UnitedHealthcare CEO ‘murdered’ outside Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan

The CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare was shot to death outside a luxury Midtown hotel on Wednesday by an assassin using a gun with a silencer “brazenly targeted,” police said.

New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Brian Thompson, 50, was shot repeatedly by a masked gunman on Sixth Avenue outside the Hilton Hotel, where the CEO was hosting an investor conference.

“Several people walked past the suspect, but he waited for his intended target,” she said.

Thompson stumbled after the first shot, turning briefly toward the gunman, who pulled the weapon’s slide back with each bullet. He tried helplessly to crawl away while the shooter unleashed a volley of bullets.

The shooter not only had used a silencer, but was so skilled at shooting with a gun that he kept firing with ease even after it jammed, law enforcement sources said.

Thompson’s murder spree took place in front of shocked witnesses in the heart of Manhattan, in one of the most heavily trafficked places in the world – just hours before the incident and just a few blocks from thousands of tourists who had lined up to watch the lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas tree.

But the killer’s apparently premeditated actions – including fleeing on an e-bike in Central Park, where surveillance camera coverage is scant – may have been undermined by leaving behind a crucial clue: a cell phone.

Investigators strongly believe the phone found in an alley near the Hilton belongs to the gunman, and obtained a search warrant to examine its contents.