The at-large suspect who gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Midtown hotel may have left a message on the bullets he used to kill the executive Wednesday morning, according to police sources.
The NYPD is investigating the possible message — which appears to include the words “deny,” “depose” and “defend” — engraved on live rounds and shell casings left behind by the masked assassin after he shot Thompson, 50, several times at about 6:46 a.m. before fleeing, the sources said.
The words are possible attacks on the health insurance industry, in which Thompson is one of the most powerful leaders — and strikingly similar to a 2010 book condemning the business.
“Delay, Deny, Defend” — two of the three words seemingly left — is sub-titled: “Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it.”
Police are looking at possible ties to the book, as well as more general references to the health industry, as a potential motive, sources told The Post.
The book’s author, Jay M. Feinman — a distinguished professor emeritus at Rutgers Law School — declined to comment Thursday morning.
Cops had recovered three live 9-millimeter rounds and three discharged casings in front of the Hilton hotel on Sixth Avenue, where Thompson, of Minnesota, was set to host an investors’ conference that morning, police officials said.
Sources said several of the pieces of evidence each contained one word, indicating the killer may have been trying to leave a message as investigators try to piece together a motive.
Thompson’s estranged wife, Paulette “Pauley” Thompson, 51, told NBC News hours after the murder that the CEO had been getting “some threats.”
“Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage?” she said, suggesting it was tied to her husband’s job.
“I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”
The masked gunman used a silencer and appeared to be an experienced shooter based on surveillance footage obtained by The Post.
He was seen waiting outside the luxury hotel for his target — the CEO with a yearly salary of nearly $9.9 million — before he calmly fired off multiple shots at close range, causing Thompson to stumble and collapse.
The gun had jammed but the calculated and methodical killer was able to clear it — showing he was a skilled gunman — and continue firing as his victim helplessly tried to crawl away, according to sources and the footage.
He then ran into an alleyway and hopped on an e-bike, which he rode north along Sixth Avenue into Central Park, where surveillance camera coverage is spotty, police said.
But the suspect may have made some major mistakes that could help investigators identify him.
He bought coffee, a water bottle and two PowerBars at a nearby Starbucks before the killing and tossed his bottle and coffee cup in a trash can — which cops dug out of the garbage and now have as evidence, according to sources.
