Brown University Shooting Suspect Dies by Suicide

By Staff, Agencies

The man suspected of killing two people and wounding nine at Brown University, and later killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] professor, was found dead in a New Hampshire storage unit he had rented, officials said.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national and a former Brown student, was found dead on Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, said at a news conference. Perez said as far as investigators know, the suspect acted alone.’

Leah Foley, the US attorney in Massachusetts, said at a separate news conference in Boston that Neves Valente also killed Nuno FG Loureiro, the MIT physics professor who was shot in his home on Monday, two days after the Brown attack.

Peter Neronha, the attorney general of Rhode Island, said said Valente was found dead with a bag, and two firearms, as well as evidence in the car “that matches exactly what we see at the scene here in Providence”.

Neronha told reporters a tipster helped identify the suspected shooter. After officials released a photo 24 hours earlier, someone approached two Providence officers, claiming to be the person in the photo and offering information to aid the investigation.

“He blew this case open,” Neronha said. The tip led authorities to a vehicle, linking the suspect to photos and clothing from the Providence shooting, he explained. The suspect had tried to evade police by switching license plates. “He knew what he was doing … we got a Maine plate and a Florida plate on the same car,” Neronha said.

The Brown University president, Christina Paxson, said Valente was enrolled at Brown from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001. He was admitted to the graduate school to study physics beginning in September 2000. “He has no current affiliation with the university,” she said.

Physics classes typically require access to special equipment, Paxson said, which was located in the building where the shooting took place.

Two people were killed and nine injured in Saturday’s Brown University shooting. On Thursday, authorities said they were probing a link to a separate attack near Boston two days later that killed 47-year-old Loureiro. FBI agent Ted Docks noted the suspect may have attended the same Lisbon university as the MIT professor.

Rhode Island attorney general Peter Neronha said the suspect became a lawful permanent resident in 2017. His death was confirmed hours after heavily armed officers raided a Salem, New Hampshire, storage facility.

The manhunt resumed Monday after the state’s attorney general released a person of interest detained on Sunday, which Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said would “likely cause fresh anxiety” for the community. He added that the investigation “wasn’t stopped or in any way paused” despite the setback.

The FBI director, Kash Patel, faced criticism on Monday for rushing to social media to celebrate the bureau’s work, only for the person arrested to be freed hours later.

The two students killed were identified by family as Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama, and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, an Uzbek national in his first year at Brown.