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Police Divers Return to Central Park in Hunt for CEO Killer’s Gun
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Divers returned to Central Park on Monday as they search for clues to the fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week.

The 50-year-old executive of the world’s largest private health insurance company was shot dead shortly before 7 a.m. as he walked from his hotel to the Hilton Midtown Hotel across the street, where his company’s annual investors conference was to begin at 8 a.m.

The masked gunman was waiting from Thompson’s arrival, and approached from behind as the executive walked down the street alone. Thompson was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead, and the shooter fled the scene. Police now believe he as left New York City and possibly the state.

Investigators found the gunman’s backpack discarded near the park’s bandstand on Friday and are now searching for the gun used in the killing. They’ve also not found found the bicycle he rode fleeing the scene.

Here’s a timeline of his known whereabouts leading up to the shooting:

November 24

The suspect arrives in Midtown New York by Greyhound bus, disembarking from a bus that originated in Atlanta at about 10:11 p.m. Investigators aren’t sure where he boarded the bus along the 870 mile route between the two cities, but he was seen on the bus in Washington, D.C.

From the bus terminal, he took a taxi to the area near the Hilton hotel and was there for about 30 minutes before taking another taxi to the HI New York City Hostel on Amsterdam Avenue. He checks in using a fake ID, paying cash, at about 11 p.m.

In a flirtatious encounter with a woman behind the desk, he pulls down his mask when she asks to see his smile. The moment was captured on surveillance video, and the imagery is so far the only view of the suspect, who is still called only a “person of interest” by New York Police, without his ubiquitous mask.

The suspect had two roommates, police say, and those roommates say he never took of his mask and didn’t speak with them.

November 29

The suspected shooter is briefly checked out of the hostel, which automatically checks out guests if they don’t check in at the desk by a certain time, according to The Associated Press. Investigators don’t believe he stayed an another location, and he checked back into the hostel the next day.

December 4

The suspect leaves the hostel at about 5:30 a.m., appearing on video in the area of the Hilton 10 minutes later. Police believe he may have ridden the bicycle to the area since he was there so quickly.

Prior to the shooting, he goes to a nearby Starbucks, where he uses cash to buy a bottle of water and an energy bar then returns to the street outside the hotel.

At 6:44 a.m., he shoots Thompson and runs into a nearby alley, where he hops on the bicycle and rides toward Central Park, entering the park at 6:48 a.m. at the 60th Street and Center Drive entrance.

While inside the park, he discards the backpack he’d been wearing. The pack was found on Friday near the bandstand, and it contained a Tommy Hilfiger jacket seen in some of the surveillance images and Monopoly money. Investigators have been back in the park on Saturday and Sunday, sending divers into the lake looking for more evidence — especially the gun used in the shooting.

He exits the park at 6:56 a.m. at West 77th Street and Central Park West, still riding the bicycle, and passes another camera two minutes later. But he’s no longer on the bike at 7 a.m., when he’s seen at 86th Street. At 86th and Amsterdam, he hails a taxi at 7:04 a.m. He exits the taxi around 7:30 a.m., near the George Washington Washington Bridge Bus Terminal, where investigators believe he boarded a bus and headed out of the city.

Investigators have released other images of the suspected shooter during his stay in the city but have not said when those images were captured. They’ve also been following up on tips and reported sightings. On Thursday, they stopped both an Amtrak train and a Long Island Rail Road train but found nothing. New York police detectives even travelled to Atlanta, trying to determine if the suspect started at the Greyhound station there.

New York Mayor Eric Adams intimated on Saturday that investigators had a name for the shooter but later walked that back, saying police would neither confirm nor deny that information.

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[Featured image: New York Police Department]