 "Who was Claudio Valente, Brown University shooting suspect who also killed MIT professor?")
The man accused of carrying out a deadly mass shooting last weekend at Brown University has been found dead, concluding a days-long manhunt that eventually stretched across three US states and revealed a second fatal attack targeting a prominent Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor.
Authorities say the suspect acted alone, evaded capture for several days using deliberate concealment tactics, and ultimately took his own life inside a rented storage facility in New Hampshire.
Officials identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown University graduate student.
Investigators have linked him to two separate shootings — one at Brown University in Rhode Island that killed two students and wounded several others, and another at a private residence in Massachusetts that left an MIT professor dead.
While law enforcement agencies have pieced together Valente’s movements and methods in significant detail, they acknowledge that the motive behind the attacks remains unknown.
What happened at the Brown University shooting?
The violence erupted on Saturday inside Brown University’s Barus & Holley engineering and physics building, a structure closely tied to Valente’s academic past.
Two students were killed in the attack, and at least eight others sustained injuries. Survivors described chaos inside the classroom as gunfire broke out, prompting an immediate emergency response from campus and city police.
Despite Brown University’s extensive security infrastructure, investigators said the location of the shooting presented significant challenges. The Barus & Holley building includes older sections that lack comprehensive surveillance coverage.
Although the university maintains roughly 1,200 cameras across campus, officials later determined that the shooter entered and exited through an area that faces a residential street and has few, if any, cameras.
The suspect escaped on foot, blending into nearby neighbourhoods bordering the campus. Investigators relied heavily on privately owned residential security footage to reconstruct his path, as institutional cameras did not capture clear images of his face.
In the hours and days that followed, Providence police released images and video clips of a masked individual believed to be the shooter.
The material showed the suspect walking through nearby streets both before and after the attack, including moments when police vehicles arrived at the scene with emergency lights activated.
Based on survivor accounts and video evidence, authorities appealed repeatedly for public assistance in identifying the individual.
Police also circulated images of another man seen near the area around the time of the shooting, stating that they wished to speak with him as a potential witness.
Early in the investigation, officials announced that a person had been taken into custody, but that individual was later released after authorities confirmed he was not connected to the attack.
As public frustration grew, investigators continued to sift through video footage and tips while expanding the search beyond Rhode Island.
How did the manhunt unravel?
A major turning point came from a Brown University custodian who had multiple encounters with Valente inside the Barus & Holley building. According to investigators, the custodian noticed that Valente appeared out of place and later recognised him from images released by police.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha later credited that individual with providing the information that ultimately unraveled the case.
“When you do crack it, you crack it. And that person led us to the car, which led us to the name,” Neronha said.
The custodian had interacted with Valente inside a bathroom in the engineering and physics building earlier on Thursday, days after the shooting.
According to Providence Police Chief Oscar L Perez, the witness questioned why Valente was inside Brown University facilities. Valente responded by asking why he was being harassed, after which the interaction ended.
Believing that Valente did not belong in the building, the witness followed him briefly before reporting the encounter to authorities. That information helped investigators identify a rental vehicle connected to the suspect.
Once police traced the car to a Massachusetts rental agency, they obtained surveillance footage showing Valente wearing clothing consistent with what had been seen in videos from the Brown University shooting.
His name appeared on the rental agreement, providing investigators with their first confirmed identification of the suspect.
The custodian later posted his suspicions on the social media forum Reddit, where he was an active commenter.
Other users encouraged him to contact federal authorities, which he said he did. Although he initially declined media inquiries, he later returned to the forum to confirm that he had been interviewed by investigators.
“Respectfully, I have said all I have to say on the matter to the right people,” the Reddit commenter wrote Wednesday night, adding hope that the suspect “is apprehended soon so the authorities can get to the bottom of this.”
How did police trace Valente’s movements across states?
With a confirmed identity and vehicle description, Providence police expanded their efforts by tapping into a network of more than 70 street cameras operated throughout the city by surveillance company Flock Safety.
These cameras track license plates and other vehicle characteristics, allowing authorities to map the car’s movements.
Investigators determined that after leaving Rhode Island, Valente drove into Massachusetts.
Along the way, he attempted to obscure his trail by placing a Maine license plate over the rental car’s Florida registration, a move officials described as an effort to conceal his identity.
US Attorney Leah Foley said Valente also took digital precautions to avoid detection. “He [Valente] was using a phone that had obfuscated the ability to track it,” Foley said. “He was sophisticated in hiding his tracks.”
Video footage later showed Valente entering an apartment building near the Brookline residence of MIT professor Nuno Loureiro.
