CLARA GASPAR: It may seem bizarre, but many women are captivated by the ‘hot assassin’ Luigi Mangione

Handsome, Ivy-League educated, from a well-heeled family – oh, and did I mention the rippling six pack?

On paper, Luigi Mangione is the sort of man any sane young woman might dream of.

There’s a rather large problem, however: the smouldering Italian American now stands charged with killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, 50-year-old Brian Thompson, in New York last Wednesday.

I’ll admit, I was captivated as soon as the first CCTV images of Mangione were released to the public just hours after the murder.

Various cameras captured him apparently pulling off his meticulously planned operation: approaching Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel, executing the hit and vanishing on an electric bike.

It was like a scene from a Christopher Nolan thriller: cinematic, chilling – and darkly compelling.

But then came details that only heightened the intrigue.

The clearest photos of Mangione emerged from the hostel where he was believed to be staying, reportedly lowering his mask to flirt with a lucky woman at reception.

As one X (formerly Twitter) user cynically quipped: “Like a true Italian, Luigi Mangione’s fatal error as an assassin was giving himself away by stopping to flirt with the cashier before going to work.”

When Mangione was named as a “person of interest” in the case on Monday night, the internet erupted.

Amateur sleuths and admirers pored over his online presence, uncovering tantalising details: thought-provoking reviews of books on health, philosophy and psychedelics; witty tweets; and an Instagram gallery dotted with topless photos flaunting a physique straight out of a Calvin Klein campaign.

Not to mention he is the heir to a holiday resort fortune – and the brother of a top doctor.

Those who trawled through Mangione’s Spotify profile discovered he is a fan of Charli XCX – the Essex-born singer beloved by gen Z who went viral this summer for her best-selling album Brat.

The frenzy didn’t stop on social media.

On the online marketplace Etsy, there are already more than 100 different items for sale featuring Mangione’s name or image.

A tote bag featuring pictures of the alleged shooter and the lyrics of a Britney Spears song, “Mama, I’m in love with a criminal”.

T-shirts and hoodies with the slogan #FreeLuigi.

A mocked-up cover of Time magazine featuring Mangione as Person Of The Year with the tagline “Healthcare revolutionary, leading the charge to transform global health”.

But let’s not get carried away. Because no matter how chiselled that six pack or how intelligent he may be, Luigi Mangione is a man accused of murder – and if he’s guilty, he deserves our condemnation.

His alleged victim was not just a CEO of a controversial insurance firm but a husband and a father of two young sons.

His death is a devastating tragedy for them.

On these pages in September, I wrote about the concerning number of young women on TikTok who now say they would rather be confronted in a forest by a grizzly bear than a man they don’t know – so entrenched is their fear of violent masculinity.

So it might seem like a bizarre – and troubling – contradiction that so many women (and a few men) my age have “fallen” for this alleged killer.

But it isn’t the first time the internet has made a sex symbol out of a potentially dangerous individual.

Many have pointed out the similarity between Mangione and Daniel Khalife, 23, the former British Army soldier who was this year found guilty of spying for Iran after sparking a nationwide manhunt when he escaped from HMP Wandsworth.

He, too, had movie-star good looks and became an unlikely heartthrob overnight when his mugshot was shared on social media. ‘Luigi Mangione is the sequel to Daniel Khalife’, wrote one user.

Then there’s the world’s “hottest felon”, Jeremy Meeks, who became a viral sensation in 2014 when his mugshot was posted online.

Despite his two-year conviction for possession of a firearm, the American’s sharp cheekbones and blue eyes earned him a modelling contract when he was still behind bars, and when he got out he dated Topshop heiress Chloe Green, with whom he has a child.

Some were similarly drawn to the Menendez brothers (who killed their mother and father) – the subjects of a recent lavish Netflix drama.

When it comes to killers who look like Fred West, however, I fear we aren’t so generous.

But perhaps the internet’s obsession with Mangione’s appearance is a distraction from the fact that, even taking his striking looks out of the equation, his worldview clearly resonates with plenty of young people across the political spectrum.

Those on the Left have hailed the University of Pennsylvania graduate as a kind of anti-capitalist folk hero.

After all, the suspect seems to have been motivated by a hatred of America’s rapacious health insurance industry, which routinely denies coverage to patients who have paid their premiums, pushing some families into bankruptcy as they must fund treatment out of their own pocket.

Some of Mangione’s supporters revere him not despite his alleged crime but because of it.

As one wrote on X: “He took action against private health insurance corporation ... In this house, Luigi Mangione is a hero!”

However, as fresh details of his digital footprint emerged on Tuesday, it became clear his political views are more complex than that – and he suddenly became a sweetheart of X’s more Right-wing enclaves, too.

The 26-year-old was sceptical of “woke” culture, followed several “libertarian” figures online and a purported “manifesto” claimed to admire the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, who attacked academics, businessmen and civilians with bombs from 1978 to 1995.

Meanwhile, his GoodReads profile (a website on which users review books) shows a fascination with psychedelic drugs and advice on treating back pain.

These interests seem to have taken root when Mangione, who lived in Hawaii for a time at a surf camp, distanced himself from friends and family after suffering a surfing accident and was said to be taking alternative measures to manage his pain.

An X-ray Mangione shared on social media showed four pins in a spine.

One US reporter who spoke to those that knew him said: “What keeps coming up is a back surgery that ‘changed everything’ for him and he went ‘absolutely crazy’.”

Indeed, a friend who lived with Mangione in Hawaii, RJ Martin, explained that he had suffered a condition called spondylolisthesis, in which a spinal vertebra slips out of place.

The injury was so severe and debilitating that Mangione was unable to have sex, he said.

“He knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn’t possible. I remember him telling me that, and my heart just breaks.”

Instead of a folk anti-hero, then, or “hot assassin”, it seems Mangione may have simply been one more victim of sorts – of a healthcare system failing many other Americans.

One thing is certain: the internet’s fixation on Mangione – be it his politics, his pain, his jawline or abs – shows how “meme culture” is now shaping our perception of even the darkest stories