It was unclear when the information arrived, or whether it would have helped speed an arrest in the death of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare.
Investigators received a tip from the San Francisco Police Department identifying Luigi Mangione as a suspect before he was arrested in the killing of an insurance executive in Midtown Manhattan, the New York F.B.I. field office said Friday.
The tip, which the bureau passed to the New York police, was one of many that law enforcement officials received in the days after the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, Brian Thompson, was fatally shot on Dec. 4.
Mr. Mangione’s family had reported him missing in San Francisco weeks before the killing. The timing of when the bureau gave that information to the New York police remains unclear, as well as whether it might have helped speed his arrest.
Joseph Kenny, chief of detectives for the New York police, has said that Mr. Mangione was not on the department’s radar before he was captured on Monday in Altoona, Pa., after a McDonald’s customer recognized him from pictures distributed by the authorities.
Mr. Mangione has retained Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a Manhattan defense lawyer and former Manhattan prosecutor, and will waive extradition and be in New York soon, said a person with knowledge of the decision said late Friday night. Prosecutors have charged him with second-degree murder.
On Friday, scraps of new information and theories emerged about the killing, which struck a resonant chord in a nation where health insurance and access to care have been political flashpoints for decades.