Heath Care Reporter Shares ‘Wild’ Phone Call from TMZ Reporter Asking if He Was UnitedHealthcare CEO’s Murderer
Screenshot via MSNBC
An investigative reporter who covers the health care industry shared a phone call this week in which he was asked if he was behind the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Luigi Mangione has been charged with the murder of Thompson, but 36-year-old Sean Morrow shared that TMZ reached out to him based on “tips” to ask if he was the murderer. Morrow shared the call on Instagram.
“TMZ allegedly got ‘tips’ that I was the involved in the UnitedHealthcare incident. This is the full bizarre story and phone call, slightly edited for time. I don’t know if the NYPD was ever looking at me, but I am scared of a future where journalists are investigated for rightfully and factually critiquing predatory industries,” he wrote.
Morrow works for the nonprofit More Perfect Union and he lives in New York City.
The reporter waited until after Mangione was arrested and charged to share his story.
“I feel like it’s safe for me to tell the story of how TMZ reached out claiming they had multiple tips saying I was the killer — and their reasoning and evidence are pretty wild,” he said.
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In the phone call, Morrow is asked about YouTube videos related to the health care industry and is informed that a number of tips pointed to him as the killer. Morrow said things began with an email sent to his entire company and Morrow decided to call TMZ.
“I mean, that’s insane to me,” he told the reporter at one point.
“Has anybody else contacted you about this? Like, the NYPD or anything?” the unidentified reporter from TMZ asked.
“No,” Morrow answered with a laugh.
In his video posted to Instagram, Morrow called his videos on health care “journalistic investigations” of the health insurance industry.
“If me calmly explaining what your job is sounds like a threat then your job shouldn’t exist,” he said.
