A witness at the Pennsylvania McDonald’s where Luigi Mangione was arrested said customers noted the 26-year-old’s resemblance to the suspect in the killing of a health insurance executive last week.

Larry – who did not reveal his last name to the media – said he thought a friend was joking when he commented on it.

“I thought he was joking. Do you know what I mean?” he told BBC News outside the fast food restaurant.

Mr. Mangione was charged Monday night with murder in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last week.

Larry said he and a group of “five or six” friends went to the McDonald’s in the town of Altoona for coffee before going to church.

He said his friends noticed Mr. Mangione in the restaurant as he ordered and took a seat in the back.

One of his friends later told him that he had noticed similarities between what the young man was wearing and what the suspect was wearing in the widely circulated images released by the New York Police Department during their six-day hunt for the killer.

“I said to Mike this morning, ‘When you said that, did you mean it?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I was serious.'”

A restaurant employee also told him that she had discovered the portrait. She paid special attention to his “eyes and eyebrows” as she took his order.

“It was like she thought, ‘Oh my God, this is a guy from New York,'” Larry said Tuesday.

Mr Mangione was arrested by police at 09:58 local time (14:58 GMT) after he was recognized at the fast food outlet by a customer who reported his concerns to an employee, who then called local police.

Officers found him sitting in the restaurant wearing a blue mask and looking at a laptop. They said they recognized him as a suspect after he took off the mask.

When asked if he had been in New York recently, he “went quiet and started shaking,” an affidavit said.

According to police, he was found to be in possession of a weapon and a handwritten document expressing “ill will” towards the American company, as well as a false ID.

Mr. Mangione initially appeared in a Pennsylvania court on Monday and was charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm and other charges.

In New York, he is charged with second-degree murder, as well as possession of a false ID and weapons possession.

Mr. Thompson, 50, was shot last Wednesday morning outside the Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan, where the health insurance giant he runs was holding an investor meeting.

The reaction to his killing revealed a deep-seated anger against the trillion-dollar industry, and on Tuesday Altoona police urged officers to be on alert after receiving multiple emails and calls, including death threats, from the public had.

McDonald’s also received a flood of negative reviews online.

Police said they welcomed comments Monday night by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who criticized those who “celebrate this murderer rather than condemn him.”

“He’s not a hero,” Shapiro said.

Larry, who left the restaurant before the arrest, said he personally thought the young man who sat in the back corner after ordering was an employee.

“They’ll go back there at break and rest, you know, maybe get a little sleep or something,” he said.

When asked for his opinion on the arrest of one of America’s most wanted suspects at his local fast food restaurant, Larry said he was “a little surprised.”

“But I’m not really surprised, you know?” he added.

“I mean, the way the world is right now, it’s pretty crazy.”