Murderer Fan Club Ghouls Are The New Courtroom Journalists

Ted Bundy had admirers. Jeffrey Dahmer had a girlfriend. Luigi Mangione has a mob of bloodthirsty progressive fanatics, and now, press credentials.

Meet the self-proclaimed “Mangionistas“: Abril Rios, Ashley Rojas, and Lena Weissbrot. Three young women who have apparently fallen head over heels for the man accused of executing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk on December 4, 2024. A father of two was shot in the back while walking to an investor conference. For months, the trio has been posting trial updates, churning out “Free Luigi” content, and calling for jury nullification through thirst traps and anti-corporate screeds.

New York City’s socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, handed them lanyards to do it.

Under the city’s newly relaxed “indie creator” credentialing rules, you qualify for a press pass if you’ve posted six or more pieces of content about a breaking news event. Six posts. Low bar. So Abril Rios, self-described “Hot Girl for Zohran” and proud Mangionista, walked up to the courthouse covering a murder trial for a man she openly worships, press pass dangling from her neck. Same for Ashley Rojas, who bills herself as a “writer,” and Lena Weissbrot: Self-described game developer, rapper performing under the stage name “Fellatia G,” and the owner of an online wishlist that includes a bulletproof helmet, body armor, and a 3D printer. Just normal press corps stuff.

Outside the courthouse Monday, Rojas looked into a camera and said, city-issued credential swinging from her neck: “I’m standing on business: f*ck Brian Thompson. I don’t give a flying f*ck he died. F*ck Brian Thompson. F*ck his mom.”

Weissbrot donning a neon green, pink, and purple striped costume and sporting pigtails added coldly that Thompson’s teenage sons “are better off without him” and should “enjoy the blood money.” Then she drew a slow finger across her throat and said his name.

Rios, chomping gum, wondered aloud why the Second Amendment exists if not to “shoot up schools,” before turning to the camera and informing the president of the United States: “Trump, I’m coming for you, baby.”

What lovely, classy, tolerant women New York City is churning out these days.

On Instagram, Weissbrot posted a lengthy caption beneath a photo of herself in her Luigi costume, which included the following disclaimer: “I condemn all violence by all people of all time in perpetuity forever.” Beautiful.

She then spent the rest of the caption calling the American healthcare system “a slaughter house,” declaring that whoever killed Brian Thompson is a “hero,” and arguing that people have the right to violence when they feel threatened and the threat “refuses to stop.”

So: violence condemned, permanently, universally. Unless the target is someone you’ve decided deserves it. The permission structure for murder, it turns out, has a very low bar on the Left. Especially for “hot” girls for Zohran, who are quite “hot” for “heroic violence.”

As a society, we should be pointing at and shaming these people. But instead of condemning this dangerous and frightening behavior, mentally ill women have been given a megaphone.

Besides abiding by a moral code reads something like: “Thou shall do whatever the f*ck thou wants to people who disagree with thou. Murder is cool if it’s against someone uncool. Stand on business, Queen,” they’re also just wholeheartedly wrong on the merits.

They claimed, with apparent sincerity, that Brian Thompson personally killed more people than Osama bin Laden. First: if Bin Laden were somehow in a courtroom today, something tells me these women would be posting thirst traps for him too. Second: this is simply deranged. Total U.S. deaths run roughly 3.1 million annually. The leading killers are heart disease, cancer, and accidents, not claim denials. American private insurance, for all its flaws, has driven the medical innovation that gives the U.S. some of the highest cancer survival rates in the world. Brian Thompson started with next to nothing, spent over two decades rising through UnitedHealth Group, and built a life. He did not deserve to be shot from behind. His sons did not deserve to lose their father. His wife did not deserve to be widowed.

But facts are irrelevant here, because the Mangionistas don’t want solutions. They want blood, and they want it to be aesthetically pleasing on their feeds.

There’s a clinical name for this: Hybristophilia, a romantic or sexual attraction to violent criminals, is a well-documented, overwhelmingly female phenomenon. Social media, true-crime TikTok, and the romanticization of the “dangerous misunderstood man” have turbocharged it. Add weaponized female empathy, an anti-corporate ideology that teaches generations that billionaires are the real terrorists, and platforms that reward outrage over accuracy, and you get a press-badged ghoul telling a dead man’s kids to enjoy the blood money.

This is not a few bad apples, and the data bears that out. Affective polarization is at a record high. At least 41% of Americans aged 18–29 viewed Thompson’s death as at least “somewhat acceptable.” Political violence from the Left is rising. When institutions (including the mayor’s office) legitimize and platform those who glorify it, the problem doesn’t stay online.

The Mangionistas are not a fringe aberration. They are the logical, grotesque endpoint of a progressive ideology that spent decades replacing objective and religious morality with emotivism, facts with feelings, and the rule of law with tribal vengeance. When you teach people that success is theft, that corporations are terrorists, and that murdering someone “uncool” is activism, you don’t get revolutionaries. You get this.

Even Mangione’s own attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, condemned the trio. “These individuals do not represent the views of Luigi,” she said, calling their statements “vile and irresponsible.” When your behavior is too unhinged for the accused murderer’s defense team, you have made a serious wrong turn.

Take the press passes back, Mayor Mamdani. Some things shouldn’t come with a lanyard.