Luigi Mangione Was 'Cagey' When He Tried to Get Room at Altoona, Pa., Hotel: Clerk

Luigi Mangione was turned away from a Pennsylvania hotel whose clerk described him as "cagey," prior to the 26-year-old's arrest this week.

John Kuklis, a clerk at the Horseshoe Curve Lodge in Altoona, Pa., told ABC News that Mangione, who never pulled his mask down or identified himself at the hotel, was turned away because there were no clean rooms available.

"I told him that he wouldn't be able to get one right now, that our housekeeper hadn't cleaned the rooms yet, that he had to come back at one o'clock," Kuklis told ABC. "He asked if he could wait here. I told him no, because at the time, I didn't know that I could just allow him to wait for, you know, half the day. And he said, 'OK.' And he turned around and just left. Didn't say nothing. Never took his mask down."

Kuklis described Mangione as "cagey" and "just looking around, making sure he wasn't being watched."

When police asked Kuklis if Mangione had tried to book a room there, the clerk initially said no, not realizing who had been in the hotel until the officers asked him if the man that had come in had taken his mask off, ABC reported.

Mangione was ultimately arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona on Monday, Dec. 9. Police allege that he was found with fake IDs, a gun and a silencer. He is currently in custody in Pennsylvania on charges of forgery and weapons possession while prosecutors seek to have him extradited to New York to face a murder charge.

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Authorities allege that Mangione was the masked gunman who fatally shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan and then fled the scene on a bike before leaving the city.

When a police officer responded to the McDonald's in Altoona following a report of a suspicious person, authorities allege that Mangione presented a fake ID before the officer asked him if he had been to New York recently, according to a criminal complaint.

Mangione allegedly began shaking after the question.

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