Fire at NJ home of Bayer pharmaceutical exec investigated as arson

Jessica Schladebeck, New York Daily News on Mar 14, 2025

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A fire at the New Jersey home of a Bayer pharmaceutical executive, sparked exactly three months after the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is actively being investigated as arson.

The blaze broke out around 7:30 a.m. on March 4 at an “occupied residence on East Lane in Madison,” the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office told CNN. “The fire was quickly extinguished by the Madison Fire Department. The structure sustained no significant damage and there were no reported injuries.”

While the prosecutor’s office declined to identify the homeowner, pharmaceutical giant Bayer confirmed the fire occurred “at the private home of one of Bayer’s U.S. executives.”

“The family is safe and unharmed,” the company said in a statement.

The prosecutor’s ongoing arson investigation has come to span multiple law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, amid concerns the fire was another targeted attack on a health care industry executive.

“Individuals mobilized by economic grievances are using the murder of a health insurance CEO as inspiration for threats and attack plotting,” Homeland Security said in a statement.

The house fire came on the three-month anniversary of Thompson’s slaying in Midtown Manhattan on Dec. 4.

The UnitedHealthcare exec had been visiting the city from Minnesota for an investor conference at The Residences by Hilton Club, where he was slated to give a speech later in the day. Police said he was ambushed by a masked gunman around 6:45 a.m. as he walked toward the venue on West 54th Street near Sixth Avenue.

Thompson was pronounced dead 30 minutes later.

The accused gunman, 26-year-old Ivy League graduate Luigi Mangione, was arrested at a McDonald’s in Atloona, Pennsylvania, five days later, where he was found with a handwritten manifesto outlining his grievances with the health insurance industry.

He’s currently behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.