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Following the arrest of Luigi Mangione on charges of murdering United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson, he was briefly held at the State Correctional Institution in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Now, one of the inmates who was locked up in the prison at the time reveals what it was like on the inside when the alleged killer was one of the tenants.
Writing for the Prison Journalism Project, Vaughn Wright says his fellow inmates were aware of the story “well before Luigi Mangione became a temporary resident here at State Correctional Institution.”
Wright says that he heard through the prison grapevine, that Mangione was being in a part of the prison where death row prisoners were previously housed. And that wasn’t the only thing that was unique about the accused killer’s stay there.
“Rather than the orange jumpsuit that is standard issue in here, he was wearing a ‘turtle suit,’ a blue padded getup used primarily for prisoners vulnerable to committing self-harm,” Wright wrote. “Every time he was escorted from his cell, D Block got locked down. During lockdowns, all prisoner movement is prohibited.”
Wright also wrote about how the media descended upon the prison in droves because of Luigi Mangione, and the way prisoners there communicated with the press.
“Ashleigh Banfield, the host of NewsNation’s Banfield show, placed a curious kind of spotlight on this prison,” he wrote. “During that nighttime interview, Banfield realized the prisoners on E Block were watching her show when they shouted and blinked their ceiling lights in response to the conversation she was having from the studio with Alex Caprariello, her reporting colleague in the field. So she started posing questions directly to the prisoners, who responded both vocally out of their windows and visually with their cell lights.”
NewsNation's @TVAshleigh and @alcaprari23 spoke exclusively with prison inmates live through the fence at the State Correctional Institution Huntingdon in Pennsylvania. Through flashing lights and shouts, they communicated the prison conditions of their fellow inmate,… pic.twitter.com/qLkWknyINl
— NewsNation (@NewsNation) December 12, 2024
Wright says he hadn’t “heard voices here raised in such raucous unison since 2018, when the Philadelphia Eagles won the 2017 Super Bowl.”
At one point following Luigi Mangione’s incarceration at the State Correctional Institution, news crew cameras picked up audio of prisoners shouting “Luigi’s conditions suck!” and Free Luigi!”
Vaughn Wright goes on to say the prison’s deputy superintendent threatened everyone “with time in the hole if they yelled from their cell or blinked their lights for the media again.” That quelled some of the light-flashing, but inmates were still vocal.
“Mangione’s notoriety likely softened the amount of oppression the guards here would usually dispense because they wanted something from him,” Wright revealed. “They wanted stories to share with coworkers and friends and family. Everyone wanted a piece of the biggest crime story in the nation.”
Wright concludes his article by saying “Mangione is and will forever be an SCI Huntingdon alumnus” and calls the inmates who were briefly imprisoned with him at State Correctional Institution “his brothers.” Quite a family.