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A frantic, multistate search for the suspect in last weekend’s mass shooting at Brown University ended Thursday night at a New Hampshire storage facility, where authorities found the man dead and disclosed that he was also suspected of killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.
Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead inside a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez said.
Investigators believe Neves Valente fatally shot two students and wounded nine others in a Brown lecture hall Saturday, then killed MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro two days later at Loureiro’s home in the Boston suburbs, nearly 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Providence. Authorities said Neves Valente acted alone.
“This investigation is far from over,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said, noting that investigators are still working to determine a motive.
International and academic ties
Portugal’s top diplomat said Friday the government was taken aback by the revelation that a Portuguese man was suspected in both attacks, which also claimed the life of a Portuguese MIT professor.
Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel said Portugal has provided “very broad cooperation” since U.S. authorities notified officials Thursday once Neves Valente was publicly identified.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said Neves Valente was enrolled as a graduate student in physics from fall 2000 through spring 2001.
“He has no current affiliation with the university,” Paxson said.
Federal authorities said Neves Valente and Loureiro previously attended the same academic program in Portugal between 1995 and 2000. Loureiro graduated from the physics program at Instituto Superior Técnico — Portugal’s leading engineering school — in 2000, according to his MIT faculty biography.
Neves Valente was dismissed from a position at the Lisbon university in early 2000, according to an archived termination notice signed by the school’s president at the time.
Born in Torres Novas, about 75 miles (121 kilometers) north of Lisbon, Neves Valente came to the U.S. on a student visa and later obtained legal permanent resident status in September 2017, according to U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah B. Foley. His whereabouts between leaving Brown in 2001 and receiving the visa remain unclear. His last known residence was in Miami.
Following the public identification of Neves Valente, President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program that allowed him to remain in the United States.
Tip cracks the case
Authorities credited a civilian tip for helping connect the Rhode Island and Massachusetts cases, which initially appeared unrelated.
After police released security video of a person of interest, a witness identified in court filings only as “John” recognized Neves Valente and shared concerns on the social media platform Reddit. Other users urged him to contact authorities, which he did.
John told investigators he encountered Neves Valente in a bathroom of Brown’s engineering building hours before the shooting and noticed he was wearing clothing inappropriate for the weather. He later saw the same man a few blocks away and said Neves Valente abruptly turned away from a Nissan sedan when he noticed him.
“When you do crack it, you crack it,” Neronha said. “That person led us to the car, which led us to the name.”
The tip helped investigators identify a Nissan Sentra with Florida license plates. Police then used footage from more than 70 license-plate-reading cameras operated by surveillance company Flock Safety across Providence to track the vehicle.
After leaving Rhode Island, Neves Valente placed a Maine license plate over the rental car’s Florida plate to conceal his identity, officials said.
Surveillance footage later showed him entering an apartment building near Loureiro’s home in a Boston suburb. About an hour later, he was seen entering the Salem storage facility, where he was later found dead with a satchel and two firearms, officials said.
Victims remembered
Loureiro, 47, joined MIT in 2016 and was appointed last year to lead its Plasma Science and Fusion Center, one of the university’s largest research laboratories. The physicist from Viseu, Portugal, studied plasma physics and solar phenomena such as solar flares.
“He left behind equations unwritten,” said Professor Bruno Gonçalves, head of the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion in Lisbon. “It is difficult to imagine why someone would want to harm someone who works in this field.”
The two Brown students killed were identified as sophomore Ella Cook, 19, and freshman MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, 18.
Cook was active in her Alabama church and served as vice president of the Brown College Republicans. Umurzokov’s family immigrated from Uzbekistan, and he aspired to become a doctor.
Of the nine wounded, three had been discharged from the hospital and six remained in stable condition as of Thursday, officials said.
Security questions
Brown officials said the university has roughly 1,200 security cameras, but the shooting occurred in an older section of the engineering building with limited coverage. Investigators believe the shooter entered and exited through a door facing a residential street, possibly explaining why campus cameras did not capture usable footage.
