A six-day manhunt culminated in a chilling discovery: Claudio Neves Valente, the suspect in the Brown University shooting and the murder of an MIT professor, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a New Hampshire storage facility.
The intense search, spanning multiple states and fueled by a $50,000 reward, ended with police swarming a location in Salem. Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, had been identified as the sole perpetrator in both the devastating attack on the Providence campus and the subsequent killing of Professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The breakthrough came thanks to a sharp-eyed Brown University custodian. Multiple encounters with Valente sparked a crucial tip that unraveled the mystery. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha explained, “When you do crack it, you crack it. And that person led us to the car, which led us to the name.”
The custodian, a regular on Reddit, recognized the person of interest from images released by police and shared his suspicions online. Urged by fellow users to contact the FBI, he did so, but an official interview didn’t occur until days later, after police publicized footage of Valente fleeing.
Returning to the forum on Wednesday night, the Reddit user confirmed he had finally been interviewed, stating he’d “said all I have to say on the matter to the right people,” and expressed hope for a swift apprehension. His initial observation proved invaluable, providing investigators with a key detail: a Nissan sedan with Florida plates.
This led Providence police to utilize a network of over 70 street cameras operated by Flock Safety, a surveillance company that tracks license plates and vehicle details. The suspect, attempting to evade detection, later switched to Maine license plates after leaving Rhode Island.
Footage revealed Valente entering an apartment building near Loureiro’s residence, and later, the storage facility where he would ultimately be found. US Attorney for Massachusetts Leah B. Foley confirmed this sequence of events, painting a picture of a calculated attempt to disappear.
Despite the apprehension of the suspect, a haunting question remains: what drove Valente to such violence? Attorney General Neronha acknowledged the lingering unknowns, stating, “We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom.”
Investigators uncovered a shared past between Valente and Loureiro, both having attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000. Loureiro had graduated from the physics program, while Valente was terminated from a position at a university in Lisbon in 2000, according to archived records.
Brown University President Christina Paxson confirmed Valente’s brief enrollment at Brown from 2000 to 2001, studying physics, but emphasized he had no current affiliation with the institution. The connection to the university, however, adds another layer of complexity to the unfolding tragedy.
