Luigi Mangione sat in a lower Manhattan courtroom Thursday watching the moments just before he became a household name — one year to the day since UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead on a Midtown sidewalk and the killer’s disappearing act left the nation rapt. Among the police ev idence displayed at a Manhattan Supreme Court suppression hearing in the Maryland man’s state murder case was a bus ticket bearing the name Sam Dawson, traveling from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh with an ETA before midnight, hours after Thompson was killed on Dec. 4, 2024. The ticket was discovered on Mangione, along with a Philadelphia train pass bought earlier in the day, by officers from the Altoona, Pa., police department when they arrested him five days after Thompson’s shooting at a fast-food restaurant nearly 300 miles from the scene. The Maryland man’s lawyers have been in court all week seeking to convince state Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro that items recovered before cops got a search warrant, including the alleged murder weapon and a manifesto, and statements he made before he’d been informed of his rights should be off limits to prosecutors when they try the case before a jury next year. This image release by Pennsylvania State Police shows a video image of Luigi Mangione, a suspect in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pa., Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (Pennsylvania State Police via AP) One of the officers who responded to the tip from a McDonald’s manager, who said a customer had recognized Mangione, on Thursday testified that he attempted small talk with the suspected shooter for some 13 minutes as his colleagues ran a background check on a Garden State driver’s license Mangione had produced under the name Mark Rosario. “What brings you up here from New Jersey?” Police Officer Tyler Frye was heard asking Mangione on the footage. The rookie cop, a year Mangione’s junior, testified that the suspect wasn’t talkative, recalling that he said something about trying to use the McDonald’s Wi-Fi. Mangione appeared none-the-wiser as cops believed they’d busted the most wanted man in America quietly eating his breakfast, the footage shown Thursday showed. “Can I ask why there’s so many cops here?” he’s heard saying in one clip. The McDonald's restaurant, where an employee alerted authorities to Luigi Mangione, is pictured Monday, Dec. 9, 2024, in Altoona, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) During the 20 or so minutes before Mangione was arrested, cops suggested to him they’d gotten a complaint about loitering, the court has heard this week. Det. Joseph Detwiler on Tuesday testified he “immediately” knew Mangione was the New York City suspect when they came face to face and that he and responding officers endeavored to stall him. “Do you know what all this nonsense is about?” one cop asks Mangione in footage shown Thursday. “We’re going to find out, I guess,” Mangione says. The cops began probing Mangione after determining the license was fake, asking whether he was from Jersey and had been to New York recently. He fessed up about his real name after a warning that lying could result in his arrest and soon after was placed in handcuffs. Luigi Mangione's fake New Jersey driver's license. During a search, Mangione informed officers he had a pocketknife, which they found on his person in addition to a jar of peanut butter and various items. A patrolwoman on scene ultimately searched his backpack, claiming she was looking for a potential bomb. “All kinds of goodies,” exclaims one officer in bodycam footage taken at the precinct that was played in court Thursday, telling a colleague they’d turned up a 9-mm 3D-printed pistol and a silencer. “Yesterday, he went to Best Buy — bought some USBs and a digital camera,” the same officer added on the call. Luigi Mangione is accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson (inset), CEO of UnitedHealthcare. (Obtained by Daily News; AP) On Frye’s cross-examination, Mangione’s defense team sought to cast doubt on the officers’ genuine fear of a bomb threat, pressing the cop about how long it took them to separate Mangione from the backpack. Frye conceded it was toward the end of the roughly 30 minutes spent at the restaurant and that he’d been standing “right near it.” Back at the precinct, Mangione was made to strip down to one layer of clothing, the court saw in blurred-out footage Thursday. In one clip, a cop returning to the station is heard saying there was a weapon found in his bag. Prosecutors allege that the Maryland man traveled to the city and checked into an Upper West Side hostel under the name Mark Rosario 10 days before Thompson’s killing. They say entries in a notebook found in his backpack, which the defense wants barred, show he planned for months before fatally shooting the Minnesota father of two from behind outside the Hilton hotel, as the CEO arrived early to an investor conference. Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for an evidence hearing on Thursday in New York. (Curtis Means / Pool Photo via AP) After the shooting, they allege he fled the scene on a bike, zipped through Central Park and cabbed it from W. 86th St. to the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal, fleeing the state for Pennsylvania. The 27-year-old Ivy Leaguer from a prominent Maryland family, who has no criminal record, has pleaded not guilty to the state-level murder charges and in a parallel federal death penalty case. The proceedings resume Friday. ...read more read less