NEW YORK – A grainy image of his face drew comparisons to Hollywood heart-throbs. A jacket similar to the one he is wearing on wanted posters is reportedly flying off shelves. And the words written on the bullets he used to kill a man on a pavement on Dec 4 have become, for some people, a rallying cry.

Three days after a gunman assassinated a top health insurance executive in midtown Manhattan and vanished, the unidentified suspect has, in some quarters, been venerated as something approaching a folk hero.