspect arrives at the Hilton and wanders the area near the hotel, walking back and forth on West 54th Street, before entering a Starbucks, where he buys a bottle of water and a snack bar.

• After Mr. Thompson is shot by the entrance of the New York Hilton Midtown hotel at 6:44, the suspect flees on a bicycle.

• Enters Central Park at 6:48, ditches the white backpack.

• Exits Central Park a mile away at 6:56.

• Strolls along the Upper West Side at 6:58 and catches a cab heading uptown precisely at 7 a.m.

• At 7:30 a.m., cameras show him entering an interstate bus station by the George Washington Bridge. They do not show him leaving.

Reviewing the timeline, I wonder how the NYPD went about connecting the young man who checked into the hostel on Nov. 24 with the murder of Brian Thompson on Dec. 4. Can detectives be sure the guy who checked into the hostel is the same guy who shot Thompson?

Did they track the movements of his cell phone—a cell phone he purportedly ditched in an alley a couple of blocks from the murder scene? NOTE: the fact that the killer ditched his cell phone makes me wonder if it is a red herring—that is, I wonder if he wanted the cell phone to be found.

Reviewing the above timeline, I wonder about the critical period between 5:30, when the suspect left the hostel, and 6:44, when the suspect shot Brian Thompson. Again, can the NYPD be sure that the guy who stayed in the hostel on the Upper West Side is the same guy who shot Thompson? If so, how? By Chief Kenny’s own admission, there is a gap in their video surveillance of the suspect between him leaving the hostel at 5:30 and purportedly arriving at the Hilton at 5:41.

Note that the guy who checks into the hostel is wearing a different jacket and backpack from those the shooter is wearing. And though it’s tough to say from the grainy photos at different angles, the young man at the hostel reception appears to have a thicker nose, especially the bridge

If the young man who stayed at the hostel is caught, I wonder if he will say that he simply went for a morning stroll through the Upper West Side and in Central Park between the hours of 5:30 and 7:00 and then caught a bus from New York to whence he came. I also wonder if the guy who stayed in the hostel is a foreign national—perhaps from somewhere in Eastern Europe or the Balkans—and is now back home.

If he was a conspirator in the murder, I wonder if his job was to be photographed at the hostel reception so that the police would be looking for him instead of the actual shooter. If this is indeed the case, I imagine a scenario in which the actual shooter ditched the backpack in one place in the woods in Central Park, ditched his anorak in another place in the woods, and then exited the park on the East side wearing a completely different outfit.

For readers who wish to comment on this post, please bear in mind that I am NOT offering a proper theory, but merely musing about this endlessly intriguing case. I always welcome critical reader feedback, but recently I’ve noticed that some commentators seem to have very itchy keyboard fingers. Please give these musings some thought and let me know your thoughts and any additional information you may have gleaned. Thanks!