Luigi Mangione receives heart-shaped note hidden in socks, Manhattan DA says

NEW YORK — A heart-shaped note to Luigi Mangione hidden in a pair of socks provided to him before his last court appearance informed the high-profile murder suspect that “thousands of people” were rooting for him, prosecutors said in court filings Wednesday.

The love letter was secreted in cardboard stuffing inside the new pair of argyle socks, which a Manhattan Supreme Court officer passed on to Mangione from his defense team ahead of his Feb. 21 court appearance. Another cutout heart bore a message to an unknown person named “Joan,” according to prosecutors.

The note to Mangione partly read: “know there are thousands of people wishing you luck,” according to Wednesday’s filing.

“In spite of this, the defendant was permitted to wear the argyle socks, which he first changed into and later changed out of because he felt that ‘they did not look good.’ Fortunately, the items smuggled were handwritten notes and not contraband capable of harming the transporting officers,” Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann wrote.

The disclosure came in filings from the Manhattan district attorney’s office responding to requests by Mangione’s lawyers ahead of his trial on murder and terror offenses stemming from the Dec. 4 fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown.

Mangione, 26, of Maryland, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism, second-degree murder as a crime of terrorism, and nine related offenses and could face a maximum term of life without parole if convicted.

—New York Daily News

Prosecutors seek monitoring for Connecticut woman accused of holding stepson captive for 20 years

HARTFORD, Conn. — State prosecutors in Connecticut filed a motion Wednesday seeking to put Kimberly Sullivan under electronic or GPS monitoring while she is out on bond for charges alleging that she held her 32-year-old stepson captive for two decades.

Sullivan, 56, appeared briefly at Superior Court in Waterbury, where she and her attorney, Ioannis Kaloidis, learned of the motion and were granted a continuance until Friday to prepare to address the proposed conditions.

The hearing also served as the first chance for long-lost family members of the man to see Sullivan in person. Many of them referred to her as a “monster” for what she allegedly did to the 5-foot-9 man who weighed just 68 pounds when he was rescued by first responders in February.

“How can you not realize that someone is so frail and malnourished and just mistreated in your own home?” said the man’s half-sister, Heather Tessman, outside the courthouse.

“You don’t think of this happening to anybody, let alone your own child,” said Tracy Vallerand, the man’s biological mother.

Vallerand said she had not seen her son since he was 6 months old when she gave up custody because she did not feel she could properly provide for him. She told reporters outside the courthouse she and her daughter searched for years to find him, but that there was never any trace of him when she entered his name into online search engines.

Immediately following the hearing, Kaloidis said he had not yet seen the motion filed by prosecutors, though he believed it was seeking electronic or GPS monitoring while Sullivan remains free on a $300,000 bond.

The motion will be argued in court on Friday when Sullivan is expected to plead not guilty to charges of second-degree kidnapping, first-degree assault, cruelty to persons, first-degree reckless endangerment and first-degree unlawful restraint.

The allegations against Sullivan, which have drawn national attention, first came to light when firefighters responded to a structure fire on Feb. 17 at a Waterbury home and found Sullivan outside with her dog. She told firefighters her stepson was still inside.

Firefighters had to carry the man out of the home, where he told first responders that he purposely set the fire using hand sanitizer, paper and an old lighter he had found.

—Hartford Courant

Florida bill opens door to firing squads, lethal gas for executions

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — People sentenced to death in Florida could be executed by firing squads, nitrogen gas or other methods under a bill that expands Florida’s death penalty tactics.

Florida allows for lethal injection or electrocution to carry out the death penalty, with lethal injection as the default.

But a bill proposed by state Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, would allow for someone to be executed by “a method not deemed unconstitutional nor cruel and unusual,” if the Florida Department of Corrections can’t get its hands on the chemicals needed for lethal injection, or if getting those chemicals becomes “impractical.”

Martin’s bill moved through its first committee Tuesday.

The proposed change comes as Gov. Ron DeSantis has resumed executions after years of not conducting any. Since 2023, Florida has executed nine people. A 10th man is scheduled to die in April.

Martin said his bill safeguards against any future shortages of lethal injection drugs. He said the Department of Corrections hasn’t indicated any current supply issue.

“We just have to do the right thing and make sure that the law is fulfilled,” Martin said, “that our communities are protected and that the punishments are provided in a humane manner but also that they are followed through.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has never found any specific method of execution to be unconstitutional, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

—Tampa Bay Times

4 US soldiers go missing near Belarus border in Lithuania

Four U.S. soldiers and a vehicle went missing in eastern Lithuania, where authorities have been carrying out a search-and-rescue operation since Tuesday.

The Baltic nation’s armed forces said no deaths had been confirmed as the rescue effort continued. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had earlier signaled that the service members had died, but a spokesperson for the alliance said he was referring to news reports and apologized for any confusion.

Rutte “was not confirming the fate of the missing, which is still unknown,” the spokesperson, Allison Hart, wrote in a post on the X social media platform.

“At the moment, there is no evidence or information confirming the death of the troops,” the Lithuanian military said in a post on X on Wednesday.

The military personnel had been conducting exercises at a training site in Pabrade in eastern Lithuania near the border with Belarus when they went missing, the Baltic nation’s military said in a statement earlier. A possible location had been determined, it said.

The U.S. military confirmed the search, saying the soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, were undertaking tactical training, the U.S. Army said in a statement.

“I would like to personally thank the Lithuanian Armed Forces and first responders who quickly came to our aid in our search operations,” Lieutenant General Charles Costanza, commanding general for V Corps, said in the statement.

Lithuania and its Baltic neighbors have become a focal point of NATO efforts to bolster defenses on its eastern flank with Russia. The military alliance’s Baltic member states have all pledged increased military spending in an effort to arm the region against aggression from Moscow.

Pabrade is an extensive military training site that hosts about 1,000 U.S. troops deployed on rotation in Lithuania. The training area of some 17,000 hectares is just miles from the border of Belarus.

—Bloomberg News