Brown University, MIT shooting suspect found dead, identified as 48-year-old Claudio Neves-Valente oan

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said a key “person of interest” provided critical information about the suspect that “blew this case right open.”

“That person came forward to two Providence police officers over on the east side,” and said “he had information that could help this case,” Neronha revealed.

That information then “led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photographs of that individual renting the car, which matched the clothing of our shooter here in Providence, that matched the satchel,” he added.

 

Despite identifying Valente as the shooter, authorities say the motive behind the attack remains “a mystery.”

“I don’t think we have any idea why now or why? Why Brown? Why these students? Why this classroom? That is really unknown to us and it may become clear,” Neronha said. “I hope that it does, but it hasn’t as of right now.”

Brown University President Christina Hull Paxson revealed that Valente was a former student at the university from Fall 2000 until Spring 2001. He took a leave of absence before formally withdrawing in July 2003.

During his time at the university, he was only enrolled in physics class. The majority of physics classes are held at the Barus & Holley engineering and physics building, where he murdered two students.

During a separate press conference held shortly after the initial briefing from Boston, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah Foley revealed that Valente is also responsible for the killing of Nuno Loureiro, an MIT professor found dead in his apartment days after the Brown University shooting.

Ted Docks, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Field Office, said both Loureiro and the gunman attended the same physics program at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon between 1995 and 2000.

“It is believed that in Lisbon that those two individuals attended the same university in Portugal,” Docks said.

Loureiro was born and raised in Portugal.

Valente came to the United States from Portugal on a student visa. He received lawful permanent residence status in September 2017.

Foley added that investigators have video evidence connecting Valente to the Boston crime scene.

“There was the security footage that captured him within a half-mile of the professor’s residence in Brookline,” she said. “There is video footage of him entering an apartment building in the location of the professor’s apartment.”

“And then later that evening, he is seen, about an hour later, entering the storage unit wearing the same clothes that he had been seen wearing right after the murder,” Foley continued.

Authorities also said they located a gray Nissan Sentra at the self-storage facility believed to have been rented by Valente, a vehicle linked to the investigations into both the Brown University shooting and the killing of Loureiro.

This is a breaking story. Check back for updates.

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