A days-long search for the gunman who opened fire on students at Brown University, killing two and injuring nine others, ended on December 18 when authorities said they had found the suspect dead, but questions remain about his motive and his connection to the fatal shooting of another MIT professor.
The suspect, identified as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national and former Brown University student, was found dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire on December 18, authorities said. The suspect was identified through surveillance footage and information on social media that led investigators to the rental car, according to an arrest affidavit.
“Our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little easier,” Mayor Brett Smiley said on Dec. 18.
Neves Valente was charged in an affidavit in the Dec. 13 shooting incident at the Barth and Hawley Engineering Building during a study session during finals season. Brown students Ella Cook and Muhammad Aziz Umurzokov were killed. Authorities also charged Neves Valente with fatally shooting MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, 47, on Monday, Dec. 15, at the professor’s home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
“We got him,” said Ted Docks, FBI special agent in charge of Boston. “Although the suspect was found dead tonight, our job is not done.”
Here’s what we know about Neves Valente and the investigation.
Suspected gunman Brown found dead after search
Authorities said Neves Valente was found in a rented storage locker in Salem, New Hampshire, in November. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Massachusetts District Attorney Leah Foley said.
Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez said police identified and tracked Neves Valente based on the car he rented. The information, first posted on Reddit, alerted authorities to search a Nissan with Florida plates that may have been rented, and investigators spoke to a witness who saw a man identified as a suspect approach the car in surveillance photos before the shooting occurred.
The car was traced to a rental car company, where Neves Valente rented it using his name.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said, “This is when the case really took off.”
Police were then able to track the car to New Hampshire.
Law enforcement agencies in four states have compiled details, Foley said. She said they collectively “believe that we have identified the individual, that he is deceased, and that he is responsible not only for the Brown shooting, but for the Brookline (MIT) shooting.”
Brown charged in connection with shooting death of MIT professor
Loureiro, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was found shot to death inside his home earlier this week. He taught nuclear science, engineering, and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and lived in Brookline, about 80 miles from Brown.
Neves Valente is believed to have met Loureiro through an academic program they both attended in Portugal, according to the affidavit. After carrying out the shooting on the Brown University campus on December 13th, Neves-Valente drove to Massachusetts and opened fire in Loureiro on December 15th, Foley said.
Foley “was very good at covering his tracks,” he said, adding that while in Massachusetts he changed license plates on his rental car and used a cell phone that “obfuscated” investigators’ ability to track him.
Visa program suspended after Brown shooting suspect identified
Authorities said Neves Valente entered the United States legally from Portugal on a Diversity Visa Lottery Program (DV1) visa. He entered the program in 2017 and received a green card, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“This heinous individual should never have been tolerated in our country,” she said.
Noem said she has directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to suspend the DV1 program after the suspect in the Brown shooting was identified.
The program allows up to 55,000 immigrants a year to enter the country from “countries with low rates of immigration to the United States,” according to the State Department’s website.
These are the shooting suspect’s connections to Brown University
Neves Valente was a doctoral student at Brown University from 2000 to 2001, then took a leave of absence, said Brown University President Christina Paxson. He dropped out of school in 2003.
Paxson said Neves-Valente only took physics classes as a student and would have spent time at the Barth and Holly building where the shooting occurred.
He had no active relationship with the school, she said.
Contributors: N’dea Yancey-Bragg, Katie Mulvaney, Michael Loria, Thao Nguyen