Approximately an hour after that appearance, cameras captured him arriving at a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire.
How did the killing of MIT professor Nuno Loureiro occur?
As investigators followed Valente’s trail, they began to connect his movements to another violent crime. On Monday, MIT professor Nuno Loureiro was found fatally shot inside his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, roughly 50 miles north of Brown University’s campus.
Loureiro was a globally respected plasma physicist and fusion scientist. He was affiliated with MIT’s departments of nuclear science and engineering and physics and played a key role at the university’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
Like Valente, Loureiro was originally from Portugal.
Although authorities initially said they did not see a connection between the Brown University shooting and Loureiro’s death, that assessment changed as evidence accumulated.
“At a news conference in Boston on Thursday evening,” Foley said, “On December 15, he murdered MIT professor Nuno Loureiro at Loureiro’s home in Brookline, Massachussets.”
Investigators established that Valente and Loureiro attended the same academic programme in Portugal between 1995 and 2000. Loureiro graduated from the physics programme at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon in 2000, according to his MIT faculty profile.
Records show that Valente was dismissed from a position at the same institution earlier that year. One official in Providence said it is believed the two men had crossed paths during their academic careers in Lisbon.
While authorities said the men knew each other, they pointed out there was no evidence that Valente had any prior connection to the students targeted at Brown University.
How was Valente finally tracked down?
The multi-state manhunt concluded Thursday night when law enforcement officers located Valente’s body inside a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, approximately 20 miles north of downtown Boston.
Ted Docks, the FBI’s special agent in charge of the Boston field office, said a large contingent of law enforcement personnel responded to the scene after investigators traced Valente to the facility. Authorities confirmed that Valente had personally rented the storage unit.
Inside, officers found Valente deceased, along with two firearms and a satchel. Officials said evidence recovered at the site matched materials linked to both the Brown University shooting and the killing of Loureiro.
Providence Police Chief Perez and Rhode Island Attorney General Neronha said investigators believe Valente died by suicide and acted alone throughout the attacks.
US Attorney Foley confirmed that Valente was deceased and said prosecutors were confident he was responsible for the MIT professor’s killing based on the evidence collected.
What was Valente’s motive?
Despite the detailed reconstruction of Valente’s actions, officials said they have not determined what drove him to commit the shootings or why he selected his specific targets.
“I don’t think we have any idea why now, or why, Brown, or why these students, why this classroom,” Neronha said. “That is really unknown to us.”
Foley said investigators would share information about motive if and when it becomes clear. Perez said antisemitism was not believed to be a motivating factor, responding to questions raised during a press conference.
“There are still ‘a lot of unknowns’ in regard to motive,” Neronha added. “We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom.”
What do we know about Valente’s history?
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente was a former graduate student at Brown University. According to Brown President Christina Paxson, he was admitted to the university’s graduate school to study physics beginning in September 2000.
Valente remained enrolled until April 2001, when he took a leave of absence. He formally withdrew from the university in July 2003. “He has no current affiliation with the university,” Paxson said.
During his time at Brown, Valente was enrolled exclusively in physics courses.
University officials said most of those classes would have taken place inside the Barus & Holley engineering and physics building — the same location where the shooting occurred more than two decades later.
Valente studied in the United States on an F-1 student visa and later obtained legal permanent residency in September 2017.
His last known residence was in Miami, Florida.
How has Washington responded?
Following the confirmation of Valente’s identity, US President Donald Trump announced the suspension of the diversity visa lottery programme, which allows individuals from underrepresented countries to apply for permanent residency in the United States.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on the social media platform X that the decision was made at the president’s direction and that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services would pause the programme.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem said.
The diversity visa programme typically makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year through a lottery system, with many recipients coming from African nations and other regions with low rates of immigration to the US.
How does the case fit into past investigations?
Former FBI agent Katherine Schweit, who specialises in mass shooting cases, said such attacks often end with the suspect’s death or arrest within a short period.
When suspects manage to escape initially, investigations can take several days as authorities piece together fragmented evidence.
Officials pointed to previous cases to illustrate that pattern. During the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, it took four days for investigators to locate and stop the attackers.
In 2023, Army reservist Robert Card was found dead two days after killing 18 people in Lewiston, Maine.
In another case, the man accused of killing conservative political figure Charlie Kirk surrendered to authorities about a day and a half after an attack on Utah Valley University’s campus.
Luigi Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan, was arrested five days later in Pennsylvania.
Authorities say the investigation into Valente’s actions remains open, particularly regarding motive, and any verified findings will be released publicly as they become available.
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