PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island: A man suspected in the fatal shootings of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and earlier at Brown University was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility after a five-day search, authorities said on December 18.
Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, said Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief. Neves Valente acted alone, Perez added.
Two students were killed, and nine were wounded in the shooting on December 13 in a Brown University lecture hall. The 47-year-old MIT professor, Nuno F.G. Loureiro, was shot in his home two days later.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said Neves Valente was enrolled at Brown from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001 after being admitted to the graduate school in September 2000 to study physics. "He has no current affiliation with the university," she said.
Valente and Loureiro attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000, Foley said. Loureiro graduated from the physics program at Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal's leading engineering school, in 2000. That same year, Neves Valente was dismissed from a position at the University of Lisbon, according to a termination notice issued by the university's then president in February 2000.
Neves Valente studied at Brown on an F-1 visa and later obtained legal permanent resident status in September 2017, Foley said. His last known residence was in Miami.
On December 18, President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program that had allowed Neves Valente to enter the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on social media platform X that, at Trump's direction, she ordered U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program. The diversity visa program awards up to 50,000 green cards each year through a lottery system.
The FBI has previously said it found no links between the two shootings.
Police credited a Brown University custodian who had multiple encounters with Neves Valente with providing the crucial tip that led investigators to the suspect. "When you do crack it, you crack it. And that person led us to the car, which led us to the name," Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.
After police released images of a person of interest, the custodian recognized him and shared his suspicions on the social media forum Reddit, where he was a frequent contributor. Other users urged him to contact the FBI, which he said he did.
However, police said it took several days before they interviewed the witness, even after releasing a video that appeared to show Neves Valente running away from another man.
The tip provided investigators with a key detail: a Nissan sedan with Florida license plates. That allowed Providence police to use a network of more than 70 street cameras operated by surveillance company Flock Safety, which tracks license plates and other vehicle information.
After leaving Rhode Island for Massachusetts, officials said the suspect placed a Maine license plate over the rental car's original plate to conceal his identity.
Video footage showed Neves Valente entering an apartment building near Loureiro's home. About an hour later, he was seen entering the storage facility where he was later found dead, Foley said.
"There are still a lot of unknowns" about the motive, Neronha said.
Frustration had grown in Providence that the person responsible for the attack escaped and that no clear image of the suspect's face had emerged.
