Five days after a nationwide manhunt began, U.S. law enforcement authorities say they have identified and tracked the suspect behind the deadly shooting at Brown University, after uncovering links to the killing of an MIT professor two days later in Massachusetts.
Investigators initially said there was no known connection between the Saturday shooting at the Ivy League campus in Providence, Rhode Island, and the fatal shooting Monday at a professor’s home in Brookline, about 50 miles away. That changed when a rental car emerged as a key link, ultimately leading authorities to a storage facility in New Hampshire, where the suspect was found dead on Thursday night.
“Tonight, our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little easier,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said at a late-night news conference, where officials identified the suspect as 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente, a former Brown University student and a Portuguese national with no US criminal record. Authorities believe he acted alone, Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar L. Perez Jr. said, according to CNN.
The MIT professor killed, Nuno Loureiro, was also a Portuguese national. FBI Special Agent Ted Docks said investigators believe the two men attended school in Lisbon at the same time. US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah Foley later confirmed that Neves Valente and Loureiro were enrolled in the same academic program in Portugal between 1995 and 2000. Records show both attended the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon during the 1990s.
Investigators believe Loureiro was specifically targeted, a law enforcement official told CNN. They do not currently believe the two people killed at Brown — where Neves Valente studied in the early 2000s — were direct targets. Police are still working to determine a motive, as the campus was crowded with students preparing for final exams.
Court documents released Thursday detail several tips that helped advance the investigation. A campus custodian reported seeing a masked individual matching the suspect’s clothing inside the Barus & Holley building multiple times in the weeks leading up to the shooting. Another tip came from a witness who spotted a person resembling the suspect at a rental car outlet in Boston.
Surveillance footage confirmed the individual rented the car later seen near the Brown shooting scene. Investigators also cited a Reddit post describing a “grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental” near the building. The poster later told police he recognized the man shown in surveillance images.
Within 24 hours of the Brown shooting, authorities believe Neves Valente returned to Massachusetts, placed an unregistered Maine license plate on the car, and killed Loureiro, Foley said.
Security footage later placed the suspect near the professor’s residence and entering a New Hampshire storage unit wearing the same clothing seen after the shooting. Investigators said he avoided traceable phones and credit cards, using European SIM cards to evade detection.
By Thursday night, law enforcement converged on the Salem, New Hampshire, storage facility, where they found Neves Valente dead, along with a satchel and two firearms, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.
While officials believe the gunman has been identified in both cases, questions remain about the motive, including why the suspect returned to a university he attended decades ago, and why a former classmate was targeted nearly 30 years later.
